Given how a "fantasy league" is set up, I think it's too late to test it out with this season, but I had this idea while listening to co-workers talk about baseball fantasy drafts for over a year while I have these message boards up in my incognito browser.
Here's how I would set it up. Based on how other leagues work, a fantasy sports league is made at the beginning of every season when the players for the season are known for all teams before any games are played. Fantasy teams are Frankenstein-ed together by each member of the league with players from all different teams - mixing and matching all positions needed for the team. Each fantasy team then gets the total of the scores earned by each player earned in their actual game with their actual teams (I think, again I'm a Broadway fan. I've never been in an actual fantasy league for a sports game. Isn't that why we're all here on these boards? Or did we all come here to compare notes on how great high school was for us?)
So to set up fantasy leagues for Broadway, we would have to start by knowing all of the productions that will open in a given Broadway season along with their casts and creative teams. (These are the players available to chose from). Then members of the league could make a "Fantasy Show" the way a fantasy sports league would have fantasy teams, and each fantasy team would have mix-matched casts and creative teams that are in all different shows for the season. (In my head each member would have one fantasy musical and one fantasy play).
For example, I could say my fantasy team this year has a Book by Tina Fey, a Score by David Yazbek, stars Joshua Henry and Katrina Lenk, and is Directed by Tina Landau.
The object of the league would be to have the fantasy show with the most Tony Wins at the end of the season. Here's where things really start to differ. In a sports league there is a game every week and you can gain points all throughout the season. In the fantasy Broadway league there are really only two games each year - the Tony Award Nominations and Wins. That is the only time your team (or show) will get points.
One's initial reaction would be "it would be impossible to know every show that will open in a given season every May and June. Shows get fast tracked or stop production in the middle of the season all the time. Casts and creative teams change from first workshop to opening night all the time too." No worries, that's where the rules come in. The deadline to make your one final fantasy show is the day before the Tony nominations come out. All season long you can add, drop, and trade members of your show based on how you feel the season is going.
You would then submit your show with its final members the day before the Tony nominations get out and cannot change it afterwards. Then your show will first get points based on how many members got nominations, and will then get points again based on how many wins your show gets. (Really it's just one game a year).
Would anyone here think this would be remotely fun or interesting? Given the "team spirit" everyone here has, I think we could pull it off.
It's probably safe to say that I'm a weird outlier here as a 42-year-old straight guy who is equally obsessed with musicals and fantasy baseball....so I'm definitely up for it!
I'm having a little trouble figuring out how it would be more than just a Tony prediction game, though. Also, there are so few actors/shows involved -- and usually such obvious front-runners -- that you'd have a lot of duplicates. In other words, in a fantasy league only one person owns each player, while to do that in a Tony game you'd have to only have a handful of people playing. And, as you said, it would be hard to pick a moment in time to have a draft, since sometimes shows announced in late November or December for the spring.
I'm huge into Broadway and fantasy sports so I love this idea! I think the best and most interactive way to do it would be based on box office performance (there's a model with Fantasy Movie League). Each week you have a fixed budget to pick say, 8 shows, that are priced according to expectations. So Hamilton would cost a lot more to pick than Spongebob. You could pick a show multiple times if you want, as long as your 8 shows stay under the budget. There are some variables we could tinker with. For instance, is everyone's budget the same every week, or can your budget roll over week-to-week if you don't spend it all? But Fantasy Movie League is something I've been doing for about 2 months and it's a fun model we could copy.
I would LOVE this. It would be perfect for when my boyfriend starts talking about his fantasy football league and I have NO idea what he is talking about, I can repay the favor and talk about MY fantasy league.
joined:3/15/18
joined:
3/15/18
Posted: 5/3/18 at 12:29pm