How Twitter Can Make You a Better Fantasy Football Player

Although many haven’t realized it yet, Twitter offers something for everyone. You just have to know where and how to find it. For fantasy enthusiasts, the Microblogging-made-easy platform has spurred the production of a plethora of fantasy content that would not have been produced otherwise. Twitter is chock full of fantasy football and baseball analysts, experts, writers, etc. Many of these guys work for major companies (@TheRealTMR is Matthew Berry from ESPN), while some run their own blogs (like @troypatterson of RotoSavants). They aren’t required to Tweet. They do it because they enjoy it, it comes natural to them, it helps solidify their position, and, most of all, its gains them more readers. The fantasy writers I like to follow also avoid the asinine status updates for which Twitter receives so much vitriol. They are the kind of Twitterers that should make anyone realize that Twitter is an incredible tool.

Fantasy is a perfect fit for Twitter’s Microblogging concept. There is a deluge of sports news every day. Fantasy players crave updates on what that news means for fantasy. Well-researched blog posts are nice, but they take time to write. With Twitter these same analysts can give quick opinions on a much larger variety of topics. They can easily tweet thoughts and opinions as they pop into their heads. As a result more helpful content is produced. Even better, you don’t have to search out this content by going to a dozen different fantasy sites or blogs. It’s all delivered straight to your twitter feed (if you’re following the right people). To see what I’m talking about, check out Jason Collette (@jasoncollette) of Fanball.com. He is one of my favorite twitterers and a perfect example of someone any fantasy baseball or football fan should follow. He’s omnipresent, posts news quickly, and always throws in some interesting insight.

When fantasy football season rolls around, Twitter is going to be the place to be on Sunday at game time. Last second sit or start decisions always depend on breaking injury news. Twitter updates will be flying in as player status is announced around the league. This type of news is even more important in daily fantasy baseball leagues since players are randomly benched all the time. Knox Bardeen of CrookedPitch.com has got this covered. He sends out a flurry of tweets every day about unexpected lineup changes and injuries. If you are in a daily league he is a must-follow.

Being a fantasy sports and social media nut I caught onto the usefulness of Twitter in fantasy pretty quickly. My partner and I created www.FantasyTwits.com (inspired by StockTwits.com) earlier this year to provide a central location for worthwhile fantasy twittering. We weed out the best fantasy tweetists and post their updates on FantasyTwits so that the end user can easily find interesting info and analysis. The response to the site has been great so far. I believe it should be a routine visit for any fantasy freak, but of course I’m biased .

Keep in mind that it’s too early for fantasy football to really be lighting up Twitter. Only freaks like me and a few others are focused on football right now. This will change come June. In July and August your head will be spinning at all the fantasy football tweets. The sheer volume of easily-digestible information will be heavenly for your average fantasy football player/information junkie.

Here are some great people to follow for fantasy football and baseball. This list is by no means comprehensive, but I enjoy following all of them. I tried to only put people on this list who keep most of their tweets fantasy-specific so you get lots of info and little noise. This list is sort of in order from Football to Baseball consistency.

@calspears (I try to keep it only football), @FFCalculator (another of my favorites), @greggrosenthal (managing editor of RotoWorld), @ffootball (mainly links to interesting articles), @faketeams, @TheRealTMR, @FantasyPlayers, @jasoncollette, @fantasy_expert, @FP911, @TheRoundtable, @troypatterson, @sporer, @fakebaseball, @crookedpitch, @FantasyTeamName (just team names, no analysis)

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 29th, 2009 at 3:44 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.