How Fantasy Sports Explains the World

The world of fantasy sports is no longer the purview of nerds and stat geeks. In fact, versions of the game are currently played by tens of millions of people worldwide. But while fantasy sports may have begun as a light-hearted diversion, to many of its participants winning or losing is no laughing matter. The book takes readers on a journey from the casinos of Atlantic City to charred Connecticut campgrounds, from the Last Supper to the Constitutional Convention that started our country down the road to democracy, from the back rooms of Wall Street to the jury rooms of our judicial system. In doing so, Mass demonstrates that winning fantasy advice can come from anyone and be found almost anywhere—the wit and wisdom of William Shakespeare, the scientific genius of Stephen Hawking, or the futuristic whimsy of a galaxy far, far away. Ultimately, How Fantasy Sports Explains the World is not a book about how to win your fantasy sports league. Instead, it is a collection of conversation starters and hypothetical scenarios that get right to the core of what makes fantasy games so compelling in the high-speed information age: how to process and make use of the bottomless pile of data presented to us on a daily basis.