Do you want to start a fantasy sports business but you want to go niche? If YES, here are 50 best fantasy sports business ideas & opportunities. If you are interested in starting any sport related business that can be played virtually with the aid of the internet, then you might just want to consider delving into the fantasy sport industry.
Interestingly, with the coronavirus pandemic that has shut down competitive sports all over the world and forced everybody to stay indoors, there is boom for the fantasy sports industry.
What is a Fantasy Sport?
A fantasy sport (also known less commonly as rotisserie or roto) is a type of game, often played using the Internet, where participants assemble imaginary or virtual teams of real players of a professional sport. These teams compete based on the statistical performance of those players’ in actual games.
This performance is converted into points that are compiled and totaled according to a roster selected by each fantasy team’s manager. Here are some of the best fantasy sports an aspiring entrepreneur can successfully start in any part of the world and still penetrate the world market;
Best Fantasy Sports Business ideas
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Start Daily Fantasy Sports (DFS)
Daily fantasy sports (DFS) are a subset of fantasy sport games. As with traditional fantasy sports games, players compete against others by building a team of professional athletes from a particular league or competition while remaining under a salary cap, and earn points based on the actual statistical performance of the players in real-world competitions.
Daily fantasy sports are an accelerated variant of traditional fantasy sports that are conducted over short-term periods, such as a week or single day of competition, as opposed to those that are played across an entire season.
Daily fantasy sports are typically structured in the form of paid competitions typically referred to as a “contest”; winners receive a share of a predetermined pot funded by their entry fees. A portion of entry fee payments go to the provider as rake revenue.
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Start Fantasy Auto Racing Sports
Fantasy auto racing is a type fantasy sports game based on motor sports. Players, also known as fantasy team owners, select a roster of drivers to earn points according to actual race results.
Player scores, as determined by their drivers’ actual racing results, are sorted within a league of players to determine weekly, periodic and championship winners. Games can be free or pay-to-play with cash or merchandise as prizes. Please note that fantasy racing rules, formats and point systems vary widely.
Most American games follow NASCAR Cup racing and award driver points based on the official NASCAR points system. To reduce the likelihood of ties, game rules can restrict driver stats according to criteria based on salary caps, driver rankings or frequency of selection.
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Start Fantasy Baseball
Fantasy baseball is a game in which people manage rosters of league baseball players, either online or in a physical location, using fictional fantasy baseball team names.
In fantasy baseball, the participants compete against one another using those players’ real life statistics to score points. There are different ways to play fantasy baseball. One way to play is a head-to-head format that makes each individual team play against a different team each week to acquire wins through total points scored for the week.
Teams with the most wins at the end of the season often enter into a playoff similar to the MLB postseason. The winner is the team that doesn’t lose in the playoffs, or has the most points at the end of season if the league does not hold playoffs.
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Start Fantasy Basketball Games
Fantasy basketball is a fantasy sport for basketball that was popularized during the 1990s after the advent of the Internet. Players take the role of general managers (GMs) of the fantasy teams they create from drafting actual National Basketball Association (NBA) players based primarily on their basketball statistics.
The statistics can be computed by the GM, or more commonly by the gaming software. The online format of the game has been popularized by websites, such as ESPN Fantasy Sports, NBA.com, Yahoo! Fantasy Sports and Dunkest Fantasy Basketball.
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Start Fantasy Cricket
Fantasy cricket is a part of the fantasy sports genre. It is an online game in which a virtual team of real cricket players is created and points are scored depending on how those players perform in real life matches. To win a tournament, players must work towards attaining the maximum points and the highest rank on the leaderboard.
A fantasy cricket match is based on batting and bowling orders, which are the most debated part of cricketing strategy. A small change in the order can change the course of the game. The concept involves selecting a team of 11 players and 3 substitutes from the pool of players who play the match.
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Start Fantasy Football
Fantasy football (less commonly referred to as fantasy association football worldwide but known as fantasy soccer in the United States and Canada) is a game in which participants assemble an imaginary team of real – life footballers and score points based on those players’ actual statistical performance or their perceived contribution on the field of play.
Usually players are selected from one specific division in a particular country, although there are many variations. The original game was created in England by Bernie Donnelly on Saturday 14 August 1971 and is still going strong 45 years later.
Fantasy football has evolved in recent years from a simple recreational activity into a significant business due to exposure via the internet.
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Start Fantasy Golf
Fantasy golf is a game in which the participants each assemble a team of real – life golfers and then score points based on those players’ performance in golf tournaments, with games typically following the US PGA Tour and the European Tour.
Many formats exist for players’ selection of golfers and point scoring. A common variant sees a squad of golfers selected annually with a set budget based on prior performance, with weekly teams selected from the larger squads. Some fantasy golf formats focus solely on golf’s Major Championships.
Participating in fantasy golf can add enjoyment to golf viewing, as well as providing competition against other participants.
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Start Fantasy Hockey
Fantasy hockey is a form of fantasy sport where players build a team that competes with other players who do the same, based on the statistics generated by professional hockey players or teams. The majority of fantasy hockey pools are based on the teams and players of the ice hockey National Hockey League (NHL).
A typical fantasy hockey league or hockey pool, has 8 – 12 teams but often have as many as 20. Other types of pools may have a greater number of teams, which may dilute the average talent making it more or less fun depending on the league, but also represents more closely the actual NHL, which currently has 31 teams.
Other forms of fantasy hockey may allow an unlimited number of teams, whereby any number of owners may draft the same player(s).
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Start Fantasy Sports Stock Simulation
A fantasy sports stock simulation is a type of fantasy sports game. It differs from standard fantasy sports games, which involve drafting teams and competing against other teams in a league in certain statistical categories. In a fantasy sports stock simulation, players and teams are “stocks” in a stock market which can be bought and sold, and which acquire earnings based on their statistics.
While standard fantasy sports games typically require drafting a team at the beginning of a season to participate, fantasy players can join and participate in a fantasy sports stock market at any time during the season. Fantasy stock simulations are similar to prediction games and prediction markets in that players speculate on the future of stock prices in a virtual world.
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Start Fantasy Wrestling Games
Fantasy wrestling is an umbrella term representing the genre of role-playing and statistics-based games which are set in the world of professional wrestling.
Several variants of fantasy wrestling exist which may be differentiated by the way they are transmitted (through websites, message boards, e-mail, postal mail, face-to-face, etc.), the method in which the storyline is determined, (via roleplay, “angles”, strategy- or statistics-based systems, etc.)
and how the roster is composed (are characters created by the players, are real wrestlers “imported” into the game, etc.). Fantasy wrestling’s roots lie in the play-by-mail wrestling games often featured in professional wrestling magazines.
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Start Fantasy Volleyball Games
Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team’s court under organized rules.
The complete set of rules is extensive, but play essentially proceeds as follows: a player on one of the teams begins a ‘rally’ by serving the ball (tossing or releasing it and then hitting it with a hand or arm), from behind the back boundary line of the court, over the net, and into the receiving team’s court. The receiving team must not let the ball be grounded within their court.
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Fantasy Shooting Games
Shooter games are a subgenre of action video game, which often test the player’s spatial awareness, reflexes, and speed in both isolated single player or networked multiplayer environments. Shooter games encompass many subgenres that have the commonality of focusing on the actions of the avatar engaging in combat with a weapon against both code-driven NPC enemies or other avatars controlled by other players.
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Fantasy Karate Games
Karate is a Japanese martial art whose physical aspects seek the development of defensive and counterattacking body movements. The themes of traditional karate training are fighting and self-defense, though its mental and moral aspects target the overall improvement of the individual.
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Fantasy Handball Games
Handball (also known as team handball, European handball or Olympic handball) is a team sport in which two teams of seven players each (six outcourt players and a goalkeeper) pass a ball using their hands with the aim of throwing it into the goal of the other team.
A standard match consists of two periods of 30 minutes, and the team that scores more goals wins. Modern handball is played on a court of 40 by 20 metres (131 by 66 ft), with a goal in the middle of each end. The goals are surrounded by a 6-meter (20 ft) zone where only the defending goalkeeper is allowed; goals must be scored by throwing the ball from outside the zone or while “diving” into it.
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Fantasy Badminton
Badminton is a racquet sport played using racquets to hit a shuttlecock across a net. Although it may be played with larger teams, the most common forms of the game are “singles” (with one player per side) and “doubles” (with two players per side).
Badminton is often played as a casual outdoor activity in a yard or on a beach; formal games are played on a rectangular indoor court.
Points are scored by striking the shuttlecock with the racquet and landing it within the opposing side’s half of the court. Each side may only strike the shuttlecock once before it passes over the net. Play ends once the shuttlecock has struck the floor or if a fault has been called by the umpire, service judge, or (in their absence) the opposing side.
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Fantasy Road Bicycle Racing Game
Road bicycle racing is the cycle sport discipline of road cycling, held on paved roads. Road racing is the most popular professional form of bicycle racing, in terms of numbers of competitors, events and spectators.
The two most common competition formats are mass start events, where riders start simultaneously (though sometimes with a handicap) and race to set finish point; and time trials, where individual riders or teams race a course alone against the clock. Stage races or “tours” take multiple days, and consist of several mass-start or time-trial stages ridden consecutively.
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Fantasy Softball Games
Softball is a game similar to baseball played with a larger ball (11 to 12 in. circumference) on a field that has base lengths of 60 feet, a pitcher’s mound that ranges from 43–50 feet away from home plate, and a home run fence that is 220–300 feet away from home plate, depending on the type of softball being played.
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Fantasy Archery Games
Archery is the art, sport, practice, or skill of using a bow to shoot arrows. The word comes from the Latin arcus. Historically, archery has been used for hunting and combat. In modern times, it is mainly a competitive sport and recreational activity.
A person who participates in archery is typically called an archer or a bowman, and a person who is fond of or an expert at archery is sometimes called a toxophilite.
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Fantasy Fencing Games
Fencing is a group of three related combat sports. The three disciplines in modern fencing are the foil, the épée, and the sabre (also saber); winning points are made through the weapon’s contact with an opponent.
There are three forms of modern fencing, each of which uses a different kind of weapon and has different rules; thus the sport itself is divided into three competitive scenes: foil, épée, and sabre. Most competitive fencers choose to specialize in one weapon only.
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Fantasy Rowing Sports
Rowing, sometimes referred to as crew in the united states, is a sport whose origins reach back to Ancient Egyptian times. It involves propelling a boat (racing shell) on water using oars. By pushing against the water with an oar, a force is generated to move the boat.
The sport can be either recreational for enjoyment or fitness, or competitive, when athletes race against each other in boats. There are a number of different boat classes in which athletes compete, ranging from an individual shell (called a single scull) to an eight-person shell with a coxswain (called a coxed eight).
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Fantasy Racing Sports
The sport of sailing involves a variety of competitive sailing formats that are sanctioned through various sailing federations and yacht clubs. Racing disciplines include matches within a fleet of sailing craft, between a pair thereof or among teams. Additionally, there are specialized competitions that include setting speed records.
Racing formats include both closed courses and point-to-point contests; they may be in sheltered waters, coast-wise or on the open ocean. Most competitions are held within defined classes or ratings that either entail one type of sailing craft to ensure a contest primarily of skill or rating the sailing craft to create classifications or handicaps.
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Fantasy Table Tennis Games
Table tennis, also known as ping-pong and whiff-whaff, is a sport in which two or four players hit a lightweight ball back and forth across a table using small rackets.
The game takes place on a hard table divided by a net. Except for the initial serve, the rules are generally as follows: players must allow a ball played toward them to bounce one time on their side of the table, and must return it so that it bounces on the opposite side at least once.
A point is scored when a player fails to return the ball within the rules. Play is fast and demands quick reactions. Spinning the ball alters its trajectory and limits an opponent’s options, giving the hitter a great advantage.
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Fantasy Tennis Sports
Tennis is a racket sport that can be played individually against a single opponent (singles) or between two teams of two players each (doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket that is strung with cord to strike a hollow rubber ball covered with felt over or around a net and into the opponent’s court.
The object of the game is to maneuver the ball in such a way that the opponent is not able to play a valid return. The player who is unable to return the ball will not gain a point, while the opposite player will.
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Fantasy Cricket Games
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a 20-metre (22-yard) pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striking the ball bowled at the wicket with the bat, while the bowling and fielding side tries to prevent this and dismiss each player (so they are “out”).
Means of dismissal include being bowled, when the ball hits the stumps and dislodges the bails, and by the fielding side catching the ball after it is hit by the bat, but before it hits the ground. When ten players have been dismissed, the innings ends and the teams swap roles.
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Fantasy Polo Sports
Polo is a horseback mounted team sport. It is one of the world’s oldest known team sports. The game is played by two opposing teams with the objective of scoring goals by using a long-handled wooden mallet to hit a small hard ball through the opposing team’s goal.
Each team has four mounted riders, and the game usually lasts one to two hours, divided into periods called chukkas (or “chukkers”). Arena polo has similar rules, and is played with three players per team. The playing area is smaller, enclosed, and usually of compacted sand or fine aggregate, often indoors.
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Fantasy Lacrosse Games
In lacrosse games, players use the head of the lacrosse stick to carry, pass, catch, and shoot the ball into the goal. The sport has four versions that have different sticks, fields, rules and equipment: field lacrosse, women’s lacrosse, box lacrosse and intercrosse.
The men’s games, field lacrosse (outdoor) and box lacrosse (indoor), are contact sports and all players wear protective gear: helmet, gloves, shoulder pads, and elbow pads.
The women’s game is played outdoors and does not allow body contact but does allow stick to stick contact. The only protective gear required for women players is eyegear, while goalies wear helmets and protective pads. Intercrosse is a mixed-gender non-contact sport played indoors that uses an all-plastic stick and a softer ball.
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Fantasy Kayaking Sports
Kayaking is the use of a kayak for moving across water. It is distinguished from canoeing by the sitting position of the paddler and the number of blades on the paddle.
A kayak is a low-to-the-water, canoe-like boat in which the paddler sits facing forward, legs in front, using a double-bladed paddle to pull front-to-back on one side and then the other in rotation. Most kayaks have closed decks, although sit-on-top and inflatable kayaks are growing in popularity as well.
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Fantasy Canoeing Games
Canoeing is an activity which involves paddling a canoe with a single-bladed paddle. Common meanings of the term are limited to when the canoeing is the central purpose of the activity.
Broader meanings include when it is combined with other activities such as canoe camping, or where canoeing is merely a transportation method used to accomplish other activities. Most present-day canoeing is done as or as a part of a sport or recreational activity.
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Fantasy Sprint Games
In athletics and track and field, sprints (or dashes) are races over short distances. They are among the oldest running competitions, being recorded at the Ancient Olympic Games. Three sprints are currently held at the modern Summer Olympics and outdoor World Championships: the 100 metres, 200 metres, and 400 metres.
At the professional level, sprinters begin the race by assuming a crouching position in the starting blocks before driving forward and gradually moving into an upright position as the race progresses and momentum is gained.
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Fantasy Boxing Sports
Boxing is a combat sport in which two people, usually wearing protective gloves, throw punches at each other for a predetermined amount of time in a boxing ring. A winner can be resolved before the completion of the rounds when a referee deems an opponent incapable of continuing, disqualification of an opponent, or resignation of an opponent.
When the fight reaches the end of its final round with both opponents still standing, the judges’ scorecards determine the victor. In the event that both fighters gain equal scores from the judges, professional bouts are considered a draw.
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Fantasy Mountain Biking
Mountain biking is a sport of riding bicycles off-road, often over rough terrain, using specially designed mountain bikes. Mountain bikes share similarities with other bikes but incorporate features designed to enhance durability and performance in rough terrain.
Mountain biking can generally be broken down into multiple categories: cross country, trail riding, all mountain (also referred to as “Enduro”), downhill, freeride and dirt jumping.
This sport requires endurance, core strength and balance, bike handling skills, and self-reliance. Advanced riders pursue both steep technical descents and high incline climbs. In the case of freeride, downhill, and dirt jumping, aerial maneuvers are performed off both natural features and specially constructed jumps and ramps.
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Fantasy Show Jumping Sports
Show jumping, also known as “stadium jumping”, “open jumping”, or simply “jumping”, is a part of a group of English riding equestrian events that also includes dressage, eventing, hunters, and equitation. Jumping classes are commonly seen at horse shows throughout the world, including the Olympics.
Sometimes shows are limited exclusively to jumpers, sometimes jumper classes are offered in conjunction with other English-style events, and sometimes show jumping is but one division of very large, all-breed competitions that include a very wide variety of disciplines.
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Fantasy Rugby Football
Rugby football is a collective name for the team sports of rugby union and rugby league, as well as the earlier forms of football from which both games evolved. Canadian football, and to a larger extent American football were also broadly considered forms of rugby football but are seldom now referred to as such.
The Olympic form of rugby is known as Rugby Sevens. In this form of the game, each team has seven players on the field at one time playing seven-minute halves. The rules and pitch size are the same as rugby union.
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Fantasy Snooker Games
Snooker is a cue sport that originated among British Army officers stationed in india in the second half of the 19th century. It is played on a rectangular table covered with a green cloth (or “baize”), with pockets at each of the four corners and in the middle of each long side.
Using a cue stick and 21 coloured balls, players must strike the white ball (or “cue ball”) to pot or pocket the remaining balls in the correct sequence, accumulating points for each pot. An individual game (or frame), is won by the player scoring the most points. A match is won when a player wins a predetermined number of frames.
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Fantasy Scrabble Games
Scrabble is a word game in which two to four players score points by placing tiles, each bearing a single letter, onto a game board divided into a 15×15 grid of squares. The tiles must form words that, in crossword fashion, read left to right in rows or downward in columns, and be included in a standard dictionary or lexicon.
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Fantasy Chess Games
Chess is a two-player strategy board game played on a checkered board with 64 squares arranged in an 8×8 grid. Played by millions of people worldwide.
Play involves no hidden information. Each player begins with 16 pieces: one king, one queen, two rooks, two knights, two bishops, and eight pawns. Each piece type moves differently, with the most powerful being the queen and the least powerful the pawn.
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Fantasy Long Jump
The long jump is a track and field event in which athletes combine speed, strength and agility in an attempt to leap as far as possible from a take off point. Along with the triple jump, the two events that measure jumping for distance as a group are referred to as the “horizontal jumps”.
At the elite level, competitors run down a runway (usually coated with the same rubberized surface as running tracks, crumb rubber also vulcanized rubber—known generally as an all-weather track) and jump as far as they can from a wooden board 20 cm or 8 inches wide that is built flush with the runway into a pit filled with finely ground gravel or sand.
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Fantasy High Jump Games
The high jump is a track and field event in which competitors must jump unaided over a horizontal bar placed at measured heights without dislodging it. In its modern most practiced format, a bar is placed between two standards with a crash mat for landing.
In the modern era, athletes run towards the bar and use the Fosbury Flop method of jumping, leaping head first with their back to the bar. Since ancient times, competitors have introduced increasingly effective techniques to arrive at the current form.
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Fantasy Pole Vault Games
Pole vaulting is a track and field event in which a person uses a long flexible pole (which today is usually made either of fiberglass or carbon fiber) as an aid to jump over a bar. Pole jumping competitions were known to the ancient Greeks, Cretans and Celts.
It has been a full medal event at the Olympic Games since 1896 for men and since 2000 for women. It is typically classified as one of the four major jumping events in athletics, alongside the high jump, long jump and triple jump. It is unusual among track and field sports in that it requires a significant amount of specialized equipment in order to participate, even at a basic level.
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Fantasy Gymnastics
Gymnastics is a sport that includes physical exercises requiring balance, strength, flexibility, agility, coordination, and endurance. The movements involved in gymnastics contribute to the development of the arms, legs, shoulders, back, chest, and abdominal muscle groups.
Alertness, precision, daring, self-confidence, and self-discipline are mental traits that can also be developed through gymnastics evolved from exercises used by the ancient Greeks that included skills for mounting and dismounting a horse and from circus performance skills.
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Fantasy Triple Jump Games
The triple jump, sometimes referred to as the hop, step and jump or the hop, skip and jump, is a track and field event, similar to the long jump. As a group, the two events are referred to as the “horizontal jumps”. The competitor runs down the track and performs a hop, a bound and then a jump into the sand pit.
According to IAAF rules, “the hop shall be made so that an athlete lands first on the same foot as that from which he has taken off; in the step he shall land on the other foot, from which, subsequently, the jump is performed.
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Fantasy Surfing Games
Surfing is a surface water pastime in which the wave rider, referred to as a surfer, rides on the forward part, or face, of a moving wave, which usually carries the surfer towards the shore.
Waves suitable for surfing are primarily found in the ocean, but can also be found in lakes or rivers in the form of a standing wave or tidal bore. However, surfers can also utilize artificial waves such as those from boat wakes and the waves created in artificial wave pools.
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Fantasy Dice Games
Dice games are games that use or incorporate one or more dice as their sole or central component, usually as a random device. Dice games is patterned after the success of collectible card games, a number of collectible dice games have been published.
Although most of these collectible dice games are long out-of-print, there is still a small following for many of them. Some collectible dice games include: Battle Dice, Diceland and Dragon Dice.
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Fantasy Collectible Card Game (CCG)
A collectible card game (CCG), also called a trading card game (TCG), among other names, is a type of card game that mixes strategic deck building elements with features of trading cards, introduced with Magic: The Gathering in 1993.
Generally, a player may begin playing a CCG with a pre-made starter deck, and then customize their deck with a random assortment of cards acquired through booster packs, or from trading with other players, building up their own library of cards. As a player obtains more cards, they may create new decks from scratch from their library.
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Fantasy Dart Games
Darts is a sport in which two or more players throw small missiles, also known as darts, at a circular target, known as a “dartboard”.
Points can be scored in the game by hitting specific marked areas of the board, though, unlike sports such as Archery, these are randomly allocated throughout the board and do not follow a common principle of points increasing towards the center of the board.
Though a number of similar games using various boards and rules exist, the term “darts” usually now refers to a standardized game involving a specific board design and set of rules.
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Fantasy Taekwondo Games
Taekwondo is a Korean martial art, characterized by its emphasis on head-height kicks, jumping spinning kicks, and fast kicking techniques with kicks and striking being above waist height only. A Taekwondo practitioner typically wears a uniform often white but sometimes black (or other colors), with a belt tied around the waist.
White uniforms are considered the traditional color and are usually encouraged for use at formal ceremonies such as belt tests and promotions. Colored uniforms are often reserved for special teams (such as demonstration teams or leadership teams) or higher-level instructors.
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Fantasy Skateboarding
Skateboarding is an action sport that involves riding and performing tricks using a skateboard, as well as a recreational activity, an art form, an entertainment industry job, and a method of transportation.
Skateboarding has been shaped and influenced by many skateboarders throughout the years. A 2009 report found that the skateboarding market is worth an estimated $4.8 billion in annual revenue, with 11.08 million active skateboarders in the world.
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Fantasy Sport Climbing
Sport climbing is a form of rock climbing that may rely on permanent anchors fixed to the rock for protection, in which a rope that is attached to the climber is clipped into the anchors to arrest a fall, or that involves climbing short distances with a crash pad underneath as protection.
This is in contrast to traditional climbing where climbers must place removable protection as they climb. Sport climbing usually involves lead climbing techniques, but free solo and deep-water solo (no protection) climbing on sport routes is also sometimes possible. Sport climbing emphasizes strength, endurance, gymnastic ability and technique.
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Fantasy Triathlon Sports
A triathlon is a multisport race with three continuous and sequential endurance races. The word is of Greek origin. While variations of the sport exist, the most common form includes swimming, cycling, and running over various distances.
Triathletes compete for fastest overall course completion, including timed transitions between the three races. The nature of the sport focuses on persistent and often periodized training in each of the three disciplines, as well as combination workouts and general strength conditioning.
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Fantasy Diving Sports
Diving is the sport of jumping or falling into water from a platform or springboard, usually while performing acrobatics. Diving is an internationally recognized sport that is part of the Olympic Games. In addition, unstructured and non-competitive diving is a recreational pastime.
Competitors possess many of the same characteristics as gymnasts and dancers, including strength, flexibility, kinaesthetic judgment and air awareness. Some professional divers were originally gymnasts or dancers as both the sports have similar characteristics to diving.