Sport Industry

Fantasy sport has become very popular as athletics continues to influence our culture and society. Fantasy sport has found a way to become a part of the mainstream and is a significant revenue builder. Even from the humble beginnings of board games the popularity continues to grow and grow. An annual survey conducted by Dr. Kim of the University of Mississippi says that an estimated that the industry of fantasy sports generates 1.5 billion in revenue per year.(7) The fantasy sport industry also has fifteen million consumers total. The sports players belong to online leagues .Fantasy sports can be seen as positive and negative for the workplace and productivity. So many people are participating in fantasy sport that based on the time they spend at work competing at fantasy sport they are losing the company money. The other view is that it is good for moral. The sport brings about “water cooler talk” where people gather around to speak about how their players performed the night before. From the growing talk about fantasy sport it could be considered here to stay. During the current recession the business still grows at ten percent each year and does not look like it is going to slow down.(6) Where did fantasy sports come from? Why has it become so powerful? Why do major sports leagues not own this booming powerhouse? Who has the rights to the leagues and statistics? I hope to answer these questions in my case study of fantasy sport and the battle for ownership. The two main Sports that are at the forefront of Fantasy are baseball and football. Both of the sports have the earliest versions what we consider sports fantasy games and both leagues have the most to gain from control over the fantasy sport.

“Six to seven million people play fantasy baseball today, according to Gregg Rosenthall, fantasy sports editor of Rotoworld and NBCSports.com”(8)The backbone of fantasy baseball can go all the way back to two board games. The first board game was called American...