ESPN‘s 30 for 30 series is set to premier its “Silly Little Game” feature, which is a documentary about the rise of fantasy sports and the original fantasy baseball league, The Rotisserrie League. ESPN’s summary is very fair description:

Fantasy Sports is estimated to be a $4 billion dollar industry that boasts over 30 million participants and a league for almost every sport imaginable. But for all this success, the story of the game’s inception is little known. The modern fantasy leagues can be traced back to a group of writers and academics who met at La Rotisserie Francaise in New York City to form a baseball league of their own: The Rotisserie League. The game quickly grew in popularity, and with the growing use and attractiveness of the Internet, the “founding fathers” never foresaw how their creation would take off and ultimately leave them behind. Innovative filmmakers Adam Kurland and Lucas Jansen will chronicle the early development and ultimate explosion of Rotisserie Baseball, and shine a light on its mostly unnoticed innovators.

The show debuts tonight on ESPN 2 at 8pm, with four additional airings in the next week.

Considering ESPN’s commitment to fantasy sports, I expect this to be a very well done and positive piece. Fantasy sports are supposed to be fun, and I expect Silly Little Game to reflect that. For the historical value alone, this should be required viewing for anyone in the fantasy sports industry, and anyone who considers themselves a fantasy sports fanatic.

Unfortunately, there are no video embeds available, but I did find this clip on YouTube of rocker and fantasy baseball lover Meatloaf shooting a segment for Silly Little Game.

If you watch it tonight, please let me know what you think!

It seems like I have spent a good chunk of the spring reporting on yet another new feature within Yahoo!’s fantasy baseball product, but that’s for good reason–there have been a number of new improvements, including this latest one. As part of its relationship with MLB.com, Yahoo! is the official fantasy baseball game of MLB and also has access to the countless hours of video that MLB owns. For just $9.95 for the season, fantasy players can see daily video clips of their fantasy players’ key plays and at-bats throughout the season. Through April 18, these clips are free, and all you have to do to watch them is click on the little blue circle next to a player’s name.

One of the neat features of these clips is that the clips are provided pretty close to real time, as I just watched the two at-bats the Rangers’ Chris Davis has in today’s game (sidenote: if he keeps hitting like this, he may not be on my squad that much longer). With these video clips, you can really scout your players. Often, from just the numbers it is difficult to answer questions such as, “is David Wright really in a slump, or has he just been unlucky lately?” Now, you can just watch his at-bats and see how well he has hit the baseball.

I recently spoke to an industry veteran who has decided to not create a commissioner product for his company because he said that there are so many good free offerings right now, that competing in that market is just not worth it, and he is dead-on. Yahoo! has made huge leaps and bounds this year creating a much better fantasy baseball product than it has had in years, and it may just be the best one available in the market.

Tonight, the first pitch of the 2010 baseball season has been thrown and we are on our way! This is the most wonderful time of the year! Here’s a quick video clip that always gets me excited for the start of the baseball season. It’s a remake of a classic Chevrolet commercial. Enjoy!

What gets you excited for the start of the baseball season?

Fantasyland, the book, is by far one of the best books I have ever read about fantasy sports. It captures the spirit, the history, and the fun of fantasy baseball. Fantasyland the movie showcases the obsessiveness of one player that cannot help but make you cringe. The movie follows an average guy Jed Latkin as he competes in the 2008 AL Tout Wars and will stop at almost nothing to make his fantasy baseball team a better team.

Latkin has an enthuasism for fantasy baseball that may just be unmatched. While a certain amount of this movie is Latkin being over the top for the camera (at least, I hope it is), Latkin’s enthusism borders on a very truly unhealthy obsession for fantasy baseball. If he actually did drive over 7 hours to Roanoke, Virginia just to negotiate a trade with a surprised Ron Shandler, or actually nearly miss the birth of his children negotiating a trade, that’s just a bit creepy. One of the things that made Walker’s original story so captivating is that he definitely did push the limits of reason of what you could do to win a fantasy baseball league, but it never seemed that Walker had his priorities mismatched or lacked a sense of common courtesy.

The movie does have some bright spots that make it tolerable. The narrative interludes with Fantasyland author Sam Walker act as the voice of reason, bringing to life the great storytelling of Fantasyland, if only for a moment. The side interviews on anecdotes do give a little bit of character to the movie.

I really wanted this to be a good review of a movie that I was very excited to see. Unfortunately, this is not it. Although, one possible use for this version of Fantasyland is to have your significant other watch the movie just so you can say to her, “be thankful I’m not that guy.”

If you are interested in seeing what I am talking about, you can watch Fantasyland the movie online.

It is Wednesday, and I try to cheer you up a little bit while you are at work. Today, I have something to help you relax and perhaps, stimulate your mind. You can now watch the Fantasyland movie from the comfort of your own home. Right here on Fantasy Ethos, right now. I know it is just a fancy piece of embedded code making it happen, but it is one less click for you.

Watch now, and we will discuss the movie this afternoon here on Fantasy Ethos.

Last night, I sat through one of the longest fantasy baseball drafts of my life. 18 teams, 26 players per team, 468 players later, I am still feeling pretty numb. I am fairly certain that two retired players were drafted. There might even be one dead guy selected. I’m not sure; it is all just a blur. I’m pretty sure I got splinters from scraping the bottom of the barrel. At this point, I am just thanking my lucky stars that it was not an auction draft, which easily would have doubled the time.

One guy completed the draft from a hotel in Las Vegas. Now, that is dedication. He has the world’s playground around him, and he’s drafting fantasy baseball. There is about a 99% chance he is single. Or, if he is as smart as picks indicate he is, he sent his wife to the spa during the draft.

More remarkably, I received my one and only “nice pick” when I picked up Jeff Clement in the last round. The draft undervalued catchers and I figured a second one could not hurt. But, is it really possible to find value in a round where most of the players remaining would not even draft themselves in their clubhouse league? I’ll be honest, the main reason I drafted Clement at that point was because he went to the University of Southern California, just like me.

Why do we put ourselves through this kind of self-inflicted torture? Do we selectively remember the fun first few rounds where people are having fun, and just forget about the last couple of hours which you are struck with decision paralysis while staring at the hundreds of names and numbers.

And, in case you did not catch the title reference, here is a clip to remind you:

One of the classics. If you have not seen it, watch it now.

I know we are in the middle of spring training right now, Joe Mauer is signing ridiculously huge contracts, and ESPN Fantasy is airing new fantasy baseball commercials, but can we just get this season started already? Fantasy football and March Madness are nice diversions, but fantasy baseball is what it is all about. It requires dedication and focus for six or seven months. Endurance like this makes running a marathon look easy. It is the Cadillac of fantasy sports. The start of the season is so close, I can almost taste.

While I impatiently wait, and you look to get your day started, here is this season’s ESPN fantasy baseball commercial to whet your appetite.

Happy Monday! Come back later for some fun content!

This upcoming Friday, the release of the Fantasyland, the film version hits your internet on Snag Films and Hulu. The movie, which is based on Sam Walker’s tale in Fantasyland, (You can read our book review of Fantasyland here), is a documentary featuring Jed Latkin who in 2008 recreated Sam’s steps by first competing in Tout Wars and then travelling around the country to make his fantasy baseball team just that much better every day.

I am seeing a sneak peak of the movie of this week and will have my review for you prior to that. In the mean time, the film has been kind of enough to post some clips online for everyone to check out. The first clip below features Tim Goodman of the San Francisco Chronicle talking about a fantasy league of his featuring some celebrities:

And the second clip features Mike Francesa of WFAN New York talking about why he really hates fantasy:

Check back soon for my review of the full film.

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 of my favorite sites this past season as I was able to watch numerous USC Trojan football games online. Since ESPN/ABC has a contract for PAC-10 and Big Ten football games, this meant that the out of market college football games were frequently available on ESPN360.com. It is a great product and definitely will be a part of sports viewing in the future.

For MLBAM, this is a major score. MLBAM, which is separately co-owned by the 30 MLB owners and MLB, has been expanding its product offerings and customer base over the last few years. All the while, raking in cash for its stakeholders, who have already received a more than ample return on their initial investment. In 2007, an initial public offering (IPO) of MLBAM stock had the company’s rumored valued at $5B. One can barely fathom what that offering would be now that MLBAM has cemented itself as a leading digital sports company (and many would argue the best).

Also, how is this for irony? The media is going to a professional league for distribution of its offerings. This offering further blurs the line between sports and the media.

via Broadcast Engineering

One of the most amazing sports businesses in the last 10 years has been the emergence of Under Armour as a major player in the sporting goods realm. Here is a video of speech given by Under Armour’s Chairman, CEO and Founder Kevin Plank. It is a very riveting video and some great insights into how to build a great business–compete. I highly recommend you check it out, if even it takes multiple sittings (it is 74 minutes long):

Did you watch it all? What do you think? Ready to compete?

via Campus Entrepreneurship