Fantasy Sports: Establishing the Connection between the Media, Social Identity, and Media Dependency

This study looked at the effects fantasy sports participation has on media consumption and how it leads to social identity and media dependency via the uses and gratifications framework. The purpose of this exploratory research was to search for connections between the motivations of fantasy sports players, their social identity, and their potential for dependency upon mass media.;By using correlations and ANOVAS, the results indicated that there is a strong relationship between media dependency and fantasy sports players' motivation to play in order to socialize.;The results of this study suggest that further research can look deeper into how fantasy sports players use their cell phones and the Internet to play fantasy sports and to gather information about fantasy sports.