Column: Aaron Worm, Behind the Mic

Fantasy football — two of my favorite words this time of the season.

It wasn’t too long ago that I had no interest in fantasy football. My friends would talk about their teams and leagues when we got together on Sundays to watch football. It seemed like I could not be involved in the conversations because I was not a manager of a pretend team in a made-up league.

One of my buddies stopped talking with friends about football that played in fantasy leagues to avoid the annoyance to hear about how their team did this week. He and I were in the same boat. Who cared how “Tommy’s TD Makers” did this week against the “Bobby’s Fumblerooski” team. We just cared about how the Vikings did. If the purple won it was a happy week. If they lost we were bummed until the following Sunday.

But about eight years ago my thoughts about fantasy football and my buddies quickly turned in the opposite direction. I actually formed a league with him, my three brothers and five friends who had already been involved in fantasy football leagues. My Sundays would never be the same. All of a sudden a Vikings loss wouldn’t hurt that much if my team won its fantasy game. And I found myself not being upset if the team playing against the purple scored, as long as the scoring player was on my fantasy team. For the first time the Vikings’ bye week was not boring because I had my team playing that weekend.

Now I am a full fledged fantasy football addict. I adjust my line up each week until the noon Sunday deadline. During the season, I always answer my wife’s question the same: “Whatcha doing on the computer?” “Hon, I am checking my fantasy team.” She has never been a big football fan so I know she has no understanding of fantasy football.

I try to not spend too much time each day checking my team at work, but I do some research and many fantasy football owners do. According to a study by Challenger, Gray and Christmas Inc., a participant in a fantasy league spends on average 10 minutes a day or an hour a week focusing on their fantasy football team. If you add that up for a an 18 week season — that’s 18 hours. Let’s say someone is making $10 an hour — that would add up to $180 that their place of business lost in work time from the individual. Now if it’s a big company and you have 100 people that do this, that’s $18,000 in loss work time.

I can understand if some companies frown on fantasy football and even monitor computers to make sure it wasn’t taking place. (Now if your boss is also the commissioner of your league you can probably get away with more than 10 minutes a day).

I wish all fantasy football owners good luck this season. And for Vikings fans, if we do have to suffer through a 5-11 or 6-10 season, I hope that “Worm’s Team Canada” will be at least be winning its league. I know I will feel better.

KATE Sports Director Aaron Worm’s column appears each Monday in the Tribune. He can be heard from 6 to 11 a.m. weekdays on The Breeze.