While the long-term viability of fantasy NASCAR is still unclear, if you want to get into the fantasy racing mix, the domain name FantasyNASCAR.com is currently for sale. A quick visit to fantasynascar.com, you will see a single quote:

One thing is forever good; That one thing is Success.

The quote is from Ralph Waldo Emerson and is suggesting, in this case, that owning the domain name will help bring its new owner success. It does not take a rocket scientist to see that a fantasy racing site called FantasyNASCAR.com would enjoy many advantages such as recallability and, most importantly, search engine optimization. A current, credible Fantasy NASCAR site, would easily float to the top of the search rankings, bringing instant traffic to the site. What a would-be owner does with that traffic is a different story, but the opportunity for success would be there. If you are interested in purchasing the domain name, you may email info@gibbsestate.com for further details.

Of course, one should be warned when purchasing a domain name with a trademark, that you may ultimately lose it. Large companies (like NASCAR) have lawyers and know how to get domain names that infringe on their trademarks. For example, earlier this week, Microsoft had 23 Windows related domain names transferred to it.

However, if you were to buy FantasyNASCAR.com and build a fantasy NASCAR site that promoted the sport and was a compliment to regular NASCAR coverage, you would be in a much better position to not instantly lose your site. It would be to NASCAR’s and your benefit to work out a relationship that will allow you both to succeed. Just remember that ultimately NASCAR does hold the final leverage and could probably get the name domain from you.

Presidents’ Day Weekend is coming, which can mean only one thing, the running of the Daytona 500 and the start of the 2010 NASCAR season. This also means the start of the fantasy NASCAR racing season as well. You probably have not thought too much about fantasy racing, so there is a lot of information to learn in a very short period of time.

First, you will need to catch up and read some fantasy racing draft kits, such as NASCAR’s official fantasy draft kit or OneBadWheel‘s Fantasy Racing Cheatsheet. Then, once you are ready to play but are still looking for a fantasy NASCAR racing league for the upcoming season, there are plenty of options. Here are just a few that you may want to consider:

• Yahoo! Auto Racing Yahoo!’s fantasy leagues are great for beginners and/or leagues looking for simplicity. As the market-leader, Yahoo’s game is a one-size fits most approach. It is free to join a public league and free private leagues are available.
• NASCAR Fantasy Cap Challenge NASCAR’s official fantasy racing game is back. It is a free weekly salary cap game. NASCAR has a top prize of $5,000, with segment winners pulling in $500 and weekly winners fetching $200. Further, NASCAR claims it is the only fantasy racing game that will have live in-game stats.
• Fox Auto Racing Challenge Another free weekly fantasy racing salary cap game, but this one has a couple of twists. Score extra points with your the driver you designated as your captain, plus score bonus points for drivers who substantially improve from their starting positions.
• Fantazzle Fantasy Racing Offering free and paid fantasy games, Fantazzle offers weekly salary cap games where you compete against one to four players in the paid games and fourteen others in the free game. The free game even has a $5 prize.
• Fantasy Cup Auto Racing Fanball’s fantasy racing game gives you the opportunity to win a $25,000 top prize. Fantasy Cup is a salary cap game where you maintain a stable of drivers, and you are allowed to switch some of your drivers out each week. This game does cost $39.95 to play, but it does allow you to compete for the largest prize in fantasy racing.
• Running 3 Wide Fantasy NASCAR Racing This site has a number of fantasy racing games for your entertainment pleasure. From weekly to full season games that come in various formats, you are sure to find one that gets your interest.
• SPEED Fantasy Racing SPEED TV is getting itself into the fantasy racing mix with its own fantasy racing game. Each week fantasy players select three drivers and score points accordingly. This free fantasy racing game breaks the season into three session, with each season having a top prize of $1500.
• RotoPlay Fantasy NASCAR RotoPlay’s fantasy racing game breaks the NASCAR season into 12 sessions. Fantasy players select 12 drivers and a lucky 13th driver and score points based on how well its drivers finish. The top prize is $600 per session. RotoPlay is a paid game, with teams starting at $24.95, but get cheaper as you purchase additional teams.

If you do not like any of these fantasy racing games, there are a number of other fantasy racing sites that you may want to check out, just search fantasy racing.

Do you know of any other fantasy racing games that should be included in this list?

I told you earlier about how CBS Sports was cancelling its fantasy NASCAR and fantasy golf games for 2010. Now, it is clear that ESPN is also on this bandwagon and is cancelling its fantasy NASCAR game for 2010 as well. One of our readers received the following message upon logging into his ESPN account:

Although it is a bit fuzzy, it says:

GAME NOTICE
The 2009 racing season will be the last season for ESPN Fantasy Stock Car. Thank you for playing and check back next February to sign up for our other great fantasy racing games on ESPN.com. If you have any questions, please call the Fantasy Help Desk at 1-888-549-ESPN.

This message seems to imply that there will be a new game come Daytona 500 time, but I am not buying it. Why would you tell your customers that the game is gone and chase them away, and then, try to get them back with a new and improved version a month later? If there was a new and improved version coming, you would tell them that right away would you not?

This announcement backs up the speculation that has been going on in ESPN Fantasy message boards for a while now (see Don’t Cancel Fantasy Stock Car and This game won’t be back next year). As in the case of most niche fantasy games, Fantasy NASCAR fans are a very rabid fan base. One reader even offered to run the game for ESPN.

Again, this is a disappointing turn of events. Fantasy NASCAR has been tauted as the next big thing in fantasy sports, but with CBSSports.com and ESPN both dropping it, it may not be as commercially viable as once thought.

ESPN’s decision to cut fantasy NASCAR is probably the same reason that CBSSports.com cut its game–money. Between statistic costs, software maintenance, marketing, and writers, running a fantasy game on a major site like ESPN.com could easily get expensive with very little direct return to date. With everyone’s budgets tight these days, it is not surprising to see a reduction in services.

If you are looking for a business opportunity in the fantasy space, creating a simple fantasy NASCAR game may be. You would not have the same cost infrastructure as ESPN and may actually be able to make money doing it. Just a thought.

In an interesting move, it appears that CBSSports.com is abandoning fantasy golf and fantasy NASCAR for the 2010 season. I heard some rumors about this over the last month and received confirmation from a message board posting by CBSSports.com writer Ross Davenport in a discussion about CBS 2010 Fantasy Golf.

I have an email in to CBSSports.com about this development, and will update once I know more. My guess is that this was a money thing. Fantasy golf and fantasy nascar, despite the hope for these sports, just do not have the numbers to justify the costs of the games. Between statistic costs, software maintenance, marketing, and writers, running a fantasy game on a major site like CBSSports.com could easily get expensive with very little direct return to date. With everyone’s budgets tight these days, it is not surprising to see a reduction in services.

Killing these games is surprising to me for different reasons. Golf and CBS Sports have a long standing relationship, so CBSSports.com dropping fantasy golf is a pretty big indication of how futile its efforts have been in developing the fantasy golf market.

Fantasy NASCAR has had a lot of hype around it as the next big fantasy game. However, it is still exactly that– hype. That market has not quite materialized as everyone had imagined. Perhaps this is CBSSports.com deciding that the market is just not there yet, and it needs to cut bait.

Definitely an interesting development. What do you think?

In the mean time, you can check out my earlier post about where to play fantasy golf if you now find yourself in need of a new fantasy golf league.