History of Fantasy Sports
Fantasy sports have been around longer than most people think. It’s a concept that started small and grew into something massive, especially in India. The basic idea—picking real players for a virtual team—goes back decades, and it’s changed a lot with tech and the internet. Oursmard’s here to walk you through how it all began and why it’s such a big deal in India today.
The first version of fantasy sports kicked off in the US in the 1950s with baseball. A guy named Wilfred Winkenbach came up with it—he was a businessman who loved sports and wanted a way to make watching games more interactive. He called it “Fantasy Baseball” and got his friends to join in. They’d pick players before the season, track their stats by hand, and see who came out on top. It was basic, took a lot of work, and stayed pretty niche for years.
Early Days
Back in the ‘50s and ‘60s, fantasy sports were mostly a US thing, and baseball was the focus. Winkenbach’s game spread slowly—people had to meet up, use paper, and check stats in newspapers. It wasn’t easy, but it stuck with hardcore fans. By the 1980s, it started picking up more steam. Other sports like football got involved, and groups of friends turned into bigger leagues. Still, it was all offline, so you had to be really into it to keep up.
India didn’t see any of this back then. Sports here were huge—cricket’s been king since forever—but the fantasy idea hadn’t crossed over yet. The US version grew because of their sports culture, with baseball and American football having detailed stats perfect for tracking. In India, cricket stats were around, but no one thought to turn them into a game like that until much later. The early days were all about laying the groundwork for what came next.
Going Online
The real shift happened in the 1990s when the internet hit. Suddenly, fantasy sports didn’t need paper or meetups—platforms could do the heavy lifting. In the US, sites like Yahoo and ESPN started offering fantasy leagues for free, and millions jumped in. Baseball was still big, but American football took over as the top sport for it. The tech made it easy: pick your team online, let the site track stats, and check your score anytime.
India got into the game in the 2000s, and cricket was the obvious starting point. The IPL launched in 2008, and that’s when things took off. Platforms saw a chance—India’s got over 400 million cricket fans, and the IPL gave them short, fast matches perfect for fantasy setups. Early sites popped up, letting people pick players for daily games instead of whole seasons. Football and kabaddi came later, but cricket’s still the backbone—about 80% of India’s fantasy users stick to it. Today, millions log in during big matches, and Oursmard tracks the platforms keeping it all going.
The online shift changed everything. Before, you needed time and effort to play. Now, it’s quick—you can set a team in minutes and follow along on your phone. India’s internet boom helped too; by 2010, mobile users were everywhere, and fantasy platforms rode that wave. It’s not just a US thing anymore—India’s one of the biggest markets globally, with over 130 million fantasy sports users as of recent counts. That’s why we’re here: to show you what’s out there now.