If you visit Fanball, you will see the counter (pictured on the left) that tracks how much prize money SnapDraft players have won. As of the writing of this article, that number is right around $1.5M in just about a year. Which means Fanball and its partners have made approximately $150,000 from these games. While this is not an incredibly large number, it is an excellent proof that money can be made with instant fantasy sports, and instant fantasy sports have a potentially huge upside.

With fantasy seasons lasting for months, most fantasy companies are limited to a short time-frame to sell to its customers. If you do not have a good (selling) season, you have to wait a year before you can try again. Instant fantasy sports present an opportunity to sell to fantasy players throughtout the entire fantasy season. Instant fantasy sports are leagues that often feature fewer teams and are played for much shorter durations, usually a day or a weekend. The rise of the instant fantasy sports market has been an interesting one, and this bit of data about SnapDraft’s performance is the most promising I have seen to date.

From a business perspective, instead of getting someone to spend $25 for a team in the beginning of the season, you get them to spend $5 each week throughout the 17 weeks of the fantasy football season. In a dream world, you are able to sell that $25 season-long team, and then keep players spending throughout the season, as they those interest with their original teams. Ultimately, you are bringing in more revenue at a much more constant rate.

The downside of this market is that it really only appeals to the much more hardcore fantasy player. However, these are the customers that spend the most, and even a casual fantasy player can be persuaded to play if a buddy recommends the game. Instant fantasy sports may very well be the biggest growth market in the fantasy market over the next five years.

If you are looking to give some of these instant fantasy sports game, you can check out our instructions on how to play SnapDraft for free, use a free RapidDraft Coupon Code, or check out FanDuel‘s suite of instant fantasy sports games.

You think graphic design does not matter? It matters a whole lot more than you even think. What is worse, is when you spend money on graphic design, it is not even done right. You know those Snickers ads where they put some funny phrase where ‘snickers’ should be on a Snickers bar. You might have seen them on the side of a city bus or a even in a web banner.

Well, a graphic designer named Sprout came across one of these ads themed around fantasy football and could not resist the urge to clean it up. On his site Sproutworx, he says, “Hey, Snickers web ad art director, I fixed your terrible ad for you.”

There is an important lesson here: pay attention to the details. You will agree that the version of the ad on the bottom looks a whole lot better than the one on the top. The sad part about this is that someone was actually paid to do the design work in the first place, and it still looked bad.

I would like to wish everyone who reads, follows, subscribes, retweets, discovers, links, and recommends Fantasy Ethos a Merry Christmas. If Christmas is not the holiday season that you personally observe, I hope you and your family are enjoying the holiday season and have a happy season of family.

This last year has been by far the most trying from a fantasy perspective for me, and the supporters of this site have helped me through it a whole lot more than you might even realize.

Thank you.

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.

While everyone has been talking about Tiger Woods way more than they ever did during the golf off-season, I would like to remind you that the start of the golf season is less than a month away. This also means that the fantasy golf season is just around the corner.

Personal observation: Smaller sites tend to do a better job with fantasy golf. This is a function of the fact that smaller sites dedicated to fantasy golf really care about fantasy golf. Whereas, in the case of a larger fantasy company that has many games, fantasy golf is just a drop in the bucket, and is not nearly as important to the company as other fantasy games. With that being said, when picking a game, do your homework, be careful, email in questions, use message boards, and/or ask around.

I know you must be dying to get your virtual driver going and get onto the fantasy fairway with 2010 fantasy golf. With that in mind, I have compiled the details about a number of fantasy golf sites for your inspection. If you have any thoughts on any of these sites, please feel free to add them in the comments section. Also, I would like to Colin Robertson for contributing on a number of these evaluations:

Pro Tour Fantasy Golf

• Format: Pick three golfers each week. Score points based on their earnings for the week.
• Substitutes: Switch out one golfer after the second round and/or use one of your six mulligans to switch out another golfer before the final round.
• Selection: Set a new lineup each week. Can only use a golfer twice during the season or three times if you use a mulligan.
• Good points: Low number of players (capped at 125) so good chance of winning a prize; scores updated quickly; sends multiple line up reminders and (brief) weekly newsletter; able to change line up during tournament; mulligans feature; offers section prizes so always something to play for; Great reputation for customer service and prompt prize payout.
• Bad points: Only US tour so not a lot of UK or European interest in the game.
• Expected Start Date: Multiple start dates, from January through April
• Full disclosure: When I play fantasy golf, this is where I play.

Yahoo Fantasy Golf

• Format: Select a team of eight golfers each week, with four scoring points on a daily basis based on 18 hole scores.
• Substitutes: Able to change players between rounds (by 10.00am UK time).
• Selection: Only able to pick a player on 10 occasions during the season.
• Good points: Free entry (not sure you want to read that!), send line up reminder, good website, allows multiple mini leagues.
• Bad points: Poor prizes, have to alter teams continuously during a tournament, no auto-sub if you are away.
• Expected Start Date: January 2010

The Scotsman Fantasy Golf

• Format: Select a team of twelve golfers each week, with all scoring points based on 72 hole scores.
• Substitutes: Able to change two (three for majors) players between weeks.
• Selection: No limit.
• Good points: Free entry; reasonable prizes for a free league, allows multiple mini leagues.
• Bad points: Most weeks will not have a full line up, no opportunity to change during tournament, funny bonus captain system (where you are unable to change from Tiger Woods as you can’t bench him), poor website.
• Expected Start Date: March 2010

Official Fantasy League Golf

• Format: Select a team of twelve golfers each week, with six scoring points based on 72 hole scores.
• Substitutes: Able to change three players between weeks.
• Selection: 25 changes per season.
• Good points: Most popular UK fantasy golf game; scores updated quickly; spin off mini tournaments; sends line up reminders and detailed weekly newsletter.
• Bad points: No opportunity to change during tournament; restrictions of number of players per continent; doesn’t start until Masters.
• Expected Start Date: March 2010

PGA Fantasy

• Format: For Major tournaments only, pick four golfer for your team. Score points based on their earnings for the week, and double points for your top pick.
• Substitutes: None.
• Selection: Set a new lineup for each tournament.
• Good points: free to play; top prizes has been a trip for two to a following year’s masters; limiting to Majors ensures selection from top players,
• Bad points: May be too infrequent to engage players;
• Expected Start Date: March 2010.

Additionally, there may be fantasy golf leagues at Sporting News Fantasy Golf, CBS Sports Fantasy Golf, and/or Fanball Fantasy Golf that you may want to check out.

Yep, that’s right. What I momentarily thought was a lack of proofreading by NFL.com (screenshot below) was actually a personal realization that for the last three weeks of the season, there are Saturday night football games! For those of you keeping score at home, this means you now have to check your fantasy football lineup on Thursday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday nights.

For the micro-managing fantasy owner, this is both a blessing and a curse. You now get to judicially decide which players to start, watch the injury reports, and adjust your lineup knowing results from some of your players already. The downside is that you have to make decisions about your fantasy team four days throughout the weekend.

Why am I talking about this? It is playoff time for fantasy football, and just like real sports, how you play the game is different for the post-season than it is for the regular season. What was once a simple task to check fantasy lineups on Sunday morning is now a nearly daily ritual.

Sometimes it is amazing how much fantasy sports can resemble real sports without even trying.

We have all heard of the The League on FX by now, but there is a new fantasy football web series on the interwebs, Sundays of Our Lives. The series follows Jake Diablo as he attempts to win his fantasy football championship. Like any good soap opera, there is lying, cheating, and the occassional celebrity cameo. It’s an entertaining watch, so you should check out the first two episodes below:

Episode 1

Episode 2

This morning I noticed on Ryan Houston of Fanball‘s Facebook account that he was checking out Citi Field, which is going to host one of the National Fantasy Baseball Championship‘s (NFBC) drafts. A quick perusal of the NFBC site, and it looks like Fanball is pulling out all of the stops to make this year’s NFBC its best ever, by a lot.

Fanball, which purchased both the NFBC and National Fantasy Football Championship (NFFC) from F+W Publications this past year, is really trying to make these high stakes leagues the leading high-stakes leagues. More importantly, Fanball is working towards turning these events into destination experiences that are bigger than just the fantasy baseball leagues which are drafted. With two weekends in Las Vegas, one in Chicago, New York, Atlantic City, and St. Louis, the NFBC gives you a number of places to go away for the weekend and have some fun.

I love this strategy. Fanball is creating places that you can go with your buddies, or, more than likely, your girlfriend/wife/significant other would be willing to go away for a weekend. The NFBC goes from you doing something selfish to a shared weekend for the both of you. As the age of fantasy players increase, fantasy players have to worry about families more often and this is a great move to capture that audience.

Second, by investing in making these great experiences, Fanball is able to create added value for the fantasy player. The guy who places last in a regular high stakes league is much more likely to keep playing and try again the following season if he had a blast at the draft. If he really has fun, maybe he will get a few of his buddies to enter the following season. While the venues it has chosen may cost a little bit more, the potential for long term relationships with their customers far outweighs it.

With three months to go, it will be interesting to see what else Fanball has planned for the NFBC. Do you have any thoughts on high-stakes leagues, the NFBC, Fanball, or this strategy? Let me hear me.

MyFantasyLeague is one of the premium fantasy commissioner products out there, and it is giving players a free test drive for with free NFL Playoff Leagues. If you and your fantasy buddies cannot settle who really deserved to win your regular season fantasy football title, perhaps you give it a second try with an NFL Playoffs league.

MyFantasyLeague caters to the established fantasy league that is looking for a little something extra out of its commissioner product. Whether it be the inclusion of player contracts, league histories, or non-tradional scoring, MyFantasyLeague can make it happen for your league. Using them comes with a price ($89.95 for the 2009 fantasy football season) that many leagues would not be willing to pay.

This is a great opportunity for fantasy players to test drive a new league commissioner without putting their league at risk (by switching to a product before the season).

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.