Financial Lessons You Can Learn from Fantasy Football
With summer winding down and autumn creeping in, are you ready for some fantasy football? Drafting the best team and guiding them toward the championship takes knowledge, dedication, skill and talent. But fantasy football is much more than just a super-absorbing hobby. You can actually learn a lot about money management and growing your wealth from the game. Here are five financial lessons you can learn from fantasy football.
1. Do your research
Knowing which NFL players to “draft” to your team on your league’s draft day is crucial. If you sail into this uber-important day unprepared, you’re essentially setting yourself up for a miserable season. During the weeks leading up to draft day, the true fantasy football pro is listening to podcasts from training camps, researching potential trades and learning about past performances of many players.
In personal finance, the rules are similar. When choosing a place or company to sink your money into, you’ll want to do as much research as possible and ask lots of questions to ensure success and alignment with your values.
2. Diversify
In fantasy football, it’s important to diversify your team and to draft players who excel at various positions in real life. This helps to ensure as many wins as possible. In finance, diversification is even more important. You’ll want to spread your investments over a mix of whole-market funds, securities and savings accounts. The more exposure your portfolio has among various asset classes and markets, the more protection it has against market volatility and inflation.
3. Keep your investments private
To a true fantasy football addict, there’s no conversation topic as exciting as the team they’ve drafted and the wins they’re racking up. But to the uninitiated, there’s no conversation topic that will put them to sleep faster than your fantasy football league. Find like-minded fans to talk shop with, but otherwise, you’re best off keeping your observations and insight on the game to yourself.
Investments are similar. You don’t want to be the drag of the party, the office or the block. Talk about your stock performance with your partner, your financial advisor and maybe your mother. Otherwise, keep it to yourself.
4. Assess your financial health throughout the year
A real fantasy football pro will monitor the performance of their players in real life. There will always be players getting injured, teams that change their strategies and players who have down seasons. You’ll need to keep an eye on what’s happening so you can make the best decisions about adding potential players on the waiver wire going forward.
To achieve and maintain true financial wellness, you’ll also need to monitor your budget, savings, spending habits and more throughout the year. Review and assess your money management every few weeks for the best results.
Fantasy football is so much more than an addictive hobby! Fantasy football can teach you financial lessons for life.
