NPR had a story on fantasy football, a craze which is still growing in popularity. I don’t play it, because I don’t follow football that closely, but I know many who do. Apparently the object is to create a football team (which you draft) from real players. Then, based on their playing stats from the previous week’s game, you score points and your team wins/loses. And you can trade players and stuff.
Sounds like a blast if you’re really into pro football, which I’m not.
But there are other kind of "fantasy" games out there, of a similar nature. Here’s one called Fantasy Celebrity.
Like fantasy football, you draft a "team" of celebrities (ten players on a team). Then, based on what they do (i.e., insult religions while driving drunk), your celebrities score points. You compete in leagues, and you can trade your "players" with other team owners in your league (so, obviously, Britney Spears — a high point-getter — can only be on one team, and you might have to trade Lindsey Lohan and Mel Gibson if you want her on your team).
How do you determine how many "points" a celebrity/player gets? Well, that’s determined by the people who manage the game at Fafarazzi.com. Here’s roughly how they determine points:
| 10 | BOMBSHELL. Death and some other weird crap we could never predict. |
| 9 | Extreme legal trouble, a combination of a few major events, crazy crazy stuff. |
| 8 | Confirmed divorce, Confirmed childbirth, Confirmed out-of-the-closet, sex tape |
| 7 | Confirmed wedding, Confirmed pregnancy |
| 6 | Confirmed engagement, Confirmed broken engagement |
| 5 | Confirmed new celeb relationship, sex/nude pics (aka hacked sidekick) |
| 4 | Confirmed cheating, confirmed breakup, public booze/drug antics, arrest (major), major award winner |
| 3 | Nip slip / Crotch shot, arrest (minor), divorce rumor, wedding rumor, passout / "exhaustion", verbal addmittance of drug use, preggo rumors |
| 2 | Physical fight, paparazzi fight, celeb wants special treatment, homosexual rumors, verbal fight, new/unique celeb friendship, new dating rumor / first date, getting back together rumor, restraining order, religous antics, mothering woes, publicized comments about another celeb, cheating rumor |
| 1 | New work announcement, diet/fitness info, repeat date, being sued, charity work, ebay antics, "partying", breakup rumor |
So "Crocodile Hunter" Steve Irwin gained 10 points for, you know, dying (yay team!).
Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes get 7 points for their Vanity Fair cover, while Suri Cruise gets 9.
And so on.
It sounds better than fantasy football, but again, I don’t know half the celebrities that most other people know. So I’d probably suck in that game, too.
But there are tons of fantasy leagues out there. Why, there’s even a fantasy dog show league.