The 35-year-old fantasy football league keeping one friend group together

It’s the last Sunday in August and at a steakhouse in New Brunswick, New Jersey, men who are old enough to have grandchildren are wearing football jerseys and accusing each other of cheating at a game before 10:30 in the morning.

They’ll start drinking before 11 a.m, break for burgers a little after noon and plan to be here all day. It’s a tradition that predates children and marriages. In 1992, eight friends formed a fantasy football league. They called it Sigma Pi, for the Rutgers University fraternity where they met one another.

“It was before the internet, before websites and rules and standardizations. We used to open up the USA Today on a Monday and get the stats and do it by hand,” says Dave Koval, the now 61-year-old who’s been the commissioner the whole time. “And we’ve been going ever since.”

“I thought it was way better when it was guys getting together, watching the game, arguing. ‘Your guy sucks, he’s no good!’ You know, that kind of stuff,” says Scott Page, the league’s resident curmudgeon. “Over the last 30 years, it’s migrated into this computer-phone-tablet-internet kind of a league. But it was more fun back in the day.”

Wearing a Pittsburgh Steelers jersey with his own name on the back over the number 60 – a gift from when he reached that illustrious age this year – Page is lamenting the most typical tragedy: Getting older. It’s a feeling all too familiar, the loss that is no longer being in your early 20s, unencumbered by anything that might interrupt plans to spend every autumn weekend focused on the fantasy football league formed among your fraternity brothers.

But for one weekend later in the summer, that feeling of loss eases for this group. Maybe it’s not quite a time machine back to your 20s, but at an age and in an era when many men struggle with social isolation, an annual fantasy football draft might be the next best thing.

For Page and his cohort, it’s a bond that started long before the option even existed to trash talk over text or draft your team for the next fantasy season virtually. Page is an avowed luddite in this space, refusing still to bring a laptop to draft day and instead relying on packets of paper notes. The other guys in the league tease him about this obstinance, joking that they’re going to go revert to auto drafting the remainder of their team.

“Yeah, auto draft,” Page sighs with an eyeroll.

But for all his griping, Page understands this: Getting together even just once a year with a regularity that can be relied upon is special.

“This is as close as men can get and still be friends,” he confides quietly.

Now there are 12 teams. Six of the eight original owners are still part of the league, bolstered by newcomers – well, maybe they should be called “newcomers.”

Like Mark Pascal, who was in the same frat at Rutgers and joined the league in 1994. Pascal owns this steakhouse, as well as the wine shop next door and the Italian restaurant upstairs. He’s hosted the draft most years for most of that time.

Technically, he’s no longer really in the league. Back in 2004, he bequeathed his team to a chef at the restaurant when his wife insisted he pare down his fantasy commitments. But since he hosts the draft, he’s stayed on as something of a consigliere.

“We’ve been friends since we were 18 years old. I’m 61 years old. So most of the people in this room I’ve known for at least 30 years. And, you know, you just pick up,” he says. “Literally, it’s as if we had seen each other two weeks ago.”

It’s harder to get everyone together as they get older. People retire and move away. They used to see each other at weddings. And then to meet babies. A stretch of children’s birthday parties. Eventually those kids graduated or started getting married, and the league attended those, too.

“Now, we see each other at our friends’ parents’ funerals,” Koval says. His father passed away this summer at 99 years old, one of three parental deaths among the league owners recently.

“This is the happy occasion,” Koval says. “Where we get to tell stories about what we did in 1985 when we were in college.”

“We’ve all had ups and downs in our life, but what the league gives you is something you can count on,” Pascal says.

Mobile sports betting – a solo activity where an essentially frictionless interface combined with potentially drastic financial ramification can have addictive or disastrous impact – is booming. But fantasy sports, an almost quaint precursor to the instantaneous forms of gambling proliferating now, remains hugely prevalent. The Fantasy Sports & Gaming Association estimates that 19% of American adults , over 50 million people, participate in fantasy sports.

And football is far and away the most popular.

Presumably some of those people are chasing the same financial reward that drives gambling. But for many others, fantasy football is more like a religion than a slot machine. It’s about the culture and the community and the continuity. It’s about winning and glory and getting your name engraved on the trophy, but not necessarily about money.

It was originally $100 to be in the league and now it’s about $130. Rather than keep pace with inflation and growing incomes, they’ve deemphasized the financial aspect.

“If I spent one-tenth of the time I spend on fantasy on the stocks, I’d be rich,” Koval grumbles loudly about the commitment of being commissioner when he comes under fire for having an advantage in the role (He has won 11 times). “I wouldn’t be here, I would be on my yacht.”

And, actually, maybe it’s not even about winning at all.

“This is the highlight of the season. The actual playing, it’s nice if you win and everything like that. But this is what I look forward to every year,” said Ed Sullivan, who has a reputation for being the unluckiest owner in the league.

Sullivan says it isn’t the 30 years he’s been in the league that makes him feel old. It’s seeing how everyone else has aged in that time.

“Nick was my best man at my wedding,” he said. “I was there when the baby was born. I’ve watched his kid grow up and now he’s sitting in the room.”

Nick Mosso is one of the original members from ‘92. He’s 62 years old now. A couple months ago he had a pulmonary embolism. Many of the members of the league learned about it at the draft.

Mosso said that isn’t why he’s invited his son to step in as a co-owner on his team this season. He jokes that he’s been trying to retire from the league for years and they keep pulling him back in, but it doesn’t seem like the other guys fully believe him. Either way, they’re happy to have Dominic Mosso, 22 years old, join the tradition.

“I’m hoping that if this evolves, he forms a camaraderie with everyone,” the elder Mosso said of his son. “With my friends, but more so with the next generation.”

Dominic is the third son to join the Sigma Pi fantasy league. There’s Jim Calandra and his son Jimmy. Chris Pascal – Mark’s older brother – and his son, Brian, who is now 37 and has been in the league since just after he graduated college in 2012. A picture on Chris’ phone shows a nine-year-old Brian holding the same trophy he’ll now challenge his dad for.

“I feel like I grew up in fantasy football culture,” Brian Pascal said.

His father has a particular appreciation for long-running fantasy leagues. In addition to this Sigma Pi football league, Chris Pascal is the commissioner of a fantasy baseball league that’s even older.

“We go back to ’89,” Pascal said. Four of the six original owners from that league still participate.

He’s heard that some men his age are lonely.

“Yeah,” Pascal says, considering the thought. “Not me.”

八月的最后一个星期日，在新泽西州新不伦瑞克的一家牛排馆里，一些年纪足以有孙子的男人穿着橄榄球球衣，在上午 10:30 之前就互相指责对方在比赛中作弊。

他们上午11点前就开始喝酒，中午过后吃汉堡，打算在这里待上一整天。这项传统甚至比孩子和婚姻还要古老。1992年，八个朋友组建了一个梦幻橄榄球联盟，并将其命名为Sigma Pi，取自他们相识的罗格斯大学兄弟会。

“那是在互联网、网站、规则和标准出现之前。我们过去常常在周一打开《今日美国》，查看统计数据，然后手工统计，”现年61岁的戴夫·科瓦尔说道，他一直担任该职位。“我们一直坚持到现在。”

“我觉得以前大家聚在一起看比赛、争论的时候更有意思。‘你支持的那个球员太烂了，根本不行！’你知道，就是那种感觉，”联盟里出了名的老顽固斯科特·佩奇说道。“过去30年里，它已经演变成现在这种电脑、手机、平板电脑、互联网式的联赛了。但以前那种方式更有意思。”

身穿一件匹兹堡钢人队球衣，背后印着他的名字和60号——这是他今年达到这个辉煌年龄时收到的礼物——佩奇正在感叹最典型的悲剧：变老。这种感觉太熟悉了，不再是二十出头的年纪，不再无忧无虑，可以把每个秋季周末都用来和兄弟会成员一起玩梦幻橄榄球联赛。

但到了夏末的某个周末，这群人的失落感会得到缓解。或许这并非重返二十岁的时光机，但对于这个年龄段、许多男性都饱受社交孤立的时代而言，一年一度的梦幻橄榄球选秀或许是次佳之选。

对于佩奇和他的队友来说，这种情谊早在人们还能通过短信互相嘲讽，或者在线组建下一赛季梦幻球队之前就已经建立起来了。佩奇在这方面是个不折不扣的“卢德分子”，至今仍然拒绝在选秀日带笔记本电脑，而是依靠一叠叠纸质笔记。联盟里的其他人经常拿他的固执开玩笑，说他们要改回自动选秀的方式来组建剩下的球队了。

“是啊，自动选秀，”佩奇翻了个白眼叹了口气。

尽管佩奇抱怨连连，但他明白这一点：即使每年只能定期聚会一次，也是非常特别的。

“这是男人之间能保持友谊的极限了，”他低声说道。

现在共有 12 支球队。最初的八位老板中有六位仍然留在联盟中，并得到了新成员的加入——嗯，或许应该称他们为“新成员”。

就像马克·帕斯卡尔一样，他曾是罗格斯大学兄弟会的成员，并于1994年加入联盟。帕斯卡尔拥有这家牛排馆，以及隔壁的葡萄酒商店和楼上的意大利餐厅。在过去的绝大部分时间里，他几乎每年都承办选秀大会。

严格来说，他已经不再是联盟成员了。早在2004年，他的妻子坚持让他减少参与梦幻体育游戏的投入，于是他把自己的球队转让给了餐厅的一位厨师。但由于他主持选秀大会，所以他仍然以顾问的身份留在了联盟中。

“我们从18岁起就是朋友了。我今年61岁。所以，在座的大多数人我都认识至少30年了。你知道，大家很快就能熟络起来，”他说。“真的，就好像我们两周前才见过面一样。”

随着年龄增长，大家越来越难聚在一起。有人退休，有人搬走。以前他们会在婚礼上见面，然后一起迎接新生儿，参加各种孩子的生日派对。后来孩子们毕业或结婚，联盟成员也会出席这些场合。

“现在，我们只能在朋友父母的葬礼上见面了，”科瓦尔说道。他的父亲今年夏天去世，享年99岁，是联盟老板中近期三位去世的父母之一。

“这是一个令人高兴的时刻，”科瓦尔说，“我们可以讲述1985年我们在大学时做过的故事。”

“我们的人生都有起起落落，但联盟能带给你的东西是可以信赖的，”帕斯卡尔说。

移动体育博彩——这项几乎无需人工干预的个人活动，其流畅便捷的界面加上潜在的巨额经济后果，可能令人上瘾，甚至造成灾难性后果——正在蓬勃发展。但梦幻体育，作为如今层出不穷的即时赌博形式的早期雏形，仍然非常流行。梦幻体育与游戏协会估计，19%的美国成年人，超过5000万人参与梦幻体育。

而足球无疑是最受欢迎的。

想必有些人追求的也是像赌博一样的经济回报。但对更多人来说，梦幻足球更像是一种信仰，而非老虎机。它关乎文化、社群和传承。它关乎胜利、荣耀以及将自己的名字镌刻在奖杯上，但并非一定要用金钱来衡量。

最初加入该联盟的费用是 100 美元，现在大约是 130 美元。他们没有跟上通货膨胀和收入增长的步伐，而是淡化了经济因素。

“如果我把花在梦幻体育游戏上的十分之一时间用来投资股票，我早就发财了，”科瓦尔大声抱怨着担任专员的繁重工作，尤其是在他因担任这一职务而享有优势（他曾11次当选）而受到抨击时。“我就不会在这里了，我会待在我的游艇上。”

事实上，也许这根本就与输赢无关。

“这是赛季的重头戏。比赛本身，如果能赢球当然很好，但这正是我每年最期待的，”埃德·沙利文说道，他素有“联盟中最倒霉的老板”之称。

苏利文说，让他觉得自己老了的不是他在联盟待了30年，而是看到其他人在这段时间里都老了很多。

“尼克是我婚礼上的伴郎，”他说。“孩子出生时我在场。我看着他的孩子长大，现在他就坐在这里。”

尼克·莫索是1992年创始成员之一，现年62岁。几个月前他患上了肺栓塞。联盟中的许多成员都是在选秀大会上得知这一消息的。

莫索表示，他邀请儿子本赛季成为球队共同所有者并非出于这个原因。他开玩笑说，自己多年来一直想从联盟退役，但他们总是把他拉回来，​​不过其他球员似乎并不完全相信他的话。无论如何，他们很高兴22岁的多米尼克·莫索能加入到这个传统中来。

“我希望如果一切顺利，他能和每个人都建立起友谊，”老莫索谈到儿子时说。“不仅是和我的朋友们，更重要的是和下一代。”

多米尼克是第三个加入Sigma Pi兄弟会梦幻联赛的儿子。其他成员还有吉姆·卡兰德拉和他的儿子吉米。克里斯·帕斯卡尔——马克的大哥——和他的儿子布莱恩，布莱恩今年37岁，自2012年大学毕业后就加入了这个联赛。克里斯手机里的一张照片显示，九岁的布莱恩手里拿着同样的奖杯，而他现在将要挑战他父亲的奖杯。

“我觉得自己就像是在梦幻足球文化中长大的，”布莱恩·帕斯卡尔说道。

他的父亲对长期运营的梦幻联盟情有独钟。除了这个西格玛·派兄弟会的橄榄球联盟之外，克里斯·帕斯卡尔还是一个历史更悠久的梦幻棒球联盟的负责人。

“我们追溯到1989年，”帕斯卡尔说。当时联盟的六位创始老板中，有四位至今仍在参与其中。

他听说有些和他同龄的男人感到孤独。

“是啊，”帕斯卡尔沉思片刻后说道，“不是我。”