Gadgetory

it may be called fantasy football but players take it very seriously and it's big business generating over a billion dollars in revenue annually at a recent event organized by Intel in San Francisco an expert panel including famed 49er Jerry Rice explained how data and technology are changing the way fantasy football is played the 1500 catches that I had for many fantasy football is a game of numbers lots of numbers Sports technology company stats calculates 92 data points during each play of a football game that information has actually been available for a while but it's been cost prohibitive to make it available to the average fantasy football player because the technology was so expensive so Intel's role is to drive down the cost of the technology increase the capability the technologies that it becomes accessible to everybody take it from a pro football hall of famer the data makes a difference it takes it to a whole different level you know because the fans they have access to that now and it's just going to make the the situation a little bit more you know a competitive because now they have all that data it's the same data that head coaches use to manage their offense and defense researchers and Intel are also creating analytics tools to help crunch all that big data welcome news for fantasy football veterans but for newbies who are feeling a little lost as they make their draft picks here's a little professional advice its productivity you know I want to see a receiver the yardage you have to catch also how many caches how many yards all of that and the same thing with quarterback you know you want to see how many touchdown the quarterback is going to throw you know his passer rating you know its accuracy and in case you were wondering rice is picking the 49ers to go all the way in San Francisco I'm Sumi das cnet.com for CBS News you