Baseball's fantasy world
Posted: Sunday, June 17, 2007 10:12 PM
“Be always sure you're right, then go ahead.”
Davy Crockett, the famous frontiersman, adopted that line as his byword, and it served him well right up to the time he was sure it was right to join the defenders of the Alamo. Dying there cemented his legend and gave those Texans fighting for independence a rallying cry that echoes down to this day.
But if you're going to make a decision like Crockett's, there had better be a great benefit behind taking such a risk.
This is something that Major League baseball would do well to think about. It's lawyers feel they're absolutely right in a lawsuit they're pursuing against online fantasy league companies.
Last week, the league argued before the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that the companies should have to pay for the right to use players' names in the stat packages the companies sell to fantasy league participants.
A lower court ruled against baseball, which is appealing. And the game has a point. More than a billion dollars is generated by the companies, who have argued that the statistics are readily available to the public as are the names. But big online sites such as Yahoo and ESPN pay baseball royalties to use players' names and stats in the fantasy leagues they run.
Regardless of how readily available the stats are, without players, there are no fantasy leagues. And the companies that run the leagues are making a lot of money trading in those names.
But this could be a case where being right and doing the right thing are utterly different. Georges Yaned, a blogging lawyer and baseball fan, got passionate on the subject: “Come on, give me a break, isn't anything sacred and just about the love of the game?!!
Fantasy leagues probably do as much to popularize the game as anything baseball does short of actually playing the games. They involve millions of people – mostly guys – in competitive leagues involving real players. The participants watch the games, subscribe to online stat services, study the players and get deeply involved in the game.
Just as without gambling the NFL would be in trouble, without fantasy leagues, MLB would find itself hurting. Sure, there might be some bucks there to suck up by charging for the right to use names and stats, but is it worth the cost?
If MLB wins, some or many of these companies will be forced out of business. Put enough out of business and you start losing fantasy leaguers. And if you drive them away, you're chasing away your best fans.
“The goodwill that the commissioner could generate by dropping this ridiculous request for licensing fees would far outweigh any monetary rewards,” says Yaned.
I concur.
