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Information Cascade in Fantasy Sports Drafting

In the midst of fantasy football season, I, like many others, am wondering where my fantasy football team went wrong. I felt very confident in my team going into the season, and yet I am firmly entrenched as an average team this year. Many teams that face this same dilemma can have issues traced back to their draft day decisions – many owners who draft players that they have a personal or emotional attachment to (for example, drafting a player on their favorite team or refusing to draft a player on a rival team) often pay the price. However, there is a freely accessible tool available to all fantasy football players which is based on the concept of information cascades, Average Draft Position (ADP). ESPN, as well as many other large fantasy sports providers, typically provide this statistic for many players. The ADP of a player is exactly what it sounds like – what pick number the player is being drafted at on average across many fantasy football leagues.

We have seen in class that information cascades, or following the wisdom of the crowd, can come with benefits. In the article I explored (linked at the bottom), the author describes a study in which the accuracy of a fantasy football expert is compared with the accuracy of the ADP. The study found that the ADP performed better on average than the expert, confirming the idea that there is in fact wisdom in the crowd and that following the information cascade could actually be a good idea. However, on the flip side, following the crowd can also lead you at times to buy into a player that is overhyped and ends up underperforming, or the opposite. I have definitely experienced this phenomenon, where many people continue to value a player to an extent that seems overboard in my opinion – and sometimes I’m right, but other times I’m wrong. The article does show that more often than not, the wisdom of the crowd should not be ignored. So if you’re facing a tough decision in fantasy sports, don’t be afraid to follow the crowd.

https://lifehacker.com/use-the-wisdom-of-crowds-to-draft-the-best-fantasy-foot-1617837803

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