These student football players compete on a virtual screen. Michael Garai ’13 has started a new organization, Fantasy Sports for Charity, to offer students a chance to contribute fundraise using some of America’s favorite sports.
“I really like fantasy sports and I spend a lot of time with it, and I know a lot of my friends did as well, so I just thought it would be a good way to raise money,” he said.
Nikhil Baradwaj ‘13, Olivia Bren ’13, Sid Palaniappan ’13 and Sven Lerner ’13 also helped establish Fantasy Sports for Charity.
They plan on starting fantasy leagues for football, basketball, baseball, March Madness and hockey, which will follow standard ESPN rules. Students will pay five dollars to join a league of eight, ten or twelve players. The winner of the tournament will choose a sports-based charity to donate the proceeds to, such as Boys and Girls Club or YMCA.
“The people will choose to play for fun and because its five dollars and for charity, but some people will definitely get into it for bragging rights,” said Garai.
In fantasy sports, each person is the “owner” of a team and drafts his or her players.
A team earns points depending on its players’ statistics in actual games. For example, a touchdown is four points, so a team earns four points if one of its players team scores a touchdown that day in a game.
A playoff period composed of the top four teams will follow the regular season to determine the overall winner. The other six teams will continue to play in a consolation bracket till the end of the playoffs.
Fantasy sports have to be played in the same timeframe as the actual sport season, so competitions go on throughout the entire year.
According to Garai, at the first meeting the board will gauge whether players are interested in only soccer and hockey or other sports.
“If there are enough people we could open a league. We’re really open to anything,” said Garai.
“I just thought that it would be cool to use how much time we use how much time we spend doing this to do an actual good thing. I wanted to start some club for charity and I know a lot of people are interested in it so I thought it would raise a good amount of money this way,” said Garai.
“I’m trying to get [the] Abbot [Academy Association] to match whatever we raise. Abbot does that for some charities so if we raise 200 in a season they will also donate 200 so it doubles the donation.”
Rome Arnold ’14 said, “I think it’s a great idea with a great cause and I can’t wait for the games to start. I’ve played in lots of fantasy leagues over the last few years so I will definitely get into it.”
Harry Cohen ’14 said, “I heard about the club from one of my friends and I thought it sounded really interesting. I spend a lot of time playing Fantasy Football and I think it will be going to a great cause so I will definitely join at the Club Rally.”
