Fantasy sports take users into their dreams -- and smart marketers are there to greet them.

It's a world like the 'Fantasy Island' of Gene Levitt and Aaron Spelling fame. The true fan can go there and live nearly any dream he or she has. The true fan can assemble the greatest teams that have ever walked onto a field or a court. Though you do occasionally have the same actor playing different parts from week to week, it won’t cost you $50,000 to live the dream -- and the fun lasts much longer than a weekend.

What are we talking about? Fantasy sports leagues.

The people we are talking about are not members of a small, esoteric population hiding away in their dens, basked in the radiation-glow of their computer screens. This is a place where millions of people are going -- to fulfill these fantasies online.

“There are 15 million people playing fantasy sports,” says Chris Nicholas, director of fantasy games for ESPN.com. “This is not just limited to a single activity-group of people”

The people signing up to play in fantasy sports leagues are committed fans of the game. Being involved in a fantasy sports league gives people the experience of being both in the locker room and in the front office.

Participating in a fantasy sports league is like being a part of a micro-simulation game. It is "Sims™ Online" for the sports fan set. It puts the Monday morning quarterback into his armchair for the entire week prior to the game.

"My dear guests, I am Mr. Roarke, your host. Welcome to Fantasy Island!"

Who are these maniacal, virtual Al Davises and Mark Cubans? They are pretty much your basic husbands, brothers, sons and boyfriends. Though I know anecdotally that there are a few women in the mix, a friend I was speaking with the other day is only in a fantasy basketball league because her boyfriend is a Lakers fan. But she's not the norm.

“The audience is 95 percent male,” says Jeffrey Gerttula, marketing manager for the Sporting News. “Players are both casual and avid sports fans who are looking for ways to make the sports season more fun and/or play and bond with a group of friends.”

According to the folks at ESPN and Yahoo! Sports, the demographic for online fantasy leagues are men 18 to 34.

“The average Fantasy Football player makes $50,000 a year, likes cars, video games, beer and buys tickets to sporting events,” says ESPN.com's Nochilas. Gerttula confirms that the income skew for the avid fantasy sports participant is in the $50K-plus range. This suggests that a good portion of the demo skews to the older end of that 18 to 34 age break.

It would seem that the missing 18 to 34 males that we have been reading so much about in the trade press lately have been found. They are all vacationing on fantasy sports Island.

"Smiles, everyone! Smiles!"

It’s good to know that those ever-elusive 18 to 34 men have been found, because there are major advertisers who are serious about reaching these people. And they have serious money to spend in their quest to find, speak to and convert these young men.

Men in this demo have become more and more important to advertisers over the years. Where it used to be that 18- to 49-year-old women was the end-all, be-all demographic for advertisers to reach, there has been a shift to more rarified targets. The days when folks were coupled and married straight out of high school, with women making the purchase decisions, has gone the way of Ward and June Cleaver. These are men who are staying single longer and have money to spend.

Sporting News’ Gerttula says there are three reasons why these men are important and why advertisers are looking for them now on fantasy sports properties.

"One, these are male groups that have shown a propensity to spend money and have higher income levels," he says. "Two, [they] are generally of a higher education level. And three, [they] have strong relationships with the fantasy Web sites, as they are very involved in the game and spend large quantities of time on the fantasy game pages. Fantasy game players are more involved with the fantasy Web site than the typical sports information site."

Food advertisers like Kraft, McDonalds and Nestlé’s Power Bar have used the fantasy sports forum to target these men, and personal care advertisers like Schick and P&G’s Old Spice brand have found the audiences they are looking for, by using the fantasy sports platform as a vehicle.

“It's indicative of the increased mainstream acceptance of fantasy games that the advertisers you see are major, blue-chip brand advertisers. Visa is a major advertiser for our games, as is General Motors,” says Nicholas. “These advertisers see the value in associating with fantasy games and with us, because of the branding opportunities and the frequent exposures that fantasy players have to the advertiser’s message.”

No end in sight for fantasy sports' growth

The fantasy sports category continues to grow, and there doesn’t seem to be any end of it any time soon. The opportunities for advertisers continue to grow as the audience expands and becomes more targetable, by virtue of being segmented by sport type. Also, with prolonged and continued uses -- coupled with the arrival of behavioral marketing tools a lá Tacoda and Revenue Science, Inc., -- publishers can more readily monetize these men. Publishers will do this not only by virtue of having better defined audiences for sale, but also by charging for the more sophisticated version of the fantasy sports service.

Yahoo!’s Hal Trencher, category development officer for sports and broadband, sees opportunities both from advertisers as from premium service.

"We feel there is much more user growth opportunity, which is one of the reasons why we offer both free and premium versions of the service," he says. "Free versions continue to introduce passionate users and drive more users to the content. With the incorporation and greater adoption of broadband, the possibility unfolds that the traditional sports advertiser will continue to embrace fantasy sports with greater involvement. There is also a market for more wireless adoption as the wireless market grows domestically."

Fantasy sports online captures the player’s imagination in much the same way role playing games did, and do, for the Dungeons & Dragons and adventure-gamer. These are passionate people who invest a great deal of time and emotional energies in placating their fantasies. And the limits of their value to both publishers and advertisers have yet to be determined.

Mr. Roarke may have been on to something.