Pity poor NFL quarterback Brett Favre. Every Sunday, millions of people get to tell him what to do (not counting his coach and Mrs. Favre). All are participants in a booming entertainment and business phenomenon called fantasy football. Participants create leagues, draft players, set lineups, make trades, and see their teams win or lose based on the performance of real players week after week. The teams are make-believe, of course, but the popularity, the excitement, and the technology that make fantasy sports more than fantasies are very real. While other pastimes - baseball, hockey, golf, and even auto racing- have their own fantasy versions, the most popular fantasy sport by far is football. ESPN, SportingNews.com, and Yahoo! Sports all offer games, but the gridiron champ is CBS SportsLine, which boasts more than 2 million fantasy football players last year, and also runs the fantasy football games on AOL, CNNSI.com, and NFL.com. In 2002, SportsLine began charging players for taking part (ESPN's games are free, and SportingNews.com and Yahoo! Sports have free and pay games). Sports-Line has also introduced some robust new technology that brings more realism to fantasy league play.
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