I have read and thought about the fact Fidelity fired four employees for playing fantasy football. A lot of people in the industry have been upset about this as it sets a bad precedent, Andy Behrens at Yahoo! actually toldFidelity employees to stop reading his column for fear of losing their jobs, and the Fantasy Sports Trade Association (FSTA) even responded to the firings. It seems everyone in the industry is busy throwing stones at Fidelity. Honestly, the Fidelity case is inconsequential to the bigger issue. Fantasy sports has an image problem, and it is being perceived as gambling.

Having a piece of legislation may make the reality of a fantasy industry a legal possibility, but does not do a lot to fight the perception. Perception of fantasy sports is what gets them banned, not the reality. If we, as an industry, do not want to be treated as part of the gambling industry, we need to find ways to proactively get that message.

Merely saying “there’s a law that says we are” is not going to cut it. Fidelity is not the only company to ban fantasy sports in the office, but how many of the Human Resources departments are actually aware of the legality of fantasy sports? Very few I would bet. Have we every made a concerted effort to reach out to them? Probably not. These are the people that set policy. Remember, if 30M people play fantasy sports, that means 270M do not play fantasy sports. That is nine out of ten people who do not play fantasy. The people who are setting policy about fantasy sports probably do not know much about fantasy sports. They need to be educated.

Next, the fantasy industry needs to police itself a whole lot better. Off the top of my head, I can name three sites that had significant issues with or failed to pay its players (Turf War, AFFL, and Fantasy Jungle). The industry’s general reaction was “that’s a shame, come play our games because that will not happen here.” Nothing was done to make sure it did not happen again. Preventing such things are hard, but the industry needs to be squeaky clean if it wants a better image.

Trade organizations are a start, but it means nothing if anyone who pays can join. Perhaps, if you want to be a member and are a games site, you have to provide verification that all prize funds are available and in an escrow account? Then, these companies can market the daylights out of the fact that money is already put aside and secure. This could also be achieved by a third party (read: non-fantasy) certification. Perhaps requiring member sites that deal with prizes to get something like Better Business Bureau OnLine accreditation. The industry needs that trusted brand that helps establish them as a legit industry in the eyes of big business.

There are countless other things that can and need to be done to clean up this perception. It will not happen overnight, but until the industry is proactive, events like the Fidelity firings will continue to happen.

This is a hot topic, so please let me know your thoughts.

Did Robert Meachem’s fantasy touchdown cause you to miss the playoffs? With your fantasy football team officially done for the season and you might want to keep playing fantasy football, you can check out Fanball‘s SnapDraft.

If you go to any of the SnapDraft sites and sign up now, you receive a $5 sign-up bonus. With some leagues starting at just a $0.20 registration fee, you can get a lot of legs out of it. You can currently play SnapDraft on Comcast, Facebook, SB Nation, Yardbarker, and RotoWire. In other words, just about anywhere you probably are already spending a little bit (or a lot) of time.

Last week we gave you a free coupon code for RapidDraft, so I thought it only fair to balance it out by letting you know that you had another option for a free trial of an instant fantasy sports game. In fact,

SnapDraft is simple to play. All you have to do is pick which league you want to join (there are countless you can). Then, when once enough people sign-up to join a particular league, you draft a team. Then, you compete for just that night. Once the league’s games are over, your league is over. It is that simple.

If you have a hankering for some fantasy, snap to it! (pun fully and completely intended)

I received a lot of great feedback about yesterday’s article Robert Meachem’s Touchdown Causes Fantasy Controversy. The general consensus was that Meachem should get credit for the touchdown. Of course, it could just be that the Saints defense owners were content with credit for the touchdown and the Meachem owners were outraged and much more vocal.

In an interesting turn, Yahoo! reversed its decision overnight and awarded the touchdown to Robert Meachem and not the Saints defense. Honestly, this probably makes the most sense because while Meachem at that point was considered a defensive player, he is considered an offense player in the system. As one reader pointed out to me in an email:

An offensive team is an offensive team and a defensive team is a defensive team. A change in possession does not change that or by definition, we could never have defensive touchdowns. As soon as the defensive team came into possession of the ball, they would become the offensive team. To think that designation changes at the time of a change of possession simply defies logic the way we play the game.

Whether he scores a touchdown as a member of the offense or defense, he should get credit for the touchdown.

But, it all makes for a little fun controversy at the last minute, eh? Like I said yesterday, no matter what the final resolution is in your league, there will be fantasy owners in some leagues who will feel cheated out of a playoff spot, or even, a fantasy football title. That’s just how it goes. Just like real football.

Currently as of 10:00am this morning, on Yahoo! Fantasy Football (and possibly other scoring systems), no one is being credited for Robert Meachem’s crazy touchdown.

In yesterday’s Saints-Redskin’s game, Drew Brees threw an interception. On the interception return, Saints wide receiver Robert Meachem stripped the ball, recovered the fumble, and took the ball 44 yards for a touchdown. In fantasy football land, who gets the touchdown?

According to the football rulebook, once an interception is thrown, the offense (the Saints in this case) is now considered the defense. When Meachem stripped the ball, the defense is then credited with a fumble and the defense is the one who scored the touchdown.

Now, from a fantasy perspective, does Meachem get credit for the touchdown? It depends. If your league credits the defense and special teams with the touchdown and not the individual player, then the New Orleans defense should get credit for the touchdown. If your league credits individual players on defense and special teams with the touchdown, then Meachem should get credit for the touchdown. Right now, no one is getting credit for it, and that is a problem.

Update: Yahoo! has updated its scoring, and the New Orleans defense is now being credited with the touchdown, since with the change in possession, Meachem was considered a defense player. This is probably the most fair scoring and is also what other fantasy sites are adopting (CBSSports.com has already done it as well). Well done by Yahoo! for getting it fixed relatively quickly. However, there will still be some upset fantasy players over this one.

According to its rules, Yahoo! can make scoring corrections through Wednesday, so do not be surprised if this matter is eventually settled out and either the Saints’ defense or Robert Meachem ends up with credit for it. In the mean time, players are wondering where their points for Robert Meachem are.

Either way, this play will impact countless fantasy leagues and playoff implications, particularly since this was the last week of the fantasy football regular season for many teams. It reminds me of the Brian Westbrook kneel down two years ago or when Donovan McNabb scored a touchdown on a Wednesday three years ago.

Because I love my Fantasy Ethos readers so much, I was able to procure a coupon for Rapid Draft for you for a free trial. Well, Rapid Draft’s Jeff Thomas posted it in the comments section of an earlier post (Get Your Own Fantasy Shuts Down). However, I am reposting it here for you so that you can get yourself into a free fantasy football league this weekend, so that has to count for something? I did not have to repost this Rapid Draft coupon, and you may have missed it. How do you feel about that now? Good, glad we are seeing eye-to-eye on this.

For a free trial of Rapid Draft, use the coupon code Go4It. Then, when you are done, let me know what you thought of the game.

Enjoy!

If you are wondering what to get that die-hard fantasy football fan (or for yourself, for that matter), may I suggest you get them some fantasy football themed t-shirts? If you think about it, a t-shirt is probably the one thing in which fantasy football players are probably most comfortable. Why would you fight it?

Art of the Fan has some great fantasy football t-shirts. Below are three of my favorites that I came across from Art of the Fan and another site:

	As the shirt description says, “How do you think Harry Potter would do in fantasy football? He’d probably cast some sort of spell to get the first pick, but waste it on a quarterback.” This playful t-shirt brings two fantasy worlds into one. Purchase Fantasy Football at Busted Tees.
	Some people spend years learning to become a doctor or lawyer. But, not this man. He dedicated himself to finding the best way to optimize his fantasy football skills. While he may never actually win a championship, a fantasy football genius he is. Purchase Fantasy Football Genius at Art of the Fan.
	There are times when words cannot simply express how someone feels about the important things in life: family, love, and fantasy football. With this t-shirt straight from Prince’s playbook, your favorite fantasy player will know exactly how you feel about him. Purchase Fantasy Football Icon at Art of the Fan.

These are just the tip of the iceberg. There are tons more shirts that you get from Cafe Press and Busted Tees

Note: If you follow this links and purchase, I will receive a small commission.

By harnessing the real-time nature of Twitter, Fantasy TweetZone lets fantasy players know who the most talked about fantasy football players are at any given moment. Right now, Larry Johnson’s release and uncertain status is topping its chart, as it should be. Fantasy TweetZone is an advertising tie-in with Sprint‘s ad campaign where it totals everything that is going on in its network; Fantasy TweetZone totals up everything fantasy football related on Twitter.

I love the concept of this site because it gives fantasy players easy access to which players have significant developing news. Monitoring this site on a regular basis may give fantasy players an edge when a no-name player emerges on the chart, indicating that something is happening with that player. Also, it allows fantasy players to see how others view the same athletes. For example, clicking on Marion Barber’s TweetZone page right now brings up a number of trades that fantasy players are considering for Marion Barber. If you are a Barber owner or lust after having him on your team, you can get a feel for what might be a fair trade offer for Barber.

Unfortunately, the site has a bit of noise in its relevancy, such as being unable to differentiate jokes about Michael Vick and Reggie Bush from real fantasy news. Also, the most popular players tend to be the most talked about players, creating additional noise. However, for a first edition of this tool, I think this is an acceptable noise level. Besides, who still does not enjoy a good Michael Vick joke these days?

This is an excellent use of Twitter. Federated Media, the company that launched the tool, has taken public domain data and analyzed it to bring value to fantasy players. Currently, the site is only monitoring fantasy football, but with the site branding just as Fantasy TweetZone, don’t be surprised if this gets expanded into other sports.

Well done!

Note: Ads for this site may or may not have run on this site a month ago when I had some ads up from an ad network. I never saw the ads myself, but allegedly they were running.

Lots of really good articles have been written in the last week or so, and these are a few I thought that I would pass along to you. Go ahead, take a read:

• From RotoWire: Usually the argument is whether fantasy football is better than fantasy baseball. But, Kenn Ruby dares to argue both sides of the “which is better, fantasy football or fantasy basketball” argument. Check out Why Fantasy Football is Better Than Fantasy Basketball and Why Fantasy Basketball is Better Than Fantasy Football
• From Open Sports: Daniel Dobish of Open Sports writes about ten reasons to play Fox’s Fantasy Quick challenge. Expect he never mentions that Fox Sports is a major investor in Open Sports and that Open Sports actually built the game for Fox (see: Fox Sports Outsources Fantasy to Open Sports). It is perfectly fine to promote your products, but let users know you are, because it is sort of illegal now, according to the latest FTC guidelines on advertisements.
• From USA Today: Looks like ESPN is looking to bid for March Madness, which has been on CBS Sports for the longest time. Honestly, I could careless which network broadcasts the NCAA Tournament, but if this means the end of March Madness on Demand, there will be some very upset fans (and happy managers).
• From Bleacher Report: I love this diatribe about how fantasy football on the whole needs to really start including real defensive stats. In Walter Kirkwood’s Man Up, America: It’s Time for Defense in Fantasy Football, I love how he asks if I even knew about Patrick Willis‘ phenomenal rookie season, and then he read my mind by daring me to name his team. I had clue (it’s SF), but the article is an entertaining read.

Don’t forget to come back here often for more fantasy goodness.

The idea of a fantasy sportsbook is not a new idea as several sites such as Pickspal (and some epic failures such as NBX) are built around a similar premise. FanGamb is taking a fresh look at this concept and is differentiating itself by focusing on private leagues where the players know each other. Rather than competing with similar fantasy sportsbook concepts, FanGamb is positioning itself as an alternative form of fantasy football.

I was fortunate enough to alpha test FanGamb over the summer and play its game. Playing FanGamb follows the KISS Principle very well by making making selections painless with a four-step process, which is always a plus. From a game play perspective (screenshot below), FanGamb gives players countless strategy possibilities such as making lots of smaller bets or fewer larger bets. Most importantly, you are playing against people you know, so the competitiveness and conversation within the league increases, both pluses.

One of the things that I like about FanGamb is nothing that most customers would not notice. FanGamb is actually the first product launch from Three Screen Games (TSG). The founders of TSG have strong marketing and technical backgrounds, which I often find lacking in new fantasy companies. Co-founder Justin Goldman built and launched YNOT Advertising, while other co-founder Robert Shedd is a former IBM project manager. As long as FanGamb is able to build a strong and loyal customer base (I realize this is a big if), it has the tools and may have finally found a winning combination for fantasy sportsbooks.

Good luck to Justin and Robert as they build FanGamb.

It is a well-known fact that fantasy football players skew towards a male demographic that is between the ages of 30 and 50. If you are a motor oil company, this is a demographic that you need to target. Starting in September, Castrol sponsored the Sporting News’ Fantasy Football site, and got some great results. Traffic to Castrol’s website soared and even surpassed long-time rival Shell. As compete.com has pointed out with some great data, this increase in traffic for Castrol is no fantasy (head over there if you want to some pretty graphics).

Castrol’s sponsorship went well beyond just banner ads. The entire site was skinned with Castrol logos and its colors. Plus, it cleverly branded some of buttons and site features. The result was that the Sporting News was the number one referring site to Castrol (even more than Google, how many sites can say that?). For Castrol, clearly this was a very successful campaign.

It is great to see an example of advertising working in the fantasy sports industry. But, something to note is that Castrol’s presence was a persistent one. Frequent visitors associated the brand with the fantasy football game and eventually needed to check out Castrol’s site. If you just run banner ads, you do not get that kind of response. If you fully integrate with a site, you can still get some great results.

By the way, the site now appears to be sponsored by Prestone anti-freeze, another product that appeals to that mostly male demographic.

Kudos to Sporting News and Castrol for developing a relationship that worked for the both them.