Fantasy sport
Encyclopedia
A fantasy sport is a game
where participants act as owners to build a team that competes against other fantasy owners based on the statistics
generated by the real individual players or teams of a professional sport
. Probably the most common variant converts statistical performance into points that are compiled and totaled according to a roster selected by a manager that makes up a fantasy team. These point systems are typically simple enough to be manually calculated by a "league commissioner." More complex variants use computer modeling of actual games based on statistical input generated by professional sports. In fantasy sports there is the ability to trade, cut, and sign players, like a real sports owner.
that 32 million people age 12 and above in the U.S. and Canada played fantasy sports in 2010. Participation has grown over 60 percent the past four years with 19 percent of males in the U.S. playing fantasy sports. A prior study by the FSTA showed 19.4 million people age 12 and above in the U.S. and Canada played fantasy sports in 2006 and 34.5 million people had ever played fantasy sports. A 2006 study showed 22 percent of U.S. adult males 18 to 49 years old, with Internet access, play fantasy sports. Fantasy Sports is estimated to have a $3–$4 Billion annual economic impact across the sports industry.
The hobby has also moved beyond the U.S. with fantasy leagues for soccer, cricket and other sports. For example, according to a 2008 study by Ipsos, the number of British fantasy sports players aged 16-64 is estimated to range between 5.5 and 7.5 million.
Of those, 80 percent of these players participate in fantasy soccer.
sociologist William Gamson
started the "Baseball Seminar" where colleagues would form rosters that earned points on the players' final standings in batting average, RBI
, ERA
and wins. Gamson later brought the idea with him to the University of Michigan
where some professors played the game. One professor playing the game was Bob Sklar, who taught an American Studies seminar which included Daniel Okrent
, who learned of the game his professor played. At around the same time a league from Glassboro State College also formed a similar baseball league and had its first draft in 1976.
While those two leagues focused on baseball, it may be football that produced the first version of the hobby.
The Greater Oakland Professional Pigskin Prognosticators League began in the early 1960s with eight teams. George Blanda
was the first player taken in the first draft in 1963.1963 draft results
is credited with inventing it, the name coming from the New York City restaurant La Rotisserie Francaise where he and some friends used to meet and play. The game's innovation was that "owners" in a Rotisserie league would draft teams from the list of active Major League Baseball players and would follow their statistics during the ongoing season to compile their scores. In other words, rather than using statistics for seasons whose outcomes were already known, the owners would have to make similar predictions about players' playing time, health, and expected performance that real baseball managers must make.
Because Okrent was a member of the media, other journalists, especially sports journalists, were introduced to the game. Many early players were introduced to the game by these sports journalists, especially during the 1981 Major League Baseball strike; with little else to write about, many baseball writers wrote columns about Rotisserie league.
A July 8, 1980 New York Times Article titled "What George Steinbrenner is to the American League, Lee Eisenberg is to the Rotisseries League" set off a media storm that led to stories about the league on CBS TV and other publications.
In March 1981, Dan Okrent wrote an essay about the Rotisserie League for Inside Sports called "The Year George Foster Wasn't Worth $36."
The article included the rules of the game. Founders of the original Rotisserie league published a guide book starting in 1984.
In 1982, Ballantine published the first widely-available Bill James
Abstract, which helped fuel fantasy baseball interest.
Fantasy fans often used James' statistical tools and analysis as a way to improve their teams.
James was not a fantasy player and barely acknowledged fantasy baseball in his annual Abstract, but fantasy baseball interest is credited with his strong sales.
Soon the hobby spread to other sports as well and by 1988, USA Today
estimated that five hundred thousand people were playing.
, that almost exclusively contained statistics and box scores.
Among the first high-profile experts were John Benson, Alex Patton and Ron Shandler.
Benson became perhaps the most famous name in the business in the late 1980s, publishing his first book in 1989 and developing one of the first draft-software simulation programs. He had a 900 number at $2.50 per minute.
Patton published his first book ('Patton's 1989 Fantasy Baseball League Price Guide ") in 1989 and his dollar values were included in USA Today Baseball Weekly's fantasy annual throughout the 1990s.
Ron Shandler
published his "Baseball SuperSTATS" book in November 1986. At first the book wasn't meant for fantasy baseball fans, but rather as a book of Sabrmetric analysis.
But it wasn't just baseball that saw new businesses and growth. Fantasy Football Index became the first annual fantasy football guide in 1987. Fantasy Sports Magazine debuted in 1989 as the first regular publication covering more than one fantasy sport.
Fantasy Football Weekly was launched in 1992 (later becoming Fanball.com) and had $2 million in revenue by 1999. A large number of companies emerged to calculate the stats for fantasy leagues and primarily send results via fax.
In 1993, USA Today included a weekly columnist on fantasy baseball, John Hunt, and he became perhaps the most visible writer in the industry before the rise of the Internet. Hunt started the first high-profile experts league, the League of Alternate Baseball Reality
which first included notables as Peter Gammons
, Keith Olbermann
and Bill James
.
The hobby continued to grow with 1 million to 3 million playing from 1991 to 1994.
While several fantasy businesses had migrated to the internet in the mid-1990s, the watershed era for online fantasy sports was in 1997 when two web sites made their debut that forever changed the fantasy sports industry: Commissioner.com and RotoNews.com
.
Commissioner.com launched on January 1, 1997 and first offered a fantasy baseball commissioner service that changed the nature of fantasy sports with real-time stats, league message boards, daily updated box scores and other features—all for $300 per league.
Commissioner.com was sold to SportsLine late in 1999 for $31 million in cash and stock in a watershed moment for the fantasy industry. The sale proved fantasy sports had grown from a mere hobby to big business. By 2003, Commissioner.com helped SportsLine generate $11 million from fantasy revenue. Commissioner.com is now the fantasy sports engine behind the CBSSports.com
fantasy area (after SportsLine was sold to CBS in 2004).
RotoNews.com
also launched in January 1997 and published its first player note on February 16, 1997.
RotoNews revolutionized how fantasy sports information was presented on the web with the innovation of the "player note" which were snippets of information every time a player got hurt, traded, benched or had a news event that impacted his fantasy value - all search-able in a real-time database.
Most sites today follow how RotoNews had a "news" and "analysis" element to each player update. Within two years RotoNews had become one of the top ten most trafficked sports sites on the web, according to Media Metrix, ranking higher than such sites as NBA.com. RotoNews.com was sold to Broadband Sports
in 1999 and later survived as RotoWire.com.
It wasn't long before the larger media players got involved. Yahoo.com added fantasy sports in 1999 and offered most of its games for free - a largely new business model for fantasy sports.
A trade group for the industry, the Fantasy Sports Trade Association
was formed in 1998.
Other entries during this era included Fanball.com, launched in 1999 by the parent company of Fantasy Football Weekly.
The first survey of the fantasy sports market in the U.S. in 1999 showed 29.6 million people age 18 and older played fantasy games. However, that figure was reduced in later years when it was determined the survey also included people who play NCAA bracket pools, which are not exactly fantasy sports (where you pick individual players).
boom of the Internet, there was a turbulent period when many of the high-flying Internet companies of the era crashed in 2001.
Fanball.com went bankrupt in 2001 (later to re-emerge in 2001). RotoNews.com's parent company, Broadband Sports
, went belly up in 2001. The company would re-emerge as RotoWire.com.
There were also wide variations on business models. RotoNews.com
launched the Web's first free commissioner service in 1998, quickly becoming the largest league management service.
Yahoo.com became the first major media company to offer games for free in 1999. Due to the rising competition, Commissioner.com, which had charged as much as $300, offered its commissioner services for free starting with football in 2000.
Two years later the trend reversed. Sportsline moved back to a pay model for commissioner services (which it largely still has today).
TheHuddle.com, a free site since 1997, started to charge for information.
RotoWire.com moved from a free model to a pay model in 2001 as well.
Despite the economic instability, fantasy sports started to become a mainstream hobby. In 2002, the NFL found that average male surveyed, for example, spent 6.6 hours a week watching the NFL on TV; fantasy players surveyed said they watched 8.4 hours of NFL per week.
"This is the first time we've been able to demonstrate specifically that fantasy play drives TV viewing," said Chris Russo, the NFL's senior vice president. The NFL began running promotional television ads for fantasy football featuring current players for the first time. Previously fantasy sports had largely been seen in a negative light by the major sports leagues.
Fantasy sports continued to grow with a 2003 Fantasy Sports Trade Association
survey showing 15 million people playing fantasy football and spending about $150 a year on average, making it a $1.5 billion industry.
Notable games in these new categories include:
Additionally, new types of fantasy sports games have continued to evolve. In particular, starting in 2006 a number of operators such as Fantazzle, 365FantasySports, DraftZone, Fanduel and Snapdraft have offered daily draft games where players can draft, play and win (or lose) within a single day. It is still unclear whether these types of games will see mainstream adoption.
, a major statistical provider to fantasy sports companies, won a court case, along with Motorola
, on appeal against the NBA in which the NBA was trying to stop STATS
from distributing in game score information via a special wireless device created by Motorola. The victory played a large part in defending other cases where sports leagues have tried to suppress live in-game information from their events being distributed by other outlets. The victory also accelerated the market for real-time statistics which were largely fueled by the growth of the fantasy sports industry.
, MLB's
Internet company, vs. St. Louis-based CBC Distribution and Marketing Inc., the parent company of CDM Sports. When CBC was denied a new licensing agreement with MLBAM (they had acquired the rights from the baseball players' association) for its fantasy baseball game, CBC filed suit.
CBC argued that intellectual property laws and so-called "right of publicity" laws don't apply to the statistics used in fantasy sports. The FSTA
filed an amicus curiae
in support of CBC, also arguing that if MLBAM won the lawsuit it would have a dramatic impact on the industry, which was largely ignored by the major sports leagues for years while a number of smaller entrepreneurs grew it into a multi-billion dollar industry, and a ruling could allow the MLBAM to have a monopoly over the industry.
"This will be a defining moment in the fantasy sports industry," said Charlie Wiegert, executive vice president of CBC. "The other leagues are all watching this case. If MLB prevailed, it just would have been a matter of time before they followed up. Their player unions are just waiting for the opportunity."
CBC won the lawsuit as U.S. District Court Judge Mary Ann Medler ruled that statistics are part of the public domain and can be used at no cost by fantasy companies.
"The names and playing records of major-league baseball players as used in CBC's fantasy games are not copyrightable," Medler wrote. "Therefore, federal copyright law does not pre-empt the players' claimed right of publicity."
The 8th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the decision in October 2007. "It would be strange law that a person would not have a First Amendment right to use information that is available to everyone," a three-judge panel said in its ruling.
The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the 8th Circuit Court's decision by declining to hear the case in June 2008.
, which was an amendment to the larger and unrelated SAFE Port Act
, included "carve out" language that clarified the legality of fantasy sports. It was signed into law on October 13, 2006 by President George W. Bush
. The act makes transactions from banks or similar institutions to online gambling sites illegal, with the notable exceptions of fantasy sports, online lotteries
and horse
/harness racing
.
The bill specifically exempts fantasy sports games, educational games, or any online contest that "has an outcome that reflects the relative knowledge of the participants, or their skill at physical reaction or physical manipulation (but not chance), and, in the case of a fantasy or simulation sports game, has an outcome that is determined predominantly by accumulated statistical results of sporting events, including any non-participant's individual performances in such sporting events..."
However, all prizing must be determined in advance of the competition and can not be influenced by the fees or number of participants. Fantasy sports are considered gambling and therefore illegal if the competition does not meet this rule: "prizes and awards offered to winning participants are established and made known to the participants in advance of the game or contest and their value is not determined by the number of participants or the amount of any fees paid by those participants."
was formed in 1999 to represent the growing industry. The Fantasy Sports Writers Association was formed in 2004 to represent the growing numbers of journalists covering fantasy sports exclusively. The Fantasy Sports Association
was formed in 2006.
, one of only four U.S. states to legalize sports betting, will offer fantasy sports wagering for the first time.
Game
A game is structured playing, usually undertaken for enjoyment and sometimes used as an educational tool. Games are distinct from work, which is usually carried out for remuneration, and from art, which is more often an expression of aesthetic or ideological elements...
where participants act as owners to build a team that competes against other fantasy owners based on the statistics
Statistics
Statistics is the study of the collection, organization, analysis, and interpretation of data. It deals with all aspects of this, including the planning of data collection in terms of the design of surveys and experiments....
generated by the real individual players or teams of a professional sport
Sport
A Sport is all forms of physical activity which, through casual or organised participation, aim to use, maintain or improve physical fitness and provide entertainment to participants. Sport may be competitive, where a winner or winners can be identified by objective means, and may require a degree...
. Probably the most common variant converts statistical performance into points that are compiled and totaled according to a roster selected by a manager that makes up a fantasy team. These point systems are typically simple enough to be manually calculated by a "league commissioner." More complex variants use computer modeling of actual games based on statistical input generated by professional sports. In fantasy sports there is the ability to trade, cut, and sign players, like a real sports owner.
Size of hobby
It's estimated by the Fantasy Sports Trade AssociationFantasy Sports Trade Association
The Fantasy Sports Trade Association is the largest and oldest trade group representing the fantasy sports industry with over 120 members, including Matt ranging from small startups to large media corporations...
that 32 million people age 12 and above in the U.S. and Canada played fantasy sports in 2010. Participation has grown over 60 percent the past four years with 19 percent of males in the U.S. playing fantasy sports. A prior study by the FSTA showed 19.4 million people age 12 and above in the U.S. and Canada played fantasy sports in 2006 and 34.5 million people had ever played fantasy sports. A 2006 study showed 22 percent of U.S. adult males 18 to 49 years old, with Internet access, play fantasy sports. Fantasy Sports is estimated to have a $3–$4 Billion annual economic impact across the sports industry.
The hobby has also moved beyond the U.S. with fantasy leagues for soccer, cricket and other sports. For example, according to a 2008 study by Ipsos, the number of British fantasy sports players aged 16-64 is estimated to range between 5.5 and 7.5 million.
Of those, 80 percent of these players participate in fantasy soccer.
Early history - pre-"rotisserie"
The concept of picking players and running a contest based on their year-to-date stats has been around since shortly after World War II, but was never organized into a widespread hobby or formal business. In 1960, Harvard UniversityHarvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
sociologist William Gamson
William A. Gamson
William Anthony Gamson is a professor of Sociology at Boston College, where he is also the co-director of the Media Research and Action Project ....
started the "Baseball Seminar" where colleagues would form rosters that earned points on the players' final standings in batting average, RBI
Run batted in
Runs batted in or RBIs is a statistic used in baseball and softball to credit a batter when the outcome of his at-bat results in a run being scored, except in certain situations such as when an error is made on the play. The first team to track RBI was the Buffalo Bisons.Common nicknames for an RBI...
, ERA
Earned run average
In baseball statistics, earned run average is the mean of earned runs given up by a pitcher per nine innings pitched. It is determined by dividing the number of earned runs allowed by the number of innings pitched and multiplying by nine...
and wins. Gamson later brought the idea with him to the University of Michigan
University of Michigan
The University of Michigan is a public research university located in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the United States. It is the state's oldest university and the flagship campus of the University of Michigan...
where some professors played the game. One professor playing the game was Bob Sklar, who taught an American Studies seminar which included Daniel Okrent
Daniel Okrent
Daniel Okrent is an American writer and editor. He is best known for having served as the first public editor of The New York Times newspaper, for inventing Rotisserie League Baseball, and for writing several books, most recently Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition.-Education and...
, who learned of the game his professor played. At around the same time a league from Glassboro State College also formed a similar baseball league and had its first draft in 1976.
While those two leagues focused on baseball, it may be football that produced the first version of the hobby.
The Greater Oakland Professional Pigskin Prognosticators League began in the early 1960s with eight teams. George Blanda
George Blanda
George Frederick Blanda was a collegiate and professional football quarterback and placekicker...
was the first player taken in the first draft in 1963.1963 draft results
Modern founding - "La Rotisserie"
The landmark development in fantasy sports came with the development of Rotisserie League Baseball in 1980. Magazine writer/editor Daniel OkrentDaniel Okrent
Daniel Okrent is an American writer and editor. He is best known for having served as the first public editor of The New York Times newspaper, for inventing Rotisserie League Baseball, and for writing several books, most recently Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition.-Education and...
is credited with inventing it, the name coming from the New York City restaurant La Rotisserie Francaise where he and some friends used to meet and play. The game's innovation was that "owners" in a Rotisserie league would draft teams from the list of active Major League Baseball players and would follow their statistics during the ongoing season to compile their scores. In other words, rather than using statistics for seasons whose outcomes were already known, the owners would have to make similar predictions about players' playing time, health, and expected performance that real baseball managers must make.
Because Okrent was a member of the media, other journalists, especially sports journalists, were introduced to the game. Many early players were introduced to the game by these sports journalists, especially during the 1981 Major League Baseball strike; with little else to write about, many baseball writers wrote columns about Rotisserie league.
A July 8, 1980 New York Times Article titled "What George Steinbrenner is to the American League, Lee Eisenberg is to the Rotisseries League" set off a media storm that led to stories about the league on CBS TV and other publications.
In March 1981, Dan Okrent wrote an essay about the Rotisserie League for Inside Sports called "The Year George Foster Wasn't Worth $36."
The article included the rules of the game. Founders of the original Rotisserie league published a guide book starting in 1984.
In 1982, Ballantine published the first widely-available Bill James
Bill James
George William “Bill” James is a baseball writer, historian, and statistician whose work has been widely influential. Since 1977, James has written more than two dozen books devoted to baseball history and statistics...
Abstract, which helped fuel fantasy baseball interest.
Fantasy fans often used James' statistical tools and analysis as a way to improve their teams.
James was not a fantasy player and barely acknowledged fantasy baseball in his annual Abstract, but fantasy baseball interest is credited with his strong sales.
Soon the hobby spread to other sports as well and by 1988, USA Today
USA Today
USA Today is a national American daily newspaper published by the Gannett Company. It was founded by Al Neuharth. The newspaper vies with The Wall Street Journal for the position of having the widest circulation of any newspaper in the United States, something it previously held since 2003...
estimated that five hundred thousand people were playing.
Early analysts/businesses
In the few years after Okrent helped popularize fantasy baseball, a host of experts and businesses emerged to service the growing hobby. Okrent, based on discussions with colleagues at USA Today, credits Rotisserie league baseball with much of USA Today's early success, since the paper provided much more detailed box scores than most competitors and eventually even created a special paper, Baseball WeeklySports Weekly
USA Today Sports Weekly is a weekly magazine that covers Major League Baseball, Minor League Baseball, NCAA baseball and the National Football League. In the February 15, 2006 issue, the magazine added coverage of NASCAR...
, that almost exclusively contained statistics and box scores.
Among the first high-profile experts were John Benson, Alex Patton and Ron Shandler.
Benson became perhaps the most famous name in the business in the late 1980s, publishing his first book in 1989 and developing one of the first draft-software simulation programs. He had a 900 number at $2.50 per minute.
Patton published his first book ('Patton's 1989 Fantasy Baseball League Price Guide ") in 1989 and his dollar values were included in USA Today Baseball Weekly's fantasy annual throughout the 1990s.
Ron Shandler
Ron Shandler
Ron Shandler is the author of Baseball Forecaster, an annual publication focused on applying sabermetrics to fantasy baseball, and founder of , a website with the same focus....
published his "Baseball SuperSTATS" book in November 1986. At first the book wasn't meant for fantasy baseball fans, but rather as a book of Sabrmetric analysis.
But it wasn't just baseball that saw new businesses and growth. Fantasy Football Index became the first annual fantasy football guide in 1987. Fantasy Sports Magazine debuted in 1989 as the first regular publication covering more than one fantasy sport.
Fantasy Football Weekly was launched in 1992 (later becoming Fanball.com) and had $2 million in revenue by 1999. A large number of companies emerged to calculate the stats for fantasy leagues and primarily send results via fax.
In 1993, USA Today included a weekly columnist on fantasy baseball, John Hunt, and he became perhaps the most visible writer in the industry before the rise of the Internet. Hunt started the first high-profile experts league, the League of Alternate Baseball Reality
LABR
LABR was the first high-profile fantasy sports experts league of its kind. Formed by John Hunt, the fantasy baseball columnist for USA Today Baseball Weekly, the league was first formed in 1994 and featured such celebrities as Peter Gammons, Keith Olbermann and Bill James...
which first included notables as Peter Gammons
Peter Gammons
Peter Gammons is an American sportswriter, media personality, and a recipient of the J. G. Taylor Spink Award for outstanding baseball writing, given by the BBWAA.-Education:...
, Keith Olbermann
Keith Olbermann
Keith Theodore Olbermann is an American political commentator and writer. He has been the chief news officer of the Current TV network and the host of Current TV's weeknight political commentary program, Countdown with Keith Olbermann, since June 20, 2011...
and Bill James
Bill James
George William “Bill” James is a baseball writer, historian, and statistician whose work has been widely influential. Since 1977, James has written more than two dozen books devoted to baseball history and statistics...
.
The hobby continued to grow with 1 million to 3 million playing from 1991 to 1994.
Internet boom
The seminal moment for the growth of fantasy sports was the rise of the Internet in the mid-1990s. The new technology lowered the barrier to entry to the hobby as stats could quickly be compiled online and news and information became readily available.While several fantasy businesses had migrated to the internet in the mid-1990s, the watershed era for online fantasy sports was in 1997 when two web sites made their debut that forever changed the fantasy sports industry: Commissioner.com and RotoNews.com
RotoWire
RotoWire.com is a company based in Madison, Wisconsin, U.S. that specializes in fantasy sports news and fantasy-style games.RotoWire provides fantasy news and information to ESPN, Yahoo! Sports, FoxSports.com, NASCAR.com, NFL.com, NBA.com, and Baseball Prospectus.RotoWire is the successor to...
.
Commissioner.com launched on January 1, 1997 and first offered a fantasy baseball commissioner service that changed the nature of fantasy sports with real-time stats, league message boards, daily updated box scores and other features—all for $300 per league.
Commissioner.com was sold to SportsLine late in 1999 for $31 million in cash and stock in a watershed moment for the fantasy industry. The sale proved fantasy sports had grown from a mere hobby to big business. By 2003, Commissioner.com helped SportsLine generate $11 million from fantasy revenue. Commissioner.com is now the fantasy sports engine behind the CBSSports.com
CBSSports.com
CBSSports.com was founded in 1994 as SportsLine USA, and today is a CBS-owned website that provides sports scores, news, statistics, live and on-demand video, mobile apps, e-commerce, fantasy sports products, services, and information..Headquartered in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, CBSSports.com it is...
fantasy area (after SportsLine was sold to CBS in 2004).
RotoNews.com
RotoWire
RotoWire.com is a company based in Madison, Wisconsin, U.S. that specializes in fantasy sports news and fantasy-style games.RotoWire provides fantasy news and information to ESPN, Yahoo! Sports, FoxSports.com, NASCAR.com, NFL.com, NBA.com, and Baseball Prospectus.RotoWire is the successor to...
also launched in January 1997 and published its first player note on February 16, 1997.
RotoNews revolutionized how fantasy sports information was presented on the web with the innovation of the "player note" which were snippets of information every time a player got hurt, traded, benched or had a news event that impacted his fantasy value - all search-able in a real-time database.
Most sites today follow how RotoNews had a "news" and "analysis" element to each player update. Within two years RotoNews had become one of the top ten most trafficked sports sites on the web, according to Media Metrix, ranking higher than such sites as NBA.com. RotoNews.com was sold to Broadband Sports
Broadband Sports
Broadband Sports is a social media and video sharing website focused on extreme sports. The Broadbandsports.com domain and "Broadband Sports" name was originally founded in 1998, later becoming a high-flying dotcom-era network of sports-content Web sites that raised over $60 million before shutting...
in 1999 and later survived as RotoWire.com.
It wasn't long before the larger media players got involved. Yahoo.com added fantasy sports in 1999 and offered most of its games for free - a largely new business model for fantasy sports.
A trade group for the industry, the Fantasy Sports Trade Association
Fantasy Sports Trade Association
The Fantasy Sports Trade Association is the largest and oldest trade group representing the fantasy sports industry with over 120 members, including Matt ranging from small startups to large media corporations...
was formed in 1998.
Other entries during this era included Fanball.com, launched in 1999 by the parent company of Fantasy Football Weekly.
The first survey of the fantasy sports market in the U.S. in 1999 showed 29.6 million people age 18 and older played fantasy games. However, that figure was reduced in later years when it was determined the survey also included people who play NCAA bracket pools, which are not exactly fantasy sports (where you pick individual players).
Dotcom era
While fantasy sports were fueled by the dot-comDot-com bubble
The dot-com bubble was a speculative bubble covering roughly 1995–2000 during which stock markets in industrialized nations saw their equity value rise rapidly from growth in the more...
boom of the Internet, there was a turbulent period when many of the high-flying Internet companies of the era crashed in 2001.
Fanball.com went bankrupt in 2001 (later to re-emerge in 2001). RotoNews.com's parent company, Broadband Sports
Broadband Sports
Broadband Sports is a social media and video sharing website focused on extreme sports. The Broadbandsports.com domain and "Broadband Sports" name was originally founded in 1998, later becoming a high-flying dotcom-era network of sports-content Web sites that raised over $60 million before shutting...
, went belly up in 2001. The company would re-emerge as RotoWire.com.
There were also wide variations on business models. RotoNews.com
RotoWire
RotoWire.com is a company based in Madison, Wisconsin, U.S. that specializes in fantasy sports news and fantasy-style games.RotoWire provides fantasy news and information to ESPN, Yahoo! Sports, FoxSports.com, NASCAR.com, NFL.com, NBA.com, and Baseball Prospectus.RotoWire is the successor to...
launched the Web's first free commissioner service in 1998, quickly becoming the largest league management service.
Yahoo.com became the first major media company to offer games for free in 1999. Due to the rising competition, Commissioner.com, which had charged as much as $300, offered its commissioner services for free starting with football in 2000.
Two years later the trend reversed. Sportsline moved back to a pay model for commissioner services (which it largely still has today).
TheHuddle.com, a free site since 1997, started to charge for information.
RotoWire.com moved from a free model to a pay model in 2001 as well.
Despite the economic instability, fantasy sports started to become a mainstream hobby. In 2002, the NFL found that average male surveyed, for example, spent 6.6 hours a week watching the NFL on TV; fantasy players surveyed said they watched 8.4 hours of NFL per week.
"This is the first time we've been able to demonstrate specifically that fantasy play drives TV viewing," said Chris Russo, the NFL's senior vice president. The NFL began running promotional television ads for fantasy football featuring current players for the first time. Previously fantasy sports had largely been seen in a negative light by the major sports leagues.
Fantasy sports continued to grow with a 2003 Fantasy Sports Trade Association
Fantasy Sports Trade Association
The Fantasy Sports Trade Association is the largest and oldest trade group representing the fantasy sports industry with over 120 members, including Matt ranging from small startups to large media corporations...
survey showing 15 million people playing fantasy football and spending about $150 a year on average, making it a $1.5 billion industry.
New fantasy game genres
With the growth of the industry, fantasy has branched out to include non-sports related games focused on politics, celebrity gossip, movies, and reality TV.Notable games in these new categories include:
- Fantasy CongressFantasy CongressFantasy Congress was an online fantasy simulation sport where players, called citizens, could draft members of the United States House and Senate, and keep track of their participation within the U.S. Congress...
- Fantasy Mogul
- Daily Fantasy SportsDaily Fantasy SportsThe concept of the daily fantasy sports game is relatively new. It takes the traditional fantasy sports model and compresses it into a daily, and sometimes weekly, game.- History :...
Additionally, new types of fantasy sports games have continued to evolve. In particular, starting in 2006 a number of operators such as Fantazzle, 365FantasySports, DraftZone, Fanduel and Snapdraft have offered daily draft games where players can draft, play and win (or lose) within a single day. It is still unclear whether these types of games will see mainstream adoption.
STATS, Inc. vs NBA
In 1996, STATS, Inc.STATS, Inc.
STATS LLC is a global sports statistics and information company – the company name originated as an acronym for "Sports Team Analysis and Tracking Systems". It was founded on April 30, 1981 by John Dewan, who became the company's CEO...
, a major statistical provider to fantasy sports companies, won a court case, along with Motorola
Motorola
Motorola, Inc. was an American multinational telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois, which was eventually divided into two independent public companies, Motorola Mobility and Motorola Solutions on January 4, 2011, after losing $4.3 billion from 2007 to 2009...
, on appeal against the NBA in which the NBA was trying to stop STATS
STATS, Inc.
STATS LLC is a global sports statistics and information company – the company name originated as an acronym for "Sports Team Analysis and Tracking Systems". It was founded on April 30, 1981 by John Dewan, who became the company's CEO...
from distributing in game score information via a special wireless device created by Motorola. The victory played a large part in defending other cases where sports leagues have tried to suppress live in-game information from their events being distributed by other outlets. The victory also accelerated the market for real-time statistics which were largely fueled by the growth of the fantasy sports industry.
CDM vs. MLBAM
The development of fantasy sports produced tension between fantasy sports companies and professional leagues and players associations over the rights to player profiles and statistics. The players associations of the major sports leagues believed that fantasy games using player names were subject to licensing due to the right of publicity of the players involved. Since the player names were being used as a group, the players had assigned their publicity rights to the players association who then signed licensing deals. During the 1980s and 1990s many companies signed licensing deals with the player associations, but some companies did not. The issue came to a head with the lawsuit of Major League Baseball Advanced Media (MLBAM)MLBAM
Major League Baseball Advanced Media, L.P., is a limited partnership of the club owners of Major League Baseball, and is the internet and interactive branch of the league. The company operates the official web site for the league and 30 Major League Baseball club web sites via MLB.com, which draws...
, MLB's
Major League Baseball
Major League Baseball is the highest level of professional baseball in the United States and Canada, consisting of teams that play in the National League and the American League...
Internet company, vs. St. Louis-based CBC Distribution and Marketing Inc., the parent company of CDM Sports. When CBC was denied a new licensing agreement with MLBAM (they had acquired the rights from the baseball players' association) for its fantasy baseball game, CBC filed suit.
CBC argued that intellectual property laws and so-called "right of publicity" laws don't apply to the statistics used in fantasy sports. The FSTA
Fantasy Sports Trade Association
The Fantasy Sports Trade Association is the largest and oldest trade group representing the fantasy sports industry with over 120 members, including Matt ranging from small startups to large media corporations...
filed an amicus curiae
Amicus curiae
An amicus curiae is someone, not a party to a case, who volunteers to offer information to assist a court in deciding a matter before it...
in support of CBC, also arguing that if MLBAM won the lawsuit it would have a dramatic impact on the industry, which was largely ignored by the major sports leagues for years while a number of smaller entrepreneurs grew it into a multi-billion dollar industry, and a ruling could allow the MLBAM to have a monopoly over the industry.
"This will be a defining moment in the fantasy sports industry," said Charlie Wiegert, executive vice president of CBC. "The other leagues are all watching this case. If MLB prevailed, it just would have been a matter of time before they followed up. Their player unions are just waiting for the opportunity."
CBC won the lawsuit as U.S. District Court Judge Mary Ann Medler ruled that statistics are part of the public domain and can be used at no cost by fantasy companies.
"The names and playing records of major-league baseball players as used in CBC's fantasy games are not copyrightable," Medler wrote. "Therefore, federal copyright law does not pre-empt the players' claimed right of publicity."
The 8th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the decision in October 2007. "It would be strange law that a person would not have a First Amendment right to use information that is available to everyone," a three-judge panel said in its ruling.
The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the 8th Circuit Court's decision by declining to hear the case in June 2008.
Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006
The Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006
The Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 is United States legislation regulating online gambling. It was added as Title VIII to the SAFE Port Act which otherwise regulated port security...
, which was an amendment to the larger and unrelated SAFE Port Act
SAFE Port Act
The Security and Accountability For Every Port Act of 2006 was an Act of Congress in the United States covering port security and to which an online gambling measure was added at the last moment...
, included "carve out" language that clarified the legality of fantasy sports. It was signed into law on October 13, 2006 by President George W. Bush
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
. The act makes transactions from banks or similar institutions to online gambling sites illegal, with the notable exceptions of fantasy sports, online lotteries
Online lottery
Online lottery is an online version of the traditional lottery. Online lottery enable players to buy tickets through the internet.Online lottery sites offers tickets for sale, a review of the latest lottery results, stories from recent winners, lottery odds and some of them offers free lottery...
and horse
Horse racing
Horse racing is an equestrian sport that has a long history. Archaeological records indicate that horse racing occurred in ancient Babylon, Syria, and Egypt. Both chariot and mounted horse racing were events in the ancient Greek Olympics by 648 BC...
/harness racing
Harness racing
Harness racing is a form of horse racing in which the horses race at a specific gait . They usually pull a two-wheeled cart called a sulky, although racing under saddle is also conducted in Europe.-Breeds:...
.
The bill specifically exempts fantasy sports games, educational games, or any online contest that "has an outcome that reflects the relative knowledge of the participants, or their skill at physical reaction or physical manipulation (but not chance), and, in the case of a fantasy or simulation sports game, has an outcome that is determined predominantly by accumulated statistical results of sporting events, including any non-participant's individual performances in such sporting events..."
However, all prizing must be determined in advance of the competition and can not be influenced by the fees or number of participants. Fantasy sports are considered gambling and therefore illegal if the competition does not meet this rule: "prizes and awards offered to winning participants are established and made known to the participants in advance of the game or contest and their value is not determined by the number of participants or the amount of any fees paid by those participants."
Popular sports
- Fantasy baseballFantasy baseballFantasy baseball is a game where participants manage an imaginary roster of real Major League baseball players. The participants compete against one another using those players' real life statistics to score points...
- Fantasy cricketFantasy cricketFantasy Cricket is a part of the Fantasy Sports genre. It is an online game where you create a virtual team of real cricket players and score points depending on how your chosen players perform in real life matches. To win a tournament, you must work towards attaining the maximum points and the No....
- Fantasy football (American)Fantasy football (American)Fantasy football is an interactive, virtual competition in which people manage professional football players versus one another and that allows people to act as general managers of a pseudo-football team. The players that an individual is able to manage are professional American Football players...
- Fantasy football (Australian rules football)Fantasy football (Australian rules football)Fantasy football is a fantasy sport in which competitors score points based on the performance of players in the Australian Football League. The two biggest competitions are the Herald Sun's Supercoach competition and the AFL's Dream Team competition .Other competitions include Fox Sport's Fantasy...
- Fantasy football (Association)
- Fantasy basketballFantasy basketballFantasy basketball was inspired by fantasy baseball. Originally played by keeping track of stats by hand, it was popularized during the 1990s after the advent of the Internet. Those who play this game are sometimes referred to as General Managers , who draft actual NBA players and compute their...
- Fantasy golfFantasy golfFantasy golf is a game in which the participants each assemble a team of real life golfers and then score points based on those players' performance in golf tournaments, with games typically following the US PGA Tour and the European Tour. Many formats exist for players' selection of golfers and...
- Fantasy hockeyFantasy hockeyFantasy hockey is a form of fantasy sport where players build a team that competes with other players who do the same, based on the statistics generated by professional hockey players or teams...
- Fantasy Auto RacingFantasy Auto RacingFantasy auto racing is a type fantasy sports game based on motor sports. Players, also known as fantasy team owners, select a roster of drivers to earn points according to actual race results. Player scores, as determined by their drivers' actual racing results, are sorted within a league of...
- Fantasy Sports stock simulationsFantasy Sports stock simulationsA fantasy sports stock simulation is a type of fantasy sport game. It differs from standard fantasy sports games, which involve drafting teams and competing against another teams in a league in certain statistical categories...
- Fantasy professional wrestlingFantasy wrestlingFantasy wrestling is an umbrella term representing the genre of role-playing and statistics-based games which are set in the world of professional wrestling...
- Fantasy CongressFantasy CongressFantasy Congress was an online fantasy simulation sport where players, called citizens, could draft members of the United States House and Senate, and keep track of their participation within the U.S. Congress...
- Fantasy Surfing
- Daily Fantasy SportsDaily Fantasy SportsThe concept of the daily fantasy sports game is relatively new. It takes the traditional fantasy sports model and compresses it into a daily, and sometimes weekly, game.- History :...
Associations
The Fantasy Sports Trade AssociationFantasy Sports Trade Association
The Fantasy Sports Trade Association is the largest and oldest trade group representing the fantasy sports industry with over 120 members, including Matt ranging from small startups to large media corporations...
was formed in 1999 to represent the growing industry. The Fantasy Sports Writers Association was formed in 2004 to represent the growing numbers of journalists covering fantasy sports exclusively. The Fantasy Sports Association
Fantasy Sports Association
The Fantasy Sports Association is a trade group that was found in 2006 to advance the interests of the fantasy sports industry.-Mission:...
was formed in 2006.
Montana Lottery to offer Fantasy Sports Wagering
In autumn 2008, the Montana LotteryMontana Lottery
The Montana Lottery is run by the government of Montana. It is a member of the Multi-State Lottery Association . The Montana Lottery has a large number of games, such as scratch tickets, Powerball, Hot Lotto, Wild Card 2, and Montana Cash....
, one of only four U.S. states to legalize sports betting, will offer fantasy sports wagering for the first time.