Will sports games take advantage of fantasy leagues?

Could sports game integrate one of the biggest games that men play outside of work? Yes, I’m talking about fantasy leagues.

No, no… not the fantasy football manager type games. Let’s think bigger. Take for example the current Madden NFL 09. I’m not a huge sports fan by any means, nor have I played one of these games in a long time. But I can tell you that most sports games last for that season and then … poof. They hit that used bin like a bat out of hell.

But what if there was more to it? Right now, some games you can do some vs. action but as far as I know there isn’t much in the whole online arena. So obviously the first step is to take the teams currently with current stats and pit them against other people online. Scoring could be done by having those that can control the worst of teams (by stats) and taking them all the way.

Would definitely be interesting wouldn’t it. But let’s take that one step further.

What if you could start out at the beginning of the season in a league play online. We’re talking full fantasy football draft. You pick your team, you can trade your guys, and outside of their current stats in reality? Their stats are also effected by your game play. Yes, if you stink, you actually effect their stats in the league. A mixture of reality and fantasy, but entirely amusing and entirely fun.

In that sense, it not only makes those guys in the fantasy leagues talk sports all the time, but they’ll also get a chance to talk trash too. It would basically be similar to owning your own franchise within a particular league. Obviously the pool would only have certain players in it as not to duplicate the actual sport players, but it still would be exciting.

Then again, I’m not a sports fan. Would this even interest those that actually do play sports games and take to all statistics dealing with that sport?