caught this on outside the lines last night which is normally as boring a show as its host, but this was an interesting debate.

 

to summarize, fantasy sports is a $150 million dollar industry. mlb and the nfl players' association see little, if any, of that money as they at present charge nominal licensing fees for use of players' names and statistics (i think they said yahoo pays 25 cents to the nfl for each fantasy football team in all of its leagues). the debate is heating up because mlb and the nfl want a bigger piece of the pie. they consider the player names proprietary and are bringing their case to the courts to allow the charging of heavy licensing fees for use of them. the industry says if this goes through, obviously the bill will be passed on to the consumer in the form of $50-$150 entry fees for any team in a league. ouch.

 

the greediness of mlb sickens me but i think they've got a great point. however i enjoy free fantasy sports, so i'm hoping there's a sticking point or a loophole.

caught this on outside the lines last night which is normally as boring a show as its host, but this was an interesting debate. 

 

to summarize, fantasy sports is a $150 million dollar industry.  mlb and the nfl players' association see little, if any, of that money as they at present charge nominal licensing fees for use of players' names and statistics (i think they said yahoo pays 25 cents to the nfl for each fantasy football team in all of its leagues).  the debate is heating up because mlb and the nfl want a bigger piece of the pie.  they consider the player names proprietary and are bringing their case to the courts to allow the charging of heavy licensing fees for use of them.  the industry says if this goes through, obviously the bill will be passed on to the consumer in the form of $50-$150 entry fees for any team in a league.  ouch. 

 

the greediness of mlb sickens me but i think they've got a great point.  however i enjoy free fantasy sports, so i'm hoping there's a sticking point or a loophole.

 

I guess I'd have to go back to the old days where a friend and I would get the paper and figure all the points out for each game manually. THAT SUCKED!!

 

I honestly don't think this will ever happen. I mean the nfl could charge more and then yahoo could in turn charge more....but then people would just create their own fantasy sites. As long as there are stats posted somewhere online....people can pull that into a program and spit out points. It would be more of a pain in the ass, but it can happen.

I doubt they win.

 

Statistics are public domain.

 

They could try and prevent them from using the names of the teams and player names with out having a licensing agreement, but that would be a pretty flimsy argument. First of all they already allow Yahoo, ESPN, etc to use all logos associated with the NFL, MLB. So there must be a licensing agreement that already governs that.

 

I mean its some what complicated with out all of the facts, but in the end its just like how they can make "Barry Bonds" with a different name, but his stats are the same. He does not own the stats, neither does MLB or NFL.

 

My guess is they are just trying to get a settlement, only like 3% of cases ever go to trial.

 

SB

The leagues need to understand that fantasy leagues create interest thus dollars for the leagues and the teams. Even the teflon nfl couldn't absorb a pr hit like this.

i follow baseball MUCh more closely due to my fantasy baseball playing. I used to not care a lick about other teams. I can now tell you who everyones closer is, best rbi guy, stolen base threats, I know about rookies before they play, etc. It already went up this year, and got started later than usual due to MLBPA trying to get more money. I will not pay much more than I am now. Especially if I don't win this year!

I feel bad. These guys aren't making enough money now. I have $34 left from the second place money I won last year. Who do I make the check out to?