Fantasy Ethos

TweetBracket and 140Bets Preview Future Fantasy Sports?

By: Derrick Eckardt | Categories: 140Bets, March Madness, New Site, Technology, Twitter
TweetBracket

In all of this March Madness, one site has peaked my interest a bit. It was TweetBracket. TweetBracket is a test application for 140Bets who is building a platform to allow users to make binary selections, have the information tweeted out (optional), and then have it seamlessly track all of your picks against those of your friends. For the NCAA tournament, 140Bets has set-up a demonstration with TweetBracket in which users select which team they think will win, and 140Bets does the rest. To make it interesting, it is providing prizes like HDTVs and a ... Read More

Matthew Berry Gets Branded ESPN Page

By: Derrick Eckardt | Categories: ESPN, Fantasy Baseball, Matthew Berry
Matthew Berry

When ESPN purchased Matthew Berry's The Talented Mr. Roto, one of its goals was to make Matthew Berry its Mel Kuiper Jr. of fantasy sports. From appearing on its NFL pre-games shows, starring in commercials, producing podcasts, and being their go-to guy for fantasy sports, ESPN has fully come through on that promise. Now, ESPN is taking it one step further with the launch of a page for Matthew Berry. The page becomes a resource for all things Matthew Berry. From video on Berry's appearance on "One Life to Live" to his most recent article involving ... Read More

Obligatory Tiger Woods Fantasy Golf Post

By: Derrick Eckardt | Categories: Fantasy Golf, Tiger Woods
Tiger Woods

Since the most recent Tiger Woods news actually pertains to real news and not just the shattering of Tiger's fantasy life, I thought it actually merited coverage. Tiger Woods announced that he will return to golf to play in the Masters tournament next month. Woods' much publicized infidelity has made him take a hiatus from the game and seek counseling as he tries to put his personal life back together. Woods' impact on fantasy golf is legendary and problematic at the same time. The dominance he has displayed in golf similarly leads to dominance in fantasy ... Read More

Yahoo! Acquires Citizen Sports

By: Derrick Eckardt | Categories: Acquistions, Citizen Sports, Yahoo!
Yahoo! Fantasy Sports

Sometimes, there is truth to a rumor. Yahoo! announced today that it did in fact go shopping and purchased Citizen Sports to further solidify its fantasy sports empire. Citizen Sports Inc is leading developer of fantasy sports games that are built into social networks, such as Facebook. While Yahoo! is clearly the leader in fantasy sports right now, this acquisition of Citizen Sports positions itself way to dominate the emerging social network fantasy sports leagues. Oddly enough, Citizen Sports Inc started as ProTrade featuring a stock market like fantasy sports game. However, as it saw the ... Read More

Fantasy Book Review: Moneyball

By: Derrick Eckardt | Categories: Fantasy Book Review, Moneyball
Moneyball

We go back to our bookshelves for this week's Fantasy Book Review here on Fantasy Ethos. I am happy to announce that today's review is Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game by Michael Lewis. Prior to the release of Moneyball, Sabermetrics was something of which only serious stat geeks cared about. Moneyball gives you incredible insight as to how Billy Beane managed to put together teams that won no fewer than 87 games from 1999 to 2006 despite having one of the tiniest payrolls in baseball. Michael Lewis was given unlimited behind-the-scenes access to ... Read More

Interview with Geoff Stein of Fanball

By: Derrick Eckardt | Categories: Fanball, Interviews
Geoff Stein

After being part of a two-man team that took Mock Draft Central from fantasy obscurity to a necessary feature on every major fantasy site, Geoff Stein is now a Senior Editor at Fanball. I recently got a chance to pepper Geoff with some questions that I help shed some light on this emerging player in the fantasy sports industry. How did you get involved in fantasy sports? I drafted my first fantasy football team as a sophomore in high school back in 1999. I went undefeated in the regular season with the likes of Peyton Manning, Marvin ... Read More

Fantasyland Film Set to Premiere on Friday

By: Derrick Eckardt | Categories: Fantasy Baseball, Fantasyland, Video
Fantasyland Film

This upcoming Friday, the release of the Fantasyland, the film version hits your internet on Snag Films and Hulu. The movie, which is based on Sam Walker's tale in Fantasyland, (You can read our book review of Fantasyland here), is a documentary featuring Jed Latkin who in 2008 recreated Sam's steps by first competing in Tout Wars and then travelling around the country to make his fantasy baseball team just that much better every day. I am seeing a sneak peak of the movie of this week and will have my review for you prior ... Read More

Need a Fantasy Baseball League Constitution? Use Tout Wars’

By: Derrick Eckardt | Categories: Fantasy Baseball, Tout Wars
Tout Wars

We you play fantasy sports, you want to play with the best. In fantasy baseball, that is widely considered to be Tout Wars. If you cannot get a spot in Tout Wars, you can always just play by their rules. Right now, you can view the Tout Wars constitution and get a glimpse as to how fantasy sports' elite fantasy players like to play fantasy baseball. The highlights of the constitution are that Tout Wars uses an auction format and not a draft, as is probably most common. Plus, Tout Wars utilizes Vickery Free Agent Acquisition ... Read More

MLB Advanced Media Takes Over ESPN’s Live Streaming

By: Derrick Eckardt | Categories: ESPN, MLB, Video
MLB Advanced Media

Major League Baseball Advanced Media will be able to complete its hat-trick of online sports video offerings in a new deal with ESPN. MLB.TV and March Madness On Demand are two of the finest live video offerings on the internet and will now be joined by the 3500 live events streamed by ESPN. The new site will called ESPN3.com, which will be a rebranding of the current ESPN360.com offering. Apparently, technology was a key factor in the decision to use MLBAM, as the previous version of ESPN360 required users to download Microsoft Silverlight. ESPN360.com became one ... Read More

To Pay or Be Free for Fantasy Sports

By: Derrick Eckardt | Categories: Fantasy Baseball, Free, RotoRank
Pay or Free?

There's a great discussion going on in the Fantasy Sports Executives group on LinkedIn right now about whether a niche fantasy sports site should use a free or pay revenue model. This is a question the industry has struggled with since its inception. For the smaller fantasy sites, this is a life or death question. Gerry ScottoDiMarco of RotoRank started the discussion. His site utilized a subscription revenue base for the last six years, but is concerned that his subscription base will be flat or decline for the 2010 fantasy baseball season. This is a ... Read More

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