Chad Johnson sprints across the middle of the field with hands outstretched, a Philadelphia Eagles defensive back hot on his heels. The pass comes in low and hard, and Johnson can’t secure the ball. It’s another drop in a season-long bucket of disappointment for Johnson and the Cincinnati Bengals. But the woeful Bengals aren’t the only ones suffering the side effects of the wide receiver’s poor showing. “The Beers” can feel Johnson’s pain 630 miles away in Lawrence.

“Chad Johnson sucks,” says Sam Zerger, Wichita senior and owner of The Beers, a fantasy football team.

Zerger is one of 17 million fantasy football team owners nationwide. Nine University of Kansas-based Facebook groups devoted to Fantasy football exist, along with one global group dubbed, “Addicted to Fantasy Football.” The big-and-getting-bigger fantasy sports phenomenon is intriguing. On one hand, it makes people feel like part of a community and helps sharpen cognitive skills. On the other hand, it potentially consumes time and money.

Fantasy football owners draft a team of about 15 professional players at the beginning of the season. As the season wears on, team owners—usually 12 per league—can haggle and barter with one another, swapping, dropping and adding players to build their rosters. Points are assigned to each player each week for positive contributions such as yards gained or touchdowns scored, and deducted for negatives such as interceptions or fumbles. Fantasy football ownership puts the fan in charge of a roster without the high-stakes investment of purchasing a multi-million dollar sports franchise.

But participating in fantasy sports is often about more than personal satisfaction. University of Wisconsin-Madison assistant professor Erica Halverson, who researches “competitive fandom” and fantasy sports, says fantasy sports leagues engender a sense of community. “With the explosion of access online, people are able to have deeper participation in activities they care about,” Halverson says. “People have a desire to be members of cultures and participate in activities that matter to them. That mirrors the experience of fantasy sports.”

Fantasy games give fans an opportunity to connect with their favorite sports without having to follow one specific team. For that reason, fantasy football has helped the National Football League profit. According to the Fantasy Sports Trade Association, 55 percent of fantasy owners watch more football in order to track their players than they would otherwise. Yahoo! Sports and ESPN employ multiple writers and fantasy sports analysts to help owners choose their players. Zerger, who owns two teams, says the experience helps him better follow football on a weekly basis. “You have to keep track of who’s playing who, who’s injured, who’s hot, and things like that,” Zerger says. “It makes you focus more on the league as a whole rather than just your favorite team.”

Halverson sees the potential for fantasy sports to serve as more than a football-teaching tool, but as an all-around mental exercise. She says fantasy owners, who often make roster adjustments based on minute details such as the substitution patterns of real-life NFL teams and the weather conditions during each game, could also be learning how to interpret statistics and data. Halverson says fantasy players aren’t necessarily better at processing data, but that the game can teach players to deal with statistical processes they might not face in day-to-day life.

“It’s a different way to look at football,” says Stuart Gross, St. Louis junior. “It’s usually looked at as a team game, but with fantasy, you have to look more closely at the individual aspect. Things like the style of play or specific strengths of each team your players are on is important.”

Gross, who maintains four fantasy football teams, spends about 20 minutes each week signing players and setting his rosters. But he says “researching”—watching ESPN—eats up a large chunk of his time. Gross’ four-team fantasy habit isn’t obsessive, but Halverson says she has seen some more serious fantasy owners run as many as 10 teams at a time.

The sense of community and enhanced stat-processing skills aside, fantasy team ownership is, in essence, a legal alternative to sports betting. Gambling on sporting events is illegal in most of the United States, but owning a fantasy team—even in leagues that offer cash prizes—is commonplace. Fantasy sports has become a big business. SportsLine.com boosted its revenue by 40 percent from 2003 to 2004 by introducing pay-for-play fantasy leagues, according to a CNet report. Since 2004, fantasy games have grown even more popular, causing some companies to block fantasy sports Web sites on employee computers. The businesses have reason to worry: According to a study by the firm Challenger Gray & Christmas, workers who waste time on fantasy sports sites lose their companies a nationwide total of $37 million per year.

University of Nevada at Las Vegas professor Bo Bernhard released a study that found similarities between fantasy team ownership and sports gambling, but stopped short of calling fantasy sports addictive. Bernhard found rare instances of individuals becoming hooked on fantasy sports, but his work reinforces Halverson’s belief that fantasy sports aren’t necessarily negative.

“It’s not a good or a bad thing,” Halverson says. “It’s something people do.”