Analysis of Fantasy Football fans survey responses

[Garyalanlawro]

Hi all,

Following on from the results of the survey we conducted on FISO users and other fantasy football fans and made available on http://www.fiso.co.uk/images/Beat-Your- ... y_2013.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;, here are the "birds-eye" observations:

• 241 people responded to the survey - print and online responses were combined for the analysis
• Over 92% of respondents play fantasy football at least once per week with 48% playing several times per week
• Three quarters of respondents play fantasy football for the full season.
• The majority of respondents (76%) play the market leader Fantasy Premier League with 67% of those surveyed playing more than one fantasy league.
• Two thirds of respondents (65%) play fantasy football due to the social aspect of interacting with friends and family – this is in line with existing academic research identifying drivers for playing the game
• Over half (53%) answered “very committed/diehard” when asked “How committed are you to your favourite club?”
• When asked, “If a new fantasy football league was launched, what features would you like to see?”, the BYM-specific features earned the following approval ratings:
o Earn rewards after every game – 65%
o Make live substitutions - 63%
o Beat your real-life manager - 60%
o Manage your favourite club - 58%
• When the “very committed/diehard” respondents were compared to the other groups, the "Beat Your Manager"-specific feature ratings increased to the following:
o Earn rewards after every game - 71%
o Make live substitutions – 73%
o Beat your real-life manager - 70%
o Manage your favourite club - 69%
• When asked, “Which aspects of your Fantasy Football league annoy you?”, the leading cause (57%), “I get annoyed when I/my team performs poorly” and the second leading cause (35%) “Feel uncomfortable if opposition player on my fantasy team scores highly”. Both results underline the relevance of “team-identification” in fantasy football players.
• The largest number (40.4%) of respondents were aged 30-39yrs, with similar percentage levels recorded for <20yrs (19.2%), 21-29yrs (18.8%) and 40-49yrs (15.4%)
• 67% of respondents were from Ireland with 33% from the United Kingdom.
• Three quarters of respondents own a smartphone.
• 132 respondents (55%) stated that they would be willing to trial the Beat Your Manager! game

A substantial part of the responses presented above are from FISO users - if you think the above is/isn't representative of you, please feel free to post any comments you might have.

The Beat Your Manager! Team

Are You The Special One?

[Striker]

Are we talking about fantasy football here or not? If not forget everything that I've said, but if we are:

Earn rewards after every game – 65%
Make live substitutions - 63%
Beat your real-life manager - 60%
Manage your favourite club - 58%

I have to admit that I didn't participate in the survey, but I am totally perplexed by the responses. Your sample certainly isn't representative of any group of fantasy managers that I have ever come across.

The conclusion that the vast majority of managers playing fantasy football in this country want rewards after every game is total bollox if you are considering the average fantasy football manager who make up the vast majority of fantasy participants.

Live substitutions. What does that mean EXACTLY? Many, many managers prefer games where there is only one transfer deadline during a week.

I could go on, but whatever sample of fantasy managers answered the survey, the one thing you can say about them is that they are NOT representative of the vast majority of fantasy managers.

[jimmy ching]

I'm surprised by the survey results. The four percentages that Striker pointed out were exactly the points that jumped out at me. I worry whether the survey was targeted at the results you might have wanted. I get the feeling that the respondents are more in to computer fantasy manager games than the real thing. There is no doubt there are places for certain type of games but the maintenance of interest in a game with live transfers would be very high.
Just as an example I play velogames. I like it because you can't do any transfers. Time dedication makes this available to a wider market. The more transfers you offer the more drops out you get. With the FPL you'll probably find many join up at the begining yet a smaller percentage persist to the end of the season.

[wandacatvenus]

Live Subs - What age were the respondents?

I take it they dont have a wife/girlfriend/family who don't appreciate you spending all your time in front of a computer (Probably 10 plus hours on an average PL weekend) every time there is a game on. Or perhaps they are all divorced !!!!!!!!

[Garyalanlawro]

Are we talking about fantasy football here or not? If not forget everything that I've said, but if we are:

Earn rewards after every game – 65%
Make live substitutions - 63%
Beat your real-life manager - 60%
Manage your favourite club - 58%

I have to admit that I didn't participate in the survey, but I am totally perplexed by the responses. Your sample certainly isn't representative of any group of fantasy managers that I have ever come across.

The conclusion that the vast majority of managers playing fantasy football in this country want rewards after every game is total bollox if you are considering the average fantasy football manager who make up the vast majority of fantasy participants.

Live substitutions. What does that mean EXACTLY? Many, many managers prefer games where there is only one transfer deadline during a week.

I could go on, but whatever sample of fantasy managers answered the survey, the one thing you can say about them is that they are NOT representative of the vast majority of fantasy managers.

Thanks for that feedback Striker and sorry it's taken so long to get back to you. We are talking about fantasy football, specifically my game (Beat Your Manager!) which is essentially "Football Manager" (the console game) applied to live football. You choose a single club to manage, pick lineups, bench, formations for upcoming games and during those matches you can make substitutions from your chosen bench.

The survey did have its limitations in the 2/3 of respondents are from Ireland and only 1/3 from the UK. We also used a mix of face-to-face canvassing and combined those results with the online results - we didn't compare if there were large differences between the two. It's always possible we may have influenced respondents in the personal surveys, but our game doesn't yet offer "after-game rewards" (apart from telling you if you beat the manager or not), so its unlikely this was one that was affected.

From my own anecdotal experience of running the survey, most people loved the idea that you would get an instant reward after playing a single game. The season-long element is also there but we wanted to see if there was appetite for immediate feedback/gratification.

The live substitutions element is the same opportunity that is open to the real-life manager; you pick your bench before the game and you can make up to 3 substitutions at any time during the match. We use Opta data to measure individual player performance on a second-by-second basis so we can quantify the impact of a substitution don to the second its made (for example, you sub off a particular player and a second later he completes an action that we deem is a scorable one, you won't get the points for that action that the real-life Manager did). Have a look at our website (http://www.beatyourmanager.ie" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;) for more information.

You could be right about my sample not being representative; we're only a startup and we had limited resources. I had the survey up on FISO for a few weeks, bumped it every day or so to get as many responses as possible and took it down when there was no more interest/engagement. I'll probably seek to do another one via our email list which should be more representative (15,000 managers) and would definitely appreciate any further feedback you might have.

Cheers!

[Garyalanlawro]

I'm surprised by the survey results. The four percentages that Striker pointed out were exactly the points that jumped out at me. I worry whether the survey was targeted at the results you might have wanted. I get the feeling that the respondents are more in to computer fantasy manager games than the real thing. There is no doubt there are places for certain type of games but the maintenance of interest in a game with live transfers would be very high.
Just as an example I play velogames. I like it because you can't do any transfers. Time dedication makes this available to a wider market. The more transfers you offer the more drops out you get. With the FPL you'll probably find many join up at the begining yet a smaller percentage persist to the end of the season.

Yeah, I take your point Jimmy (and apologies for the delay in responding). The respondents were canvassed face-to-face at football games in Dublin and Wigan (one each), via an email circulated in Dublin City University and from FISO. It's possible they are thinking videogames - I'll include that as a screening question in any future surveys, cheers.

We are seeing the dropoff you describe; I'm not sure its because of the time involved in playing the game - if you actually play BYM, its really simple to make a substitution (less than 10 seconds) - I think it's more to do with the game being (currently) still in prototype stage and not entertaining enough to keep people engaged. We're seeking investment in the coming weeks though and we have great plans for where we want the game to go. All comments will be appreciated.

Cheers!

[Garyalanlawro]

Live Subs - What age were the respondents?

I take it they dont have a wife/girlfriend/family who don't appreciate you spending all your time in front of a computer (Probably 10 plus hours on an average PL weekend) every time there is a game on. Or perhaps they are all divorced !!!!!!!!

Hi wandacatvenus, do you mean what age were the respondents who specifically said they liked "live substitutions"? I don't have that number to hand, but I can go back and cross-reference to find out. Overall, the largest number (40.4%) of respondents were aged 30-39yrs, with similar percentage levels recorded for <20yrs (19.2%), 21-29yrs (18.8%) and 40-49yrs (15.4%).

It's actually really simple to make a substitution; firstly you're limited to the squad of players available at your club (when you're picking your lineup/bench) and secondly you have to pick a bench of 7 (incl. one goalkeeper) that limits you further during the live game. When your match is on, it only takes about 10s to make a substitution.

Thanks for the response and sorry it took so long to get back; I was on holidays for a few weeks once the season ended and took some time away from the footie. World Cup back on now so am pumped up for it again!