The New York Times ran a story this week about
Google's efforts to prevent Microsoft from buying Yahoo. Most of the story wouldn't be of interest to sports fans (other than those strange fans who also pay attention to issues beyond the world of sports), but this paragraph is noteworthy:
One person involved in Yahoo's deliberations suggested that "the sum of the parts are worth more than the whole," arguing that its various pieces like Yahoo Finance, for example, could be sold to a company like the News Corporation for a huge premium while Yahoo Sports could be sold to a company like ESPN, a unit of the Walt Disney Company.
(Emphasis mine). As
Marc Edelman writes at Above the Law, Yahoo Sports has always been the leader in free fantasy football, and if one of Yahoo's big fantasy competitors -- ESPN or CBS Sports -- were to purchase Yahoo, fantasy football could become a much more expensive hobby:
Yahoo Sports plays a very important role in limiting price increases in the fantasy-sports hosting market. Presumably, if Yahoo were to leave the market, not only might free fantasy hosting disappear, but ESPN and CBS Sports might feel less constrained against increasing their own customer fees.
It seems like
someone has to fill the free fantasy void. But if Yahoo gets sold, who will that someone be?
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Reader Comments ( Page 1 of 1)
1. Not sure if it had much market penetration, but AOL's own free fantasy football product was surprisingly good this season, especially the live tracking.
(Full disclosure: Former AOL employee, but had nothing to do with the fantasy FF.)
Posted at 12:50PM on Feb 8th 2008 by KC
2. NFL.Com?
Posted at 12:50PM on Feb 8th 2008 by truth
3. Not sure if you realize this but ESPN's fantasy football is FREE you
moron. Yahoo's is free, but you get nothing with it. They won't even
let you split up into divisions in your league without paying $125.
You really are the most incompetent blogger on here.
Posted at 1:00PM on Feb 8th 2008 by The King Adrock
4. The price goes up with every word I write.
Posted at 1:08PM on Feb 8th 2008 by mjd
5. "Not sure if you realize this but ESPN's fantasy football is FREE you moron"
There's something called competition...when there were two big players (ESPN and Yahoo), neither could charge $$ or everyone would flock to the free site. If ESPN owns both then there is no such competition and therefore both sites can charge people money.
Posted at 1:10PM on Feb 8th 2008 by Dennis
6. Fully aware of competition. The article states:
"if Yahoo were to leave the market, not only might free fantasy hosting disappear, but ESPN and CBS Sports might feel less constrained against increasing their own customer fees."
It is implying that ESPN already charges fees and that Yahoo is the only one offering it for free which is simply not true. Not to mention that the fact that Yahoo's is labeled as free is a joke. If you want to customize ANYTHING then it's $125.
Posted at 1:14PM on Feb 8th 2008 by The King Adrock
7. I will tell you who I hope does NOT fill the void:
FoxSports
Terrible fantasy services.
Posted at 1:53PM on Feb 8th 2008 by The Hazean
8. Fleaflicker.com is hands down the best free fantasy football out there. Can customize everything more than you thought imaginable and it has free live scoring to boot. Great Site. Now only if they continued it through the NFL playoffs.
Posted at 2:07PM on Feb 8th 2008 by JMills
9. I disagreed with Marc Edelman's article, and posted about it on RotoNation
http://www.rotonation.com/?p=663
Posted at 3:15PM on Feb 8th 2008 by Derrick Eckardt
10. Forget the fantasy sports angle, who wants ESPN to have an even bigger footprint on the sports landscape?
Posted at 3:40PM on Feb 8th 2008 by nickstoli
11. PaytheFan.com fantasy sports is the best out there..not even close
Posted at 4:53PM on Feb 8th 2008 by kacey