Unless you’re stumbling onto this blog for the first time, you may be aware that I have written about the impact that fantasy football has had on my enjoyment of the beautiful game, and how the two are now entwined indefinitely. But since starting a new job as an editor on an investment website, I have started seeing the difference between casually playing the game and playing the game as if it were the stock market.
There are those who believe that success in fantasy football is, on the whole, down to luck. You pick a team in advance of a deadline, you hope for the best, you let fate play out – there is no prior knowledge to what will happen, only educated guesses.
Then there are people who take a more active interest in form and fixtures, sometimes hedging their bets with one or the other, but ideally on the lookout for a favourable mixture of the two. Don’t have an in-form striker who’s up against relegation fodder in the majority of their upcoming three or more games? Bring him in and cross your fingers he produces the goods, while your opponents see their top-priced players struggle against those competing at the head of the division.
There are those who believe that success in fantasy football is, on the whole, down to luck. You pick a team in advance of a deadline, you hope for the best, you let fate play out – there is no prior knowledge to what will happen, only educated guesses.
Then there are people who take a more active interest in form and fixtures, sometimes hedging their bets with one or the other, but ideally on the lookout for a favourable mixture of the two. Don’t have an in-form striker who’s up against relegation fodder in the majority of their upcoming three or more games? Bring him in and cross your fingers he produces the goods, while your opponents see their top-priced players struggle against those competing at the head of the division.
But falling into another category are those who take it one step further and study the values of the players as if they were shares on the stock market. Buy a stake in a particular player by bringing him into your team before his price rises can pay dividends in both the short and long term – the former, because it frees up more cash for higher-valued players immediately, and the latter because if they get injured, suspended or simply go off the boil, you’ll be able to sell them for more money than your rivals who were late to the party.
You will always run the risk of buying into a player at the wrong time, as there is no way to predict the future. This leads to losing money on your investment as their price drops after droves of people who had previously backed him sell up so as not to lose out on the profit they’ve made, and then it’s your choice whether to cut your losses and sell, or hold your asset to see whether their price recovers – after all, you bought them for a reason in the first place.
So it’s not only about who to buy, but when to bring them in is arguably just as vital to the long-term success of your team. The more money at your disposal gives you a greater advantage - the best players end up being the most expensive in the game, just as the most reliable shares are the ones in the companies who are doing best.
You will always run the risk of buying into a player at the wrong time, as there is no way to predict the future. This leads to losing money on your investment as their price drops after droves of people who had previously backed him sell up so as not to lose out on the profit they’ve made, and then it’s your choice whether to cut your losses and sell, or hold your asset to see whether their price recovers – after all, you bought them for a reason in the first place.
So it’s not only about who to buy, but when to bring them in is arguably just as vital to the long-term success of your team. The more money at your disposal gives you a greater advantage - the best players end up being the most expensive in the game, just as the most reliable shares are the ones in the companies who are doing best.
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