Remember when someone showed up to your fantasy baseball draft using a laptop? At first, you probably wrote him off as a total dork, but when he left the draft with more talent on his bench than in your starting outfield, you might have reconsidered. At this very moment, we may be at another fantasy technology paradigm shift as it is now possible to use just an iPhone to draft and manage your fantasy baseball team.

I took the liberty of looking at the available iPhone applications that would enable this not-to-distant future:

• 2010 RotoWire Fantasy Baseball Draft Kit ($3.99) This is the mobile version of RotoWire’s fantasy baseball draft kit and is complete with rankings, historical stats, projections, and analysis on the names you will hear on draft day. RotoWire also has a free fantasy news application that you may want to look into.
• Fanball.com Fantasy News and Updates (Free) Another players news application from a completely different source than RotoWire uses. For hot news, I like to check to multiple sources for the latest information, so having two player news applications on your iPhone can be nothing but good for you.
• CBS Sports Mobile (Free) This application is a mini-version of the full-fledged CBS Sports site. In addition to easy up-to-the-minute player news, you can adjust your fantasy baseball roster on the fly.
• Yahoo! Fantasy Baseball (Free) Not officially released yet either, this application will allow fantasy players to manage their teams and get real-time scoring. Conceivable, you could go the entire season without ever having to use one of those antiquated laptops.
• MLB.com At Bat 2010 (TBD $14.99) The pricing for the 2010 edition has not been announced yet, but expect this year’s version to improve on an already stellar product. Just released, MLB.com At Bat 2010 will allow users to watch any game they want (subject to blackout restrictions). In addition, just like last year’s version, fantasy players can listen to audio from every game. We can only hope that the 2010 version will feature video from every MLB game. It has in fact, gotten even better!
• ESPN ScoreCenter (Free) Just think of this application of all of ESPN’s scoreboards tucked into a nice little application. You can check out in game boxscores and even watch the gamecast of a your game of interest. This is a great free alternative to MLB.com At Bat.

Between all of those application, you can prepare for your draft, adjust your rosters, and follow player news. The days of staring at laptop during your fantasy draft just may be over. And if you get an iPad when it is released, your laptop days are definitely over.

One of the things that disturbed me about putting this list was that the fantasy baseball applications worth mentioning were either by the major or mid-major players in the fantasy industry. There is definitely a business opportunity for a killer fantasy baseball application.

There may be additional application releases in the next month, so I plan to adjust this list accordingly.

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.

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.

While ESPN consistently promotes its free fantasy football games, it has not completely abandoned the pay model. Fanball and ESPN just unveiled their new $50,000 Fantasy Football game. It is a pay-to-play salary cap game with point-style scoring, where the winner will take home a cool $50,000. Not too shabby for a $39.95 entry fee.

More importantly, the fact that two of the major players in the fantasy industry are teaming together on a game should make you take note. ESPN has become the number two player (behind Yahoo!) by offering completely free fantasy games. Fanball is the leader in pay-to-play games under its own brand, and hosting white-label games, such as the Fantasy Football Open Championship. According to Ryan Houson, Fanball’s Vice-President of Business Development, that this game came about through, “Lots of discussions. We discussed this a lot and we are excited it finally got done.” It is a win-win deal for both sides. It allows ESPN to tap into the pay-to-play market, while giving Fanball another game to market to its existing customer base, and more importantly, the ability to market to the millions of fantasy players that play at ESPN.

Congratulations to both sides on the deal, and I look forward to see how this relationship develops. If this is successful, you better expect to see something come fantasy baseball season.

With Tom Brady a first round pick last year, fantasy football teams were dealt a crucial blow to their season with his season-ending injury. If those owners had taken out a fantasy sports insurance policy on Brady, at least their wallets might have been. That is the kind of service that Fantasy Sports Insurance provides, and this year, Fanball players using its commissioner product, will have the opportunity to insure their players and teams against a season-ending injury.

With Fantasy Sports Insurance being a secondary service, integration into a commissioner platform is key for the business’ success. Scoring a relationship with Fanball is a major accomplishment for Fantasy Sports Insurance.

No details of how the relationship will work between the two companies. I imagine there will be some sort of revenue share on the insurance premiums paid, and that fantasy football players will be able to seamlessly take out policies on their players and teams.

Well done.

The entire press release is below

Fantasy Sports Insurance Partners with Fanball.com

Contact: Henry Olszewski
Email: fsi@intermarketins.com
Office: 631-421-2424 Ext. 30
www.fantasysportsinsurance.com