Document Type
Article
Abstract
The massive rise in popularity of fantasy sports in the U.S. and around the world, from the first "Rotisserie" fantasy baseball leagues in New York to the more recent and wildly popular one-week leagues FanDuel and DraftKings, has been examined through a number of critical lenses: economic, legal, demographic, etc. However, very few words have been spent on the philosophical implications of fantasy sports and the abiding cultural choke-hold that they currently exercise. One of the preeminent philosophers and social critics of the 20th century, Michel Foucault (1926-1984), devoted the vast majority of his oeuvre to the concepts of power and subjectivity, namely how power relationships at various levels render individuals as subjects. This paper will argue that participation in fantasy sports leagues is not merely a hobby or a business model, but rather a form of postindustrial subjectivity under the episteme of our age. I will explore how cultural "givens" in our (United States/North American) society such as the pervasive consumption of sports programming function as an example of Foucault's concept of power/knowledge, as well as how participation in fantasy sports, whether individually or as part of an office or other social group, has become a "norm" to be conformed to. I will also seek to show how various forms of media, in their structures as well as their deployment, contribute to the formation of a docile body who participates in fantasy sports. Finally, I will examine how Foucault's ideas of self-examination and self-care as practices of freedom might operate in terms of engagement with the subjectivity of fantasy sports.
Repository Citation
Dennis, Michael. "Foucault's Fantasy League: An Examination of Power Relationships in Fantasy Sports." Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture vol. 17, no. 1, 2017, pp. 1–13. https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/reconstruction/vol17/iss1/4