The thrill of fantasy sports leagues has never really captured my attention, but this year, I grudgingly caved in and signed myself up — first to a fantasy Formula 1 competition and now to a fantasy soccer league based on the English Premiership.

So far, the new experience hasn’t been much of a personal success. I used to have a pretty exhaustive, perhaps even obsessive, knowledge of F1 until a few years ago, when I just got bored of the whole circus. The sport was originally about finding a fine balance between technology and skill, but now it’s simply a case of who manages to best interpret what the rules mean. The regulations change by so much every single year that fans, teams and drivers alike are left guessing at the beginning of each new season about how the sport is now supposed to work. The football equivalent of such radical rule changes would be discovering the NFL had replaced the goal posts with a giant hoop one year, then switched from four downs to eight, then cut the field length from 100 yards to 80, etc.

And adding to the general frustration, I lie 48th out of 51st in this make-believe F1 league. Fantastic.

Only time will tell how bad I am at predicting soccer results, but I fear for the worst. Though I love soccer, I don’t pay that much attention to the Premier League because the team I support doesn’t play in it. In the same way that my fantasy F1 ambitions have been hurt by a lack of knowledge, I suspect my soccer experiment will suffer a similar fate.

But even if I did regularly pay attention to the top flight of English soccer, I still suspect I wouldn’t do very well. Dry statistics don’t really excite me that much, but it’s attention to them that wins fantasy sports titles. The raw, numerical analysis of sport takes little notice of the human factor and the background stories that add emotional depth to a match. For me, calling these statistical competitions fantasy sports is a little misleading. Fantasy refers to an extravagant and unrestrained imagination. Real fantasy sports wouldn’t be held back by attention to real-world rules. I’m talking full-contact golf, football on ice or Usain Bolt racing a cheetah.

Ironically, while my fantasy F1 competition is restrained by the rules of the real sport, the rulers of that sport are actually living this dream. No regulation that may take their fancy, however bizarre, is off limits.

Creating a fantasy sports league, though, is not that simple. You just can’t change the rules because you’re not in the real world, and the only way to determine whose team is better is by turning to those cold, hard statistics. But I don’t give up that easily. Perhaps instead of just allowing you to just assemble a team of players from one single sport, a real fantasy league should be blind to segregation. Why, for example, can’t my team include a quarterback, a pinch hitter, a shooting guard, a striker and a wicketkeeper? Why can’t I have both men and women on my team?

Ok, I can see the obvious points of contention: what game they’re supposed to be playing, how to rate them against each other and the stark contrasts in the cost of different personnel. But if you look at most team sports, winning — obviously the most important thing — is achieved by having both a good offense and defense, and by working as a team. The most important statistics are therefore those that reward these capabilities, and reduced to that level, it should be possible to compare any player in any sport. Even the hugely varying costs of players in different sports can be leveled out by considering their comparative value instead of raw dollar amounts. Teams in the NBA obviously pay players far more than those in the MLL (Major League Lacrosse), but dividing by the total of all salaries paid in each respective league would mean players could be bought according to their real sporting value.

By being open to any sport, fantasy leagues would also be open to anyone too. Lack of insight into baseball wouldn’t be a problem, since perhaps you’d know more about rugby. And even more so than normal fantasy leagues, this system would reward a knowledge of hidden gems, not just in smaller teams but in smaller sports. The wider your sporting interest, the better.

But perhaps I’m indulging in a little too much fantasy now. Having signed myself up to two leagues already, I should be paying a bit more attention to the real world.

Tom Taylor is planning to add sports columnists to his fantasy team when his proposals are adopted. Explain why he won’t be making the cut for your squad at tom.taylor “at” stanford.edu.