The world of fantasy sports has enjoyed enormous growth from the time of the first 'Rotisserie Baseball' league by a group of New York writers over 20 years ago. The underlying concept of fantasy team sports (most popular are baseball, football, basketball, hockey, and soccer) is to allow players to act as owners or general managers of their own sports teams. League formats vary significantly, but most involve some sort of pre-season draft or auction of 'real world' players to comprise teams. More complex leagues include year-to-year retention of some players and even drafting of minor league baseball players in anticipation of future major league success.

More recent variations of fantasy sports have been created for non-team sports like golf and auto racing. 'Owners' select players and are awarded points based on the weekly results of their chosen 'team' members.