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 past), yet it is choosing not to do this year.

Yahoo! is by far the most popular site for fantasy baseball, and it also makes the most money. As a partner, MLBAM could not have picked a better partner. The financial nature of the relationship is unclear, but MLBAM is either getting a share of the advertising revenue, a sponsorship fee from Yahoo!, or possibility both of these situations.

From a competition stand point, it is always disappointing to see one fewer company in the mix. While MLBAM has not been known for its leagues, the fact that it was competing in the past was always a good sign. Fewer options always mean less innovation.

The underlying question here is how exactly profitable is free fantasy baseball if Major League Baseball finds it better to outsource its game? If you are operating a free fantasy baseball game, how much scale do you really need to make it profitable, and how achievable is that scale?

What are your thoughts? Am I completely off my rocker?

Even though Spring Training games have just started, MLB.com is challenging fantasy players to accurately predict who will win each division, league pennant, World Series, MVP, and Cy Young awards with the Gillette 2010 Season Predictions Sweepstakes. Be the person with the most correct predictions and you will win an all-expenses paid trip for two to the 2011 All-Star Game in Phoenix.

The contest is sponsored Gillette and is another example of the series of simple fantasy games that MLB continues to produce. With the 2010 Season Predictions game, players are able to pick a few of their favorite teams and players, have a little fun, and then forget about it until October. Its Beat the Streak game is a classic example of a simple game done right (so right, ESPN copied it with its Streak for the Cash game).

Not every fantasy game needs to be complex. Sometimes, a really simple game can get you just as much user engagement as a full-fledged fantasy sports game.

According to Eric Fisher of Sports Business Journal, he just tweeted that “Stats LLC signs deal with MLB Advanced Media to become baseball’s official real-time data licensor. Story coming today in SBD.” Uh-oh.

Two years ago, MLB Advanced Media lost a court case against CDM Sports (Fanball), which essentially stated that statistics are public domain, and that a license from MLB was not required to host fantasy sports games.

Unfortunately, this new arrangement might be a great work-around for MLB, since Stats is able to choose to whom it sells its statistical data. By creating this exclusive relationship for data, MLB has gotten what it always wanted–only one source of data.

Note, the wording of Fisher’s tweet implies this relationship applies only to real-time data, which means that full post-game data may still be available from other sources.

I will update this story as the details of the relationship become clearer.

This much is clear though, having only one source of statistical data is not good for the fantasy sports industry. It limits innovation and small business development, and makes statistics something that only a few select companies can afford.

Last year, I told you about how MLB, using technology, was creating new statistics. Now, MLB is partnering with Bloomberg to distribute this new data to fans, fantasy players, and professional sports teams.

At first, I thought this was such an odd relationship. Bloomberg and Sports? Really? No, Seriously? But, the more I thought about it, I realized it was brilliant. Bloomberg built its name on doing amazing things with financial data, and the presence of Bloomberg terminals in financial offices is completely ubiquitous. Bloomberg knows how to analyze and deliver data. MLB has tons of historical statistical data in addition to the new statistical information it is creating. But, it does not have a good system in place for analyzing and delivering this data. Rather than going with one its usual or past partners, MLB looked way outside the box and partnered with Bloomberg.

Bloomberg Sports is offering a fantasy package that is very reasonably priced. For $31.95, you get a draft kit and in-season tools (also available individually) that will provide you tons of statistical data, analysis, and unique insight that only MLB and Bloomberg. Unfortunately, while the graphics look cool, the package can only be pre-ordered and no demonstrations are available.

For Bloomberg, this is an opportunity to tap into a totally different market. With the recent issues on Wall Street, the need to diversify away from its core offerings probably makes sense. But, what is unique about this diversification, is that they diversified by staying true to a core competency–content delivery.

MLB Advanced Media (MLBAM) has really outdone itself with this new offering. Hey, NFL, are you listening? You might want to give Bob Bowman at MLBAM a call and see what he can help you create.

I cannot wait to see Bloomberg Sports in action.

Additional Coverage

• MLBAM, Bloomberg team for data products (Sports Business Journal)

Each year, fantasy football becomes more popular and creates additional distance between itself and fantasy baseball in terms of popularirt. When I saw this email (pictured below) in my inbox, I could not help but think it a little bit odd. MLB.com had a special sign-up offer for CBSSports.com’s Fantasy Football commissioner product. Really?

Maybe it’s because of its existing relationship for March Madness (MLB Advanced Media powers CBSSports.com’s March Madness on Demand) that MLB.com is pimping for CBSSports.com. Perhaps, it figures that at this point, those that are going to play fantasy football are going to play it, so MLB.com might as well make some money doing it. Nonetheless, definitely not something you would expect to see.

Is this the future of fantasy? Perhaps. As a means to monetize one fantasy business, it definitely makes sense to work with other fantasy sites that have complementary products that do not interfere with each business’ core product offerings.

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.

MySportsBroker is a launching the Pro Sports Exchange (PSX) for those fantasy players who want to trade athletes like stock. PSX is a game where you buy and sell athletes like stock, whowever ends up with the largest sports portfolio is the winner. Currently, fantasy players are able to add players to their sports portfolios from the NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL, and English Premier League (EPL).

A fantasy sports stock market is an idea that has been around for a while. I first saw a similar game years ago on Wall Street Sports, and this idea has been tried most recently by OneSeason, RotoHog, and ProTrade. RotoHog is now much more focused on developing fantasy games for a slew of media partners, while ProTrade’s parent company has re-branded itself as Citizen Sports and is focused on making games in the Facebook and social networking arena.

MySportsBroker also plans a mobile version of the PSX game, and plans to use the trademarked name SportsBerry or MySportsBerry. MySportsBroker is currently looking for a telecom partner to work with them to release a SportsBerry sports specific smartphone. Once again, not an original idea, as a few years ESPN Mobile was a tragic failure.

Fantasy sports stock markets are one of those ideas that everyone likes on the surface and thinks is a good idea. Despite the various incarnations of this genre of fantasy sports, it still has not taken off as a widely-popula fantasy sport.

I am interested to see what is unique about PSX and the MySportsBroker team that will allow this game to transcend into the fantasy mainstream. Perhaps the problem is just in the marketing and distribution. My fear is that it will be yet another good idea that is unable to find an audience.

Good luck to the PSX team!

Additional Coverage

• MySportsBroker Launches Unique Fantasy Sports Game

Using a few high-tech cameras, some very sophisticated software, Major League Baseball (MLB) is getting ready to revolutionize the world of baseball statistics. A player’s intangibles are becoming a little bit more tangible as its newDigital Eyes Will Chart Baseball’s Unseen Skills.

It looks like after losing its court case to have boxscores and player statistics to be taken out of the public domain (see: Fantasy Sports Win Right to Player Names, Statistics), MLB Advanced Media has found a way to create new statistics that it will own and will license as it sees fit. MLBAM will now have some statistics it can call its very own. MLBAM has not announced how it plans to distribute the data, and how much of the data will be made available to the public, and how much will stay private for use by the teams.

Currently in testing in San Francisco, four high-resolution cameras capture everything on the field in three dimensions. Then, the information is transmitted to a control room where very sophisticated software is able to differentiate a baseball from a runner. Each game produces over two million meaningful location points. These points are then used to determine how much ground an outfield covered, how long it took for a ball to land, how efficiently someone runs the bases, or numerous yet-to-be-thought of statistics. At a cost of $5M, MLBAM plans to have the system rolled out to every major league park by 2010.

From a fantasy perspective, this is just more information to determine if a player is good, or just lucky. More importantly, it might create stats that can be used in fantasy leagues. For the stat heads in the world of fantasy baseball, it may just be information overload.

Now, if we can just use that technology to see if a ball was actually fair or foul…

At this point in the fantasy baseball season, one of my favorite things is to see how many of the major league All Stars are on my fantasy team. Why? Because generally, the more guys I have in the All-Star Game, the more likely my team is having a good season. That simple.

For example, this year, my National League-only team’s pitching staff is proud to have All Star starting pitcher Tim Lincecum on its roster, along with Chad Billingsley. As a direct of result of those two guys on my staff, I am first in four different pitching categories (pesky saves!). Unfortunately, my only offensive All Star is Justin Upton. The lack of offensive firepower is a consistent problem and explains why I am struggling to place better than sixth in any single offensive category, and why I am still trying to get out of the cellar in one category.

Remember, this is just the All Star game, so it does not really mean anything for fantasy baseball (aside from the Home Run Derby curse–my condolences to Prince Fielder’s owners). It is just a good barometer of how much top notch talent your team has. Alright, the game is about to start, let’s go check it out.