Magic: The Gathering, a strategy game set in a fantasy world, was inspired by baseball cards.

"National Pastime" used the statistics of real Major League Baseball players to determine a winner, creating the template for the modern fantasy sports model.

This podcast tells how "Magic: The Gathering" faced its own speculative bubble as rare cards surged in resale value—risking a Beanie Baby-style crash. It follows how the game’s creators tried to engineer a system to keep a collectibles market from collapsing.

Inspired by the fantasy paperback explosion of the late 1960s and early 1970s, Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson published the original incarnation of the game, which immersed players in worlds similar to fantasy fiction. Since then, several newer editions have been released. In recent years, podcasts and livestreams featuring individuals playing the game have gained popularity.

Klaus Teuber invented the game when he was in his 30s, and had his wife and children act as early test players. Published in 1995, the game has now sold over 45 million units.

In the mid-1950s, Wilfred “Bill” Winkenbach, a part-owner of the Oakland Raiders, concocted two fantasy sports games: one for Major League Baseball and one for the Professional Golfers’ Association. In 1962, he invented fantasy football alongside two writers from the Oakland Tribune.

In 1952 baseball card company Topps printed two series of cards. The first series sold well, but the late-season series, numbered 311-407 and included Mickey Mantle, didn’t. Read the first-hand account of how Topps couldn't’ even give the late-season series cards away and dumped an estimated 500 cases into the Atlantic Ocean in 1959. Decades later, it created a scarcity that drove the price of that Mantle card to $12.6 million.

The rising value and popularity of Pokémon trading cards is driven by nostalgia, influencer culture, and the launch of Pokémon Go. Fans of the decades-old Japanese game are now seeking to buy rare cards in mint condition for thousands of dollars, sometimes even millions. Learn more about the frenzy to collect these rare cards, and how influencer Logan Paul helped boost market interest in this article.

Created by college students in 2005, the broomstick-based sport became an international phenomenon with organized leagues and World Cup tournaments. Now called Quadball, it’s played in more than 40 countries worldwide.

It's becoming mainstream after being relegated to the dorks for decades. LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman has contemplated the role the game played in his own formation as a person and a business leader.

Over 50 million people worldwide are believed to have played D&D. The fantasy game, created in 1974, involves each player creating a character with unique qualities of their own choosing. Guided by a dungeon master, the group of players collectively narrates what happens in the journey. While the game is complicated with many rules and important lore, it can be seen as a group effort to tell and partake in a compelling story.

Characters from the popular video game series appear to reference the yōkai from Japanese folklore, which first became popular during the country's Edo period, when art and literature became mass-produced.

Experts believe the erosion of traditional community organizations has led to a loneliness epidemic. This deep dive explores how fantasy baseball has filled the gap for some men, providing a stand-in social network.

Major League Baseball is America’s oldest professional sports league. Alongside triumphs, the league has faced scandals, including drug abuse and steroid use, shaping its path over the decades. Today, MLB embraces new rules, international talent, and a growing connection to legalized sports betting.

“Memory Builder” was based on pinning historical events in their correct chronological order. It was test-marketed in 1891, but never took off. One critic said, “The game looked like a cross between an income tax form and a table of logarithms.”

Tolkien effectively invented modern fantasy, which often relies on an intricate universe, complete with its own languages, cultures, lifeforms, physics, and systems. When an author did this effectively, he called it “Faërie”—a sort of enchantment that transports the reader into the fictional world.

Recent rule changes in the league have increased passing and point-scoring, which critics argue is motivated by a desire to appeal to fantasy-loving viewers who might be frustrated by slower, lower-scoring games.

The world phenomenon of Harry Potter inspired millions of kids to read. The books, and the make-believe game quidditch (played by the hero), have inspired a real-life sport called Quadball, based on the fictional game involving flying broomsticks. Teacher John Ssentamu brought the game to his town of Katwadde in Uganda to bring kids—long absent from school—back to receive an education. A documentary crew filmed them playing in an inspiring story of education and community.

In fantasy, anything is possible, mirroring the supernatural worlds of history’s earliest stories. The narrative voice of fantasy is often similar to early tales, too, with an affinity for the magisterial rather than the contemporary.

In 1985’s “Super Mario Bros.,” Mario and Luigi grow larger—becoming “Super Mario Bros.”—if they ingested mushrooms. “...if you think of stories like ‘Alice in Wonderland’ and other types of fairy tales, mushrooms always seem to have a mysterious power, and so we thought the mushroom would be a good symbol for why they get it and get big,” Miyamoto told NPR in 2015.

A lot of 19th-century British fantasy was often stiff; its children’s literature was often overly didactic. Carroll’s novel—about a young girl who falls into an unusual world full—was neither, offering vivid, psychedelic imagery and seemingly nonsensical word games.

Tarot cards appear to be everywhere today, but their story starts not with fortune-telling, but with a card game for nobles in 15th-century Italy.

Based on the Michael Lewis book of the same name, the film starring Brad Pitt depicts the attempts of the 2002 Oakland A's to leverage data analysis to overcome their low-budget woes ($41M) and compete with big-budget teams like the New York Yankees ($125M). Other sports and leagues, including the NBA and NFL, would adopt a similar logic: find what the market undervalues and exploit it.

Tolkien's debut novel, 1937's "The Hobbit," was aimed at young adults, yet it felt far more serious than the whimsical tales of Lewis Carroll or L. Frank Baum. "What Tolkien does is take the 'otherworld' fantasy developed in the 19th century and makes it child-sized, melding it with folklore and Norse myth," notes Farah Mendlesohn, the author of "Rhetorics of Fantasy."

Bell and Pritchard only created the game to occupy their children's attention on vacation. As they continued playing the game, they began developing rules as-needed.

Miyamoto’s direction and Kondo’s sound showed younger generations the potential of video games, inspiring a more sophisticated form that moved far beyond the one-dimensional entertainment of the arcade era.

Curious about how fantasy football grew into a global empire? This video breaks down how a losing Oakland Raiders team led to the first form of fantasy football, long before the internet and smartphones made it a worldwide phenomenon.

Fantasy leagues often carry over from year to year, allowing people to hang on to (or forge) connections with others. Matthew Berry, a fantasy football analyst for NBC Sports, argues, “the truth is it’s all about the people. It’s not the draft, it’s not the trash talk or the punishments … It’s the people who make the draft and the trash talk and the punishments and the winning what it is.”

In a 2016 interview, journalist David Daley explained how Republicans used data-driven targeting after the 2010 census to lock in durable advantages, comparing modern gerrymandering strategies to the analytics revolution in baseball.

Garnet Carter and his wife Frieda owned and operated Fairyland, a roadside attraction on Lookout Mountain in Georgia. While other mini-golf courses tried to mimic the regal courses of its parent game, the Carters built obstacles and decorations from items they had around Fairyland, effectively inventing the leisure-minded version of the game.

Baseball, while commonly known as America's pastime, gets a bit of a bad rap for being long, slow, and boring. Here are fourteen fun ideas to make the sport more interesting to combat dwindling attendance.

Published in 2018 by baseball historian Jacob Kornhauser, this list examines the defining moments throughout more than a century of play on the field, from Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher Dock Ellis purportedly throwing a no-hitter while on acid to Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier.

When Carmen Sandiego swept onto the video game scene in 1985, the deluxe version of the game included historic photographs from National Geographic and music from the Smithsonian. Read this article to learn about the overlap between gaming and ancient architecture.

In November 2025, two pitchers for the Cleveland Guardians were charged with coordinating with sports bettors to enrich themselves and others. In many instances, they shared the kinds of pitches they would throw at specific points in the game. Bettors then placed money on those actions.

Before baseball, American football, basketball, or hockey ever organized in the US, there was one sport which could be found up and down the East Coast: cricket. The second-most popular sport in the world, cricket is mostly ignored by Americans, despite its prevalence in early American history. Learn more about the forgotten role cricket played in the US with this article.

Japanese anime and the National Basketball Association may not have obvious similarities, but fans have long noticed the shared themes of heroic accomplishment and intense competition. Both NBA players and fans draw inspiration from anime, comparing dramatic basketball moments to well-known anime scenes.