“Yes,” University of Alabama graduate Matt Reid said as the Chicago Bears intercepted the ball in the fourth quarter against the Pittsburgh Steelers. “I get six points for a pick six.”

Meanwhile, Reid’s girlfriend, Andrea Muñoz, a senior majoring in biology, said she doesn’t care how the Bears defense does, but she wants their offense to return to the field and run the ball.

“I need Matt Forte to get just three more yards,” Muñoz said.

Both Reid and Muñoz are in a fantasy football league with their friends. The couple continues to discuss the potential outcome of their games this week. Muñoz needs 12 more points to beat her opponent this week. Reid has already won against his.

“See now, she wants to watch the game tomorrow night, because if Wes Walker gets a touch down and at least 50 yards, she wins,” Reid said.

Reid and Muñoz are two of about 35 million other Americans who play fantasy sports each year. According to Andrew Billings, Ph.D., a sport researcher and UA professor, fantasy sports are changing the way Americans watch games.

“Fantasy sports tip the scales for media consumption,” Billings said. “At the most fundamental level, why do people watch sports? They watch to see who wins. In fantasy sports, that’s not the case. You’re rooting for individual players and may not even care at all about which team wins. That changes the most basic equation of sports media research.”

Billings has been studying sports media for 20 years. He began working with the University of Cincinnati’s Brody J. Ruihley, Ph.D., when he began to realize that fantasy sports were changing his consumption of sports media. Together, Billings and Ruihley co-wrote “The Fantasy Sport Industry: Games Within Games,” which they believe to be the first true survey of fantasy sport leagues in the U.S.

According to Billings and Ruihley’s research, 41 percent of people would rather have their fantasy team win over their favorite NFL team. ESPN reported that fantasy sports increase the average sports fan’s consumption of ESPN sports coverage by three times the amount.

Muñoz said she began watching more football because she has a fantasy team. She also tracks her team through an app on her iPhone.

“I like watching any kind of football, but I am much more invested this year,” she said.

Although Reid has always watched a lot of football, he agrees he is more invested since he has been playing fantasy.

“NFL games are fun to watch anytime, but when you have a player on the team it makes you more anxious,” Reid said. “You actually have something to lose so it’s way more intense.”

Reid also keeps up with how his team is doing through his phone.

“I am on my phone pretty much all day Sunday,” Reid said.

Reid and Muñoz are not the only students playing fantasy sports on campus. Many students are involved in leagues with their friends. David Metz, a sophomore majoring in public relations, is playing in a couple fantasy football leagues as well. He said he could definitely see how playing has changed the way he watches games.

“I watch football a lot more objectively now because I am rooting for players instead of teams,” Metz said. “I really like the strategy of it and the managerial aspect of playing players at the right time and exploiting advantages.”

Metz won $1000 last year playing in a fantasy football league with his cousin. This year he hopes to win up to $700 in the same league. He is in another league with a group of friends with a grand prize of $50.

Though football is the number one fantasy sport, it is not the only one. Fantasy basketball, fantasy baseball, fantasy soccer and many others also exist. Billings said that when defining fantasy sports as a “game within a game,” some people even include making March Madness brackets as a fantasy sport. There are even sports like fantasy congress, fantasy court, fantasy Hollywood stock exchange and fantasy tabloid, where participants draft their favorite celebrities and win points for guessing which celebrity will end up on the cover of certain magazines.

Billings said fantasy football is the most popular in the U.S. due to the fact that it is more of a weekly sporting event.

“Many people don’t want to have to keep up with a game every single night of the week like they would have to in baseball, so football is a more manageable,” Billings said.

Metz has tried playing other fantasy sports in the past, but prefers fantasy football to the others.

“I played other fantasy sports last year, but the other[s] were much harder to keep up with,” Metz said. “Football is pretty much just weekly.”

According to Billings and Ruihley’s research, most people playing fantasy sports now do not plan on quitting anytime soon. A high percentage of players plan to play until they die.

“Sadly, yes, I will probably continue playing as long as possible,” Metz said.

Even though it is her first time playing a fantasy sport, Muñoz plans to continue playing as well.

“As long as there are people to play with, I’ll keep playing,” she said.

Muñoz said she is pretty happy with how her team is doing so far, especially considering it is her first time to play in a fantasy sport league. Currently she is 2-0.

“I am competitive and I am playing in a league with all guys so it’s fun to be doing well,” she said.

Though it is a fairly new trend, Billings said he sees the fantasy sport movement as a largely positive one.

“Most people are actually enjoying sports more and interacting about it more,” he said. “It used to be that watching a sport was much more of a solitary activity–just sitting in the living room watching the TV. Now, people are, in a way, participating in the games and it’s causing more conversations.”