Fantasy sports know no borders, and today I will take you to Italy. Serie A Live is a fantasy soccer league focusing on the top Italian soccer league, the Serie A. The site is the brainchild of Serie A-lover Vince Cullotta and is one of the very first independent fantasy Serie A sites out there, with only Yahoo! and ESPN among the big fantasy sites playing in the Italian soccer market.

My favorite part is that Serie A Live has created a challenge for next season with its Serie A Champions League. The top 30 teams will compete in a champions league next year. This little nuance will keep players playing once they are out of the hunt for the top spot. Three months into the Serie A season, of the 219 players signed up, about 179 actively playing, which is an impressive percentage. In addition, the site also features live scoring, which is very high-end feature and keeps fantasy players regularly engaged.

A point about the internationalization of fantasy sports. Think back to about 1990 when the fantasy industry was full of little niche sites creeping up everywhere. Ultimately, those sites merged, emerged, failed, were acquired, and became part of the fantasy sites that we grow and love today. Well, for the rest of the world, it is 1990 all over. Except, this time around the new fantasy companies have the playbook from the past twenty years. There is no reason to make the same mistakes and to not do what you not works.

When I see a new site like Serie A Live investing in the features that are essential to running a successful game, like live scoring, and ways to innovate the game, it gets me excited. Cullotta is investing in making a top product. Once the market demand for fantasy Serie A grows (it will, just as fantasy EPL has grown), Serie A Live will be in a great position to capitalize and gain those new customers.

Congratulations to Vince on the site launch, and good luck with Serie A Live!