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

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

My inbox has just been flooded with copies of a landmark announcement--the Sporting News has let its players know that it will no longer provide fantasy games to its readers. In an email from the Sporting News' President and Publisher Jeff Price, he writes: Dear Valued Fantasy Games Player, Due to a shift in our core business strategy, SportingNews.com will no longer offer new fantasy games going forward (excluding Strat-O-Matic). The fantasy industry is changing, and we feel it's best to devote our resources to providing the best fantasy content and advice on the internet, and ... Read More

One of my favorite websites out there is Indexed. It features a fair bit of geek humor as author Jessica Hagy breaks down concepts into simple terms featuring venn diagrams, x-y axis, and other commonly seen diagrams. Today, she diverted from mathematical designs to display her concept of a fantasy league: Aside from the fact that there is no way a ghost would beat a yeti, this does bring up a good point. While we in the industry like to bring up the fact that 30 million Americans play fantasy sports, that also means over 270 ... Read More

Wow! I struggled with how big a move this is initially. The fact that Yahoo! Sports Fantasy Baseball '10 Named Official Online Fantasy Game for MLB.com indicated that it is much more profitable for MLB Advanced Media (MLBAM) to partner with Yahoo for its fantasy baseball game than produce it themselves. MLBAM is easily the most technologically advanced of the professional leagues, is easily top five companies for digital sports capabilities, and has a ton of awards to provide it. Running fantasy baseball leagues is something that it can easily do (and has done in the ... Read More

Draft Analyzer is one of my favorite tools for the fantasy baseball season and it is back for the 2010 fantasy baseball season. Just like it did for the football season, Draft Analyzer is now fully accessible through the web (in the past, it was an application that you had to download). Since I like to consider myself a numbers guy and what I have always been particularly fond of with Draft Analyzer is how simple it makes the whole drafting process. I tell it all about my league's scoring, roster requirements, how many teams, draft ... Read More

We are one week into Fantasy Ethos' March Madness and promise of 65 posts this month. This marks the twelth post of the month and puts us right around schedule. With that in mind, here are some links to get your brain going this Monday: Inaugural FantasyFootball.com Roundtable Discussion (FantasyFootball.com) It is March, and these guys are discussing what the fantasy foootball season will bring. Questions that will not be fully answered until December. Hey, someone has to get the ball rolling on these discussions. Do's and don'ts of fantasy (SI.com) David Sabino provides fantasy baseball drafting ... Read More

What is easily the largest prize for any fantasy horse racing game, Derby Dreamer has unleashed its game that allows fantasy players to create fantasy stables that could be worth $10,000 a month. For an entry fee of $12 per stable, fantasy players select 18 horses and five jockeys to ride for their stable. Then, stables accumulate points depending on how well their jockeys and horses perform. The stable with the most points each month wins $10,000. As an added bonus for March, the monthly winner will receive two box seat tickets for the Kentucky ... Read More

Last night I had the opportunity to attend one of Baseball HQ's First Pitch Forums in Washington, DC. I had never been to a fantasy baseball seminar before, so I was not really sure what to expect. After a few year of trial and error, Ron Shandler has hit on a format that seems to work really well. The whole program was broken into nine innings (or sections), and the information that doled out was broken into manageable and themed chunks (ex: 5 pitchers at workload risk). Plus, the crowd was kept regularly engaged by answering ... Read More

This one scores high points for just coolness. The Peoria Chiefs (the Cubs A-Ball affiliate) are offering their luxury suites at O'Brien Field for use for fantasy baseball drafts this spring. For $35 per person, each league is provided a suite for four hours to draft, an all-you-can-eat buffet, draft beer, internet, and ticket to a future game. Heck, for that set-up, I could skip the draft all together and just hangout in a luxury suite all day. Why more stadiums and team do not do this, I do not know. Getting to draft at a ... Read More