Fantasy Sports Trade Association - » FSTA Awards Finalists Profiles

December 23, 2009

FSTA Awards Finalists Profiles

Submit all awards votes to Megan Van Patten (megan@fsta.org) by January 8, 2010. Download the official ballot here: http://www.fsta.org/awards/ads/2009_FSTA_Awards_Ballot.doc

Congratulations to all the nominees! Winners will be announced at the 2010 FSTA Winter Conference in Las Vegas. Check out details at http://www.fsta.org/conference

Fantasy Commissioner/League Manager Product

This award recognizes the company with the best and most innovative commissioner application in the industry. The tool must allow league commissioners to define custom league and scoring settings for head-to-head and/or rotisserie fantasy leagues.

AOL Fanhouse (FleaFlicker.com)

http://www.fleaflicker.com/nfl

Provide a description of your product or service (If your product is selected as a finalist this will be the text published on fsta.org): Fleaflicker is 100% free fantasy football made easy. Beginners appreciate Fleaflicker’s super-fast setup. Seasoned veterans take advantage of Fleaflicker’s extensive customizability, including advanced scoring options. Quite simply, you’d be hard-pressed to find a fantasy football platform that operates this quickly.

Athlon Sports College Fantasy Football

http://usports.Athlonsports.com

2009 was our 14^th season of providing full-featured college fantasy football. Athlon Sports, the premier destination for college fantasy sports, offers live stats, live drafts, hundreds of customization options, and have been using individual player names from the beginning. Our team of writers, who have been covering college football since 1967 provide in-depth college fantasy analysis and advice throughout the season.

CBS Sports.com

http://www.cbssports.com/fantasy

The 2009 CBSSports.com Commissioner is the most customizable Commissioner League management product on the market and one able to handle leagues with up to 30 teams. Every owner using a CBSSports.com Commissioner product receives a content-rich, statistics-supported and personalized website with premium features such as live scoring and customizable reports for no additional cost. Sponsored by Ford, Sprint, and Edge, the 2009 CBSSports.com Commissioner is available for Fantasy Football, Fantasy Baseball, Fantasy Basketball & Fantasy Hockey. New for 2009, the CBSSports.com Commissioner product offers the ability to run a live online auction as an alternative way of drafting your league. Whether your league uses a salary cap, keepers, or any other type of scoring customization, the CBSSports.com Commissioner product has an auction draft room that will fulfill all of your league’s needs.

ESPN

http://games.espn.go.com/frontpage

Full suite of “league manager style” (draft-and-trade, unique player ownership) fantasy games for the major North American sports. Users can join leagues if invited or create their own with a wide range of non-standard, customizable league settings (ie “Head Coach” and “Team QB” roster slots available in FFL). League types range from Roto to Points-Based to three types of Head-to-Head play. Draft options include live Snake and Auction drafts, as well as Autopick/List drafts and the ability for a League Manager to manually enter their offline draft results. In-season, each sport has real-time box scores/standings, integrated Fantasy Experts content (season projections/weekly ranks) and what we believe is the industry-best roster management UI. League Managers can fully manage other teams in their league and edit most setting at any point during the season as deemed necessary. Custom league history saved year-over-year with optional Keeper settings. All sports are completely free to play have been extended to mobile platforms. Product is built to scale – Fantasy Football able to service over 3M UUs on any given NFL Sunday.

MyFantasyLeague.com

MyFantasyLeague.com has been serving the fantasy football leagues for 15 years. We offer the most feature rich and customizable league management system available. Our fantasy football leagues are accessible 365 days per year, so we can handle the needs of even the most hard core dynasty leagues. Our combination of price and unique features is what attracts new leagues, and our focus on innovation and great customer service throughout the season is what keeps our customers coming back to us year after year. MyFantasyLeague.com is used to host dozens of expert and showcase leagues for various sites in the industry, including the FSTA’s own football leagues. You can set up a fully functional free trial league at anytime to try out all of the features as commissioner, or view any of our existing leagues such as these FSTA leagues:

http://www19.myfantasyleague.com/2009/home/10838

http://www19.myfantasyleague.com/2009/home/33778

http://www19.myfantasyleague.com/2009/home/46286

We have unique reports such as our Fantasy Recap of all games each week, like this example:

http://football19.myfantasyleague.com/2009/options?L=46286&O=177&W=9

In addition, we have a unique Developer’s API here that allows dozens of third party programs to work with and integrate our league data:

http://football.myfantasyleague.com/2009/export

RealTime Fantasy Sports

http://www.rtsports.com

RealTime Fantasy Sports remains an industry leader for fantasy football leagues. Our commissioner service caters to both the average user and hardcore fantasy football player. We offer completely customizable rules, including double or triple headers each week; the ability to play against the league average; conferences and/or divisions; traditional leagues, draft masters, best ball or one and done styles; option for same NFL player to be on more than one team and much, much more. RealTime Fantasy Sports also prides itself in customer service, which we believe is the best in the business. We also offer unique content to our users, including notes, unique content and video updates. This year (2009) is our 15th season providing the best, most comprehensive fantasy football commissioner service on the planet.

Draft Style Contest

This award recognizes the company with the best draft style league contest in which consumers then compete against each other in a league format. Consumers join these leagues and the host company acts as the “league manager or commissioner”. The tool or contest uses a static set of rules and may or may not award prizes.

Athlon Sports College Football

http://usports.Athlonsports.com

CBSSports.com

http://www.cbssports.com/fantasy

One of the most popular Fantasy Football games on the planet is 100% FREE – including LIVE SCORING. Sponsored by Arby’s and Playstation, CBSSports.com’s Free Fantasy Football delivers all the great features that you expect from CBSSports.com Fantasy Sports – live scoring and stats, cutting edge team management tools, player news and expert analysis (including user generated player updates) – with absolutely no upgrade fees or hidden costs. Users can choose from public leagues – including leagues only containing winners of past CBSSports.com Fantasy Football Leagues – or create a private league. At the end of the season, one lucky winner of a CBSSports.com Free Fantasy Football League will be selected to win the grand prize of $10,000 dollars. It’s a great way for fantasy players new to CBSSports.com to start to get to know the #1 product on the market for free.

ESPN

http://games.espn.go.com/ffl/livedraftlobby
http://games.espn.go.com/ffl/mockdraftlobby

ESPN’s FFL Mock Draft lobby allows users to drop in at almost any time to run through a draft, try out a new strategy or just see how others are drafting players. Features include the ability to select which draft slot you want before the draft begins and the draft results emailed to you. There is no maximum to the number of mock drafts a user can do. ESPN’s FFL Live Draft lobby allows users to select a draft type and its league settings and draft a public team(s) 7-days/week, 20 hours/day throughout the pre-season. Draft types include both the traditional Snake method and the new Auction format where owners manage a budget of $200 for 16 players. Both the Mock and Live Draft Lobbies are free and built to scale. At max point during the FFL pre-season this year, the system successfully drafted over 8,400 leagues concurrently.

GridIron Fantasy Sports (World Championship of Fantasy Football)

www.wcoff.com

The World Championship of Online Fantasy Football provides online fantasy players the opportunity to compete in the same format as the World Championship of Fantasy Football Main Event. Featuring an Overall Award of $10,000 on top of league awards in excess of $2,000, for an entry fee of $300 fantasy football players can take their shot at Glory and win a World Championship of Fantasy Football Title. Additional online formats are offered by the World Championship of Fantasy Football including the ever popular Super Satellite where 16 League Champions and Wildcards compete in a tournament style bracket to win the $10,000 overall award. The World Championship of Fantasy Football has experienced considerable growth in its online fantasy football segment ultimately providing more opportunities for fantasy football players to take their shot at the live Main Event and $300,000.

RealTime Fantasy Sports

http://register.rtsports.com/php/compare-money-leagues.php

Do you dominate your fantasy football league? Turn that domination into cash. You focus on winning, we will run the league. League highlights:

Online draft, You choose your draft time, RealTime Scoring, of course, NO transaction fees, 3 division winners plus wildcard make playoffs, and more! Play head to head in a 12-team league all season long. Enjoy a full season of exciting competition, and then take home the prize! Our payouts are the highest around. Compare and see! Really, compare our payouts. Why play where you can win less? Play where you can win more! Go with someone you can trust, RealTime Fantasy Sports has been doing fantasy football on the Internet for 14 seasons. We offer three different levels of play for our fantasy owners – All-American for $29.95 per team, All-Pro for $99.95 per team and High Stakes for $495.95 a team. Is there any other information you would like us to consider: This year (2009) is our 15th season providing the best, most comprehensive fantasy football service on the planet.

Salary Cap Contest

This award recognizes the company with the best salary cap style fantasy contest. Salary Cap Style is defined as using an artificial “cap” or maximum team value to challenge consumers to select a fantasy football team without going over the maximum value. The winning contest will have creative and innovative features and design

Head2Head

head2head.com

H2H Salary Cap College Football takes advantage of the rising interest and passion surrounding College Football. The H2H College Game is a $100 million salary cap format game where the participant chooses ten players for a full roster (1QB, 3 RB, 3WR, 1 Flex, 1K and 1D). We use the BCS Schools (Six Conferences plus Notre Dame) and this makes it manageable for our players to enjoy college football without feeling overwhelmed with too many players to choose from. All players are placed in a 30 team leagues with six divisions and are allowed to have buddy leagues within the overall league structure. Players compete for 14 weeks to qualify for the H2H playoffs as well as for weekly cash prizes. There are league and overall prizes for playoff winners.

Sports Buff Fantasy Football

SportsBuff.com

The first versions of Sports Buff Salary Cap Style Fantasy Football arrived on the scene in 1995 and have offered consumers hours of enjoyment since then. From Coach Buffmeister entertaining and competing against contestants, to unique player upgrade formats, to the tradition of Sports Buff post-season trips to Las Vegas… Sports Buff has survived and prospered over the years.

High Stakes Contest

This award recognizes the company with the best high stakes fantasy contest. High Stakes contest is defined as any fantasy contest in which the total value of the cash and merchandise prizes awarded is at least $100k (excludes prize values for site or contest credits, points or memberships).

ESPN Streak for the Ca$h

http://streak.espn.go.com

The objective of ESPN’s Streak for the Cash game is to accumulate the longest winning streak by selecting the winning team (or player) from an ongoing variety of sports matchups. All entries start with a streak of zero and as they win matchups their streak grows. Lose a matchup and the entry moves back to a streak of zero. There are no rules as to how often entries must make a pick, and if a matchup ends in a tie it is pushed (not reset to zero). Most matchups are “straight up” between two teams, but each day “props” are added to mix it up. Prop matchups can be between teams, players or a combination or both (ie “Philadelphia 76ers points scored vs. Cole Hamels pitch count”). Version 1 and 2 of the game had a fixed number to be reached as the threshold to win the grand prize – $1,000,000 dollars cash. In Version 1 “bigsam” from Miami, FL won the $1M prize, extending his win streak to 25 with the Steelers come-from-behind 20-13 win over the Cowboys on Dec 7, 2008. No user reached the required 27-win threshold during Version 2. For Version 3 we changed the rules so the top 7 entries compete in a head-to-head “Pick-Off” for the $1,000,000 cash prize (to take place in Bristol, CT Dec 11-14, 2009). The six entries who do not win the $1M are awarded $10k cash. Also included in the game are Most Monthly Wins and “Stunt” contests each which have cash prizes. After V3 is finished, we will have awarded over $2.2M in cash prizes, which makes it the highest stakes game ESPN has ever created (passing the our “3Play” game from the early 2000s, which awarded over $1.8M in cash prizes). The plan is currently to extend the game into 2010, with Version 4 starting on Jan 1, 2010.

GridIron Fantasy Sports (World Championship of Fantasy Football)

http://www.wcoff.com

The World Championship of Fantasy Football awarded over $2M to winners in the longest tenured high stakes fantasy football contest in the industry. The 2009 Main Event Champion received $300,000 and the title of World Champion. Among the many high stakes contests operated by the World Championship of Fantasy Football is the $25K Platinum League where team owners pay $25,000 to play and take home $150,000 for 1st place in this 12- team league. The World Championship of Fantasy Football continues to innovate and expand the high stakes fantasy football offering. Contests such as the $25K Platinum League, $1K Auction Championship, World Championship of Online Fantasy Football and Super Satellite event combined with the legendary Main Event create an unparalleled high stakes fantasy football experience for the best of the best in fantasy sports.

Live Fantasy Event or Contest

This award will recognize the company managing the most compelling on-premise, live fantasy event or contest.

BaseballHQ.com (First Pitch Arizona)

http://www.baseballhq.com/seminars/arizona.shtml

First Pitch Arizona is a 3-day conference held during the Arizona Fall League where fantasy leaguers gather for seminars, scouting and socializing. Each morning consists of seminar sessions that include panel discussions, debates and special guest speakers from Major and Minor League Baseball. Afternoons and evenings are primarily fantasy-style competitions and AFL ballgames. This conference has been going on for 15 years and has developed into a prime networking opportunity for fantasy baseball writers and companies.

FantasyFactor.com

http://www.fantasyfactor.com/

The Fantasy Factor is the first company to build a cross platform, desktop, fantasy sports application that offers daily and weekly fantasy sports contests for cash and prizes. Team managers compete for cash prizes against one another, creating fantasy sports teams in baseball, football, basketball, and hockey and entering them in fixed sized leagues or in unlimited sized tournaments. The application is inherently faster and more secure than browser based contests, and we’re the only daily contest company that is both PCI Compliant and VeriSign Secured. Fantasy Factor offers daily and weekly contests at various price points, with prizes paid accordingly. Game play is based on Fantasy Factor’s innovated Factor Style weighting system, where Team Managers assign a set number of multipliers to individual players. Fantasy Factor’s patent-pending Team ShuffleTM algorithm guarantees that players will get in fixed sized leagues while randomizing teams to prevent player collusion and fraud. Fantasy Factor is also the only contest site that keeps player prize funds in an independently audited escrow account, so that players can rest assured that their funds on account are safe, and that prizes will be paid.

Unique Contest

This award will recognize the company with the most unique and innovative contest. The contest should be non-traditional contests and not qualify for other designated categories. Examples include pick the winner games, survival games, pick a loser each week, simulation games, etc.

CBSSports.com Edge Challenge

CBSSports.com’s Edge Challenge allows users to compete against other participants to see who can correctly predict which NFL player will perform better than another NFL player in a particular match-up. Participants will be presented with two NFL players of the same primary position (i.e. QB, WR, RB, TE) and will be prompted to pick the one that he/she feels will have a better performance during that week’s NFL game. Upon selection of the first pick, participants will be provided with another pairing from the same position, repeating the process again and again until a rank list has been formulated. When the rank list for a position is complete, the participant is given the opportunity to enter his/her rank list for the weekly contest. Participants will then go through the same process for the remaining three positions. Housed in a new, innovative ad unit, CBSSports.com’s Edge Challenge is completely free to play and offer weekly and season ending cash prizes. Official rules and game play can be found at:

http://football.cbssports.com/splash/football/spln/quickpicks/rules

ESPN (Streak for the Ca$h)

http://streak.espn.go.com/en/

The objective of ESPN’s Streak for the Cash game is to accumulate the longest winning streak by selecting the winning team (or player) from an ongoing variety of sports matchups. All entries start with a streak of zero and as they win matchups their streak grows. Lose a matchup and the entry moves back to a streak of zero. There are no rules as to how often entries must make a pick, and if a matchup ends in a tie it is scored as a “push” (not reset to zero). Most matchups are “straight up” between two teams, but what makes the game unique is that each day “props” are added to mix it up. Prop matchups can be between teams, players or a combination or both (ie “Philadelphia 76ers points scored vs. Cole Hamels pitch count”). Version 1 and 2 of the game had a fixed number to be reached as the threshold to win the grand prize – $1,000,000 dollars cash. In Version 1 “bigsam” from Miami, FL won the $1M prize, extending his win streak to 25 with the Steelers come-from-behind 20-13 win over the Cowboys on Dec 7, 2008. No user reached the required 27-win threshold during Version 2. For Version 3 we changed the rules so the top 7 entries compete in a head-to-head “Pick-Off” for the $1,000,000 cash prize (to take place in Bristol, CT Dec 11-14, 2009). The six entries who do not win the $1M are awarded $10k cash. Also included in the game are Most Monthly Wins and “Stunt” contests each which have cash prizes. After V3 is finished, we will have awarded over $2.2M in cash prizes, which makes it the highest stakes game ESPN has ever created (passing the our “3Play” game from the early 2000s, which awarded over $1.8M in cash prizes). The plan is currently to extend the game into 2010, with Version 4 starting on Jan 1, 2010. The game is completely free to play. The $1,000,000 prize was not insured and is paid in one lump sum. The game has been active every day since August 28, 2008. In that time over 200,000,000 picks have been made by over 2.5M unique entries.

NBC/Rotoworld (Snap Draft)

http://snapdraft.rotoworld.com/

SNAPDRAFT is a daily fantasy sports game where you select your roster from a pool of players playing that day. There is no season long commitment. Multiple individual sports and combined sports are available as well as varying league sizes, price points, and styles of play. For some sports, the daily contest may include games on multiple days (i.e., for SNAPDRAFT NFL, in addition to Sunday games, the Thursday night and/or Monday night games may be included) or the daily contest may include games on multiple weekends (i.e., for SNAPDRAFT NFL Playoffs, all games from the start of the contest through the Super Bowl may be included). Contests that use combined sports are called “hybrid” contests.

RapidDraft.com (World Fantasy Games)

http://www.rapiddraft.com/

RapidDraft™ Fantasy Football launched in 2009 with an innovative and entertaining live draft room featuring:

The RD Sports Bar as the backdrop for every live online draft.
The Rapid Remote, designed for the arm chair quarterback and/or couch potato (also known as the remote control and fantasy football loving population). The Rapid Remote gives each RapidDrafter the ability to easily control their online draft with logically designed features like the player queue, the available player buttons by position, the individual team screens, the team/player grid, the RD Draft Board, and the Select Player button which lights up when it’s the consumer’s pick.
One consumer avatar wearing a RapidDraft jersey with draft position as the jersey number. During setup, the consumer selects between five avatar bodies, four jersey colors, and 12 draft positions.
11 competitor avatars representing 11 well-known industry fantasy football experts randomly placed in the RD Sports Bar when the live draft begins.
A draft clock with a tasteful bell ring reminder when consumer is “On the Clock” and a clock that turns red and gently ticks once there’s 10 seconds left for the consumer to make their pick.

Let Caitlin tell you more about the RapidDraft Live Draft Room – Click Here

Yahoo (Mayoral Face-Off)

http://football.fantasysports.yahoo.com/f2/mayoral-faceoff

Yahoo! Sports kicked off the fantasy football season by drafting 11 mayors from cities across the nation to compete in the inaugural Yahoo! Sports Mayoral Face-off. The competition matched mayors head-to-head each week of the fantasy football season. In addition to the fantasy football competition, fans were encouraged to support their mayor by voting for their city at Yahoo! Sports. The total prize package was a total of $30,000, one prize for winning the league and the other for fan support. The winning mayor will be awarded $15,000 for a local non-profit sports program of his or her choice. In October Mayor Schmitt accepted the $15,000 donation because the citizens of Green Bay had the most votes on the site. The campaign was well received by fans and well covered by the media, more than 10,000 fans voted for their favorite football city. In addition, the campaign received extensive coverage, 82 television stories, more than 60 stories, and tweets from mayors, media and fans.

Innovation

This award will be presented to the company with the most innovative new product design or technology innovation. The category is very broad, by design, and includes any new product, contest, service, feature, content type, content delivery service, design twist, or technical innovation.

Advanced Sports Media

http://advancedsportsmedia.com/

The Draft Analyzer Pro – Mock Draft Simulator for fantasy football 2009 is a brand new native iPhone application that allows you to cruise through a full mock draft in a matter of minutes. You select the league size, your draft position and competition level then try to draft the best possible team against the computers player recommendation engine. The Draft Analyzer Pro – Mock Draft Simulator is the only mobile application that allows users to mock draft on the go from anywhere at anytime.

Key Features:

* Simulate and save an unlimited number of Mock Drafts
* Make picks for your team and for other teams, or let the Player Recommendation Engine do the dirty work
* Select your league size, draft position and roster requirements
* Player Rankings updated several times a week throughout pre-season
* Select from three competition levels including Expert, Casual and Drunk!
* Utilize player rankings based on standard scoring rules or download personalized player rankings from your Draft Analyzer Web account
* Includes ADP values, Bye-weeks and projected fantasy points for 2009 for all players

Fantasy Sports Channel

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/channels/fantasysports

The first radio channel devoted entirely to fantasy sports. The FSC provides fantasy sports advice, news and commentary 24 hours a day with at least 12 hours a day of live interactive programming. We currently stream over 50 shows in our 2^nd year with industry leaders such as fantasyguru.com, footballguys.com, fantasyfootball.com, thefantasyfootballguys.com, fantasypros911.com, rotoexperts.com, fantasysportsgroup.com, fantasysharks.com and more. Listeners can participate in chat rooms during the shows or elect to call in to the show and participate with the hosts. There isn’t another single web site on the internet that provides more FREE fantasy sports advice and content from more proven experts. Major industry experts along with up and comers have all joined forces to create a one stop shop at no charge to the fantasy sports channel audience. Truly one of the most valuable fantasy sports tools on the web or any other media outlet. The Fantasy Sports Channel is made available via the internet in several different ways. It streams on our channel home page (www.fsc.fm), via iTunes Radio. The channel is also available “on the go” thru our mobile website (www.fsc.fm) and on the Apple iPhone via 3^rd party applications such as iterum2 (http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/iterum2/id327496090?mt=8) and FlyCast (http://www.flytunes.fm/FlyTunesIPHONE.aspx).

Fantasy Sports Insurance

http://www.fantasysportsinsurance.com/

FSI is a new and innovative Disability Insurance policy that protects a fantasy team owners’ investment in their team should a key player(s) suffer a “season changing” injury. The FSI product is developed by Intermarket Insurance Agency Inc. (www.intermarketins.com), a nationwide insurance brokerage founded in 1934. As avid fantasy sports players, we felt the impact of this past season’s major injuries and wanted to do something about it. Calling on our insurance expertise and passion for fantasy sports we developed a true insurance product that offers fantasy team owners the ability to do what real NFL, NHL, NBA and other team owners do…and that is to protect their investment in their team against the loss of a key player due to a serious injury. Intermarket Insurance offers innovative insurance products designed to protect their client’s investment in their personal or business ventures.

Football Guys

http://www.footballguys.com/

In approximately 30 seconds, you can enter your team and league data and with one click receive a comprehensive analysis of exactly how we think you did. And more importantly, what you need to do in order to finish on top. It’s powered by some of the features we do at Footballguys.com and it’ll break your team down to show you exactly where you’re strong…And where you need some help. From suggested free agents, to sleepers to watch for to schedule strength and much more, it’s everything you need to take your team to the next level. Utilizing a myriad of databases from Footballguys content and about 9,000 lines of PHP code, we have created the end all answer to “How did I do at my Draft?” This program was released in late May, but starting getting a lot of buzz in August as people were completing drafts. We asked people for their emails as part of this and grew our mailing list from 75,000 names in June to over 140,000 names in August. At the peak in August, we were adding over 4,000 names a day of new people to the Footballguys.com mailing list (This is discounting the tens of thousands daily users already on our list that were using this product for all of their leagues). This application provided the user with an overall team strength, playoff chances, schedule analysis, potential free agents, projections and player summaries, current news and more. It dynamically changed with Footballguys projections (updated daily in the preseason). It allowed 4 different expert views from the staff at Footballguys. It was completed integrated into MyFantasyLeague and our own Draft Dominator software so reports could be generated with one click. This software was FREE to everyone. View a sample report here:

http://subscribers.footballguys.com/rate-my-team/team.php?team=999999999999

Hotbox Sports

http://www.hotboxsports.com/

Hotbox Sports offers a variation on head to head fantasy games designed to bring the excitement of fantasy football to other sports. Hotbox Sports fantasy basketball launched in late 2008. Owners play two head-to-head contests per week; game periods are Mon-Wed and Fri-Sun. If a player has 2 games in a given game period, owners must choose which game will count towards their score. The result is a game where fans can feel the impact of their starter’s performance while watching the game. This leads to more “down to the wire” moments and yes, more screaming at the television. Preliminary data shows very high page-views, eluding to the fact that this might be the missing link for lackluster profits and shrinking popularity of fantasy basketball. Hotbox Sports included an innovation to their site this year that could be a new standard in all fantasy sports. We would like the board to consider this development separately from our scheduling innovation. One frustrating element of fantasy sports is misinformation regarding players’ injury status as well as their coach’s intentions regarding their playing time for a given game. The goal here is to combat the negative feelings an owner feels when they make a wrong call, whether it be to start a player who sits the bench or to sit one who plays despite injury-hype. For this, Hotbox Sports includes injury reserve slots as part of the starting rosters of each team. Every team chooses a reserve for the Center, Forward, and Guard positions. If a starter does not play, the reserve player’s score is automatically substituted for the player who sat out. The benefits here are twofold: 1) owners do not have to be concerned about bogus information handed out by the likes of a Bill Belichek or Mike Shanahan because they have a backup plan in place 2) owners do not have to be inconvenienced by being forced to be available minutes before gametime for a last-minute roster decision.

PickEmFirst

www.pickemfirst.com

Pickemfirst is a free online tool that recognizes all MLB, NFL, NBA and NHL players in ANY text on ANY web page. We save you time by highlighting players who are free agents in your fantasy leagues regardless of which fantasy commissioner product you use. We also aggregate player data coming from Twitter, RotoWire and FantasySharks.com to make your add and drop decisions even easier. Watch the video at www.pickemfirst.com

Draft Kit

This award will recognize the company with the best and most comprehensive fantasy draft kit.

CFFInsider.com (College Fantasy Football Draft Kit)

http://www.collegefantasyfootballinsider.com/draft-kit/rankings

We provide the most comprehensive draft kit for any fantasy sport, with actual player stat projections for EVERY player for all 120 Div-1 college football teams. Our easy-to-use filters allow users to sort by conference, team, class, etc., and our My Insider feature also allows owners to select individual players and teams they want to see, track and follow. You can even input your own scoring system to adjust player projections and fantasy point totals. All total we offer player breakdowns for over 1000 players and team defenses. The kit includes items such as: player ranking, stat projections, breakdowns, previous year’s stats, player news, ease of schedule rankings, returning starters, sleepers, keepers, incoming freshman, home games, bye weeks and more. When you consider the volume of players in college football (120 teams), the coverage in our draft kit is second to none.

ESPN Fantasy Football Draft Kit

http://games.espn.go.com/frontpage/ffldraftkit

Provide a description of your product or service (If your product is selected as a finalist this will be the text published on fsta.org): The ESPN.com Fantasy Football Draft Kit provided fans with all of the tools and analysis needed for a successful fantasy draft. Along with universal staples as mock drafts, cheat sheets, sleepers&busts, this draft kit offered analysis on topics such as:

-The “Curse of 370”
-Offensive line rankings from Scouts Inc
-Which draft slots were most advantageous historically
-Position-by-position consistency rankings

… and much more. Hardcore players were served by such features as IDP rankings and cheat sheets for 2-QB and PPR leagues. Casual fans had all of the features they’d expect plus video analysis from NFL analysts such as Mark Schlereth, Merril Hoge and Cris Carter. Is there any other information you would like us to consider: We’re particularly proud of the clean layout, engaging art, and the “carousel” option of sorting through the top features. Note that because of our video expiration procedures, most of the top video features we had in August and September are no longer available.

The Huddle

www.thehuddle.com/fantasy_football_draft_kit.php

Web Site Access: Username = fstacomp / Password = fstapass

The Huddle’s Draft Kit provides everything the fantasy hobbyist needs to have a successful draft. Player rankings, cheat sheets customized to the users scoring systems, projected stats, player analysis on 525 players, draft strategy articles, mock drafts, in-depth injury reports, sleepers and more. All league types are covered – performance, td-only, auction, dynasty, IDP, etc. via our myHuddle application and various other features. Our draft kit is updated at a minimum daily during the NFL training camps and pre-season. The cost of a full Huddle site 12-month subscription (which would of course include the Draft Kit) is $27.95.

Rotowire Fantasy Baseball Draft Kit

http://www.rotowire.com/baseball/draftprep.htm Use the following to login and view all the areas/features:

UserName: Fsta
Password: fsta

RotoWire’s fantasy baseball draft kit includes over 1,700 comprehensive player profiles (including over 500 minor leaguers), projected stats for over 900 players, real-time customized projected stats based on league parameters, 24/7 updated depth charts and cheatsheets, full team previews and over 60 feature stories. We would argue RotoWire’s baseball draft kit is the most extensive draft kit of any sport in fantasy sports in terms of number of players projected, number of players profiled and total quantity (as well as quality) of content.

Rotoworld/NBC Sports

http://www.rotoworld.com/premium/draftguide/football/main_page.aspx
http://www.rotoworld.com/premium/draftguide/baseball/main_page.aspx
http://www.rotoworld.com/premium/draftguide/basketball/main_page.aspx
http://www.rotoworld.com/premium/draftguide/hockey/main_page.aspx

The most comprehensive and timely draft guide features more than 600 player’s profiles in football, 1000 in baseball, 350 in basketball, and 300 in hockey. Included in the draft guide is Stat Projections, Player profiles, Sleepers, Busts, Rookies, Custom Fantasy Point Scoring, Custom Roto-style scoring, Print-on-Demand PDF draft guide, ADP report, Tiering system, Depth Charts, Running back report, Closer report, Mock Draft Recaps, Contract Year analysis, Schedule analysis, Dynasty/Keeper Rankings, Auction Values, Custom Dollar value generator, over 30 strategy articles. Everything is kept up to date as we report our player news.

Best Online Draft Room

This award recognizes the company with the best and most innovative live, online draft application for a fantasy league. The online draft application can be for an actual fantasy league or can be only for mock-drafting purposes.

CBSSports.com

http://www.cbssports.com/fantasy

CBSSports.com Fantasy Football, Basketball, Baseball, Hockey and College Football use the award-winning CBSSports.com Live Draft Room which is also available prior to drafts as a mock draft tool. The CBSSports.com Live Draft Room is the most customizable and easy to use live draft product on the market and one able to handle leagues with up to 20 teams. The CBSSports.com Live Draft Room allows users to choose draft position and time and even allows users to use mock draft results as a rank list in their real drafts. New this year, the CBSSports.com Draft Room offers the ability to run a live online auction as an alternative way of drafting your league. Whether your league uses a salary cap, keepers, or any other type of scoring customization, CBSSports.com has built an auction draft room that will fulfill all of your league’s needs. Additional features in 2009 include audio from CBS Sports announcer Gus Johnson.

ESPN

http://games.espn.go.com/frontpage

Fantrax

Fantrax.com is an all-encompassing fantasy sports website, with the most powerful and customizable Commissioner/League Manager product in the industry for 7 sports (NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL, NCAA Football, NCAA Basketball, NASCAR) and several more to come (PGA, European Soccer, Cricket, Rugby).

- We are built from the ground up to be fully translatable, and Fantrax will soon be offered in French, Spanish and other languages.
- We implement new features at an unheard of pace (often a few per week), largely based on user demand (sometimes within a day or 2!).
- Unlike certain niche sites that have a relatively high degree of customizability for a single sport, we offer our complete suite of features for every sport

RapidDraft.com (World Fantasy Games)

RapidDraft.com

RapidDraft™ Fantasy Football launched in 2009 with an innovative and entertaining live draft room featuring:

The RD Sports Bar as the backdrop for every live online draft.
The Rapid Remote, designed for the arm chair quarterback and/or couch potato (also known as the remote control and fantasy football loving population). The Rapid Remote gives each RapidDrafter the ability to easily control their online draft with logically designed features like the player queue, the available player buttons by position, the individual team screens, the team/player grid, the RD Draft Board, and the Select Player button which lights up when it’s the consumer’s pick.
One consumer avatar wearing a RapidDraft jersey with draft position as the jersey number. During setup, the consumer selects between five avatar bodies, four jersey colors, and 12 draft positions.
11 competitor avatars representing 11 well-known industry fantasy football experts randomly placed in the RD Sports Bar when the live draft begins.
A draft clock with a tasteful bell ring reminder when consumer is “On the Clock” and a clock that turns red and gently ticks once there’s 10 seconds left for the consumer to make their pick.
Multiple integrated marketing locations for advertisers and sponsors – TV screens, wall locations, wall hangings – a total of 10 display areas. See draft room screenshot.
Rapid Speed (30 seconds per Expert pick) and Warp Speed (5 seconds per Expert pick) options.
Multiple sorts on every draft screen to search and rank players.
Expansion screens (+) for in-depth research on each player or defense.
Interactive pre-rank capabilities to prepare consumer rank before the live online draft begins.
A truly unique and entertaining live draft experience!

Let Caitlin tell you more about the RapidDraft Live Draft Room – Click Here

Waiverwire.com

Full Season Pass – Intelligent Draft Software using Artificial Intelligence

http://www.WaiverWire.com

Our draft tool applies gaming principals to “think ahead” by running 50,000 probability scenarios each time an NFL player is selected from the pool of available players.The advantage of using a system based in game theory is that it takes into account the likely behavior of other team owners in the draft…rather than simply using the expected point values of the players. Our software will process thousands of computations to provide you with the best possible selection for your fantasy team based upon who you and your opponents have already selected…and anticipated future selections based on the skill level of your opponents. http://www.waiverwire.com/site/Full- Season-Pass.aspx – Read about how the software works to understand how it can guarantee a player to start his or her season in first place (according to our projections).

Fantasy Draft and Game Assistance Tool

This award will recognize the company with the best draft assistance software, designed to help consumers draft the best possible fantasy team. This can be an online tool, downloadable software, purchased software or other tool. Also included are week-to-week management applications that project the best starting lineup or other in-season data. This award category excludes draft rooms or draft management—those are draft tools.

Advanced Sports Media (Draft Analyzer)

http://www.draftanalyzer.com

The Draft Analyzer provides highly accurate and personalized player recommendations throughout your fantasy football draft. You can automatically import your scoring rules, roster settings, owner names, draft order and Keepers from almost any major fantasy football commissioner website or manually create numerous leagues and drafts. The Draft Analyzer, now available on the web, desktop and iPhone, is the #1 selling draft assistance program and is the only draft software good enough to be integrated into and sold by ESPN, CBSSports.com, Fanball and RTSports. The Draft Analyzer is the only draft assistance tool that:

1)     Is available on the desktop, web and iphone.
2)     Is integrated into and sold by ESPN, CBSSports.com, Fanball and RTSports
3)     Allows users to choose player projections, news and notes from numerous leading expert sources such as ESPN, CBSSports.com, Fanball, Accuscore, Fantasy Sports Magazine, RotoWire and others.
4)     Has a Player Recommendation engine that provides the most accurate draft advice possible based on the principles of Value Based Drafting and ADP results from completed drafts and other key fantasy draft metrics such as overlapping bye-weeks, strength of schedule analytics, and player durability/consistency ratings.

New features for 2009 included a web-based version and native iPhone application enabling a user to import or create a league in the Draft Analyzer Web and download it to their desktop for off-line drafts or even access it on their iPhone. Users can also complete unlimited mock drafts directly in the Draft Analyzer Web to help them perfect their draft strategy.

Fantasy Baseball Sherpa

http://fantasybaseballsherpa.com/

Provides player rankings and remainder-of-season forecasts. The rankings and forecasts are customized for eligible players (i.e. – MLB, NL-only, AL-only), # teams in league, roster requirements by position, and scoring categories. Customized season-to-date player rankings and stats can also be generated. Cost of a season subscription is $24.95. The remainder-of-season forecasts are updated daily throughout the baseball season to reflect the following developments:

Injuries
Trades
Suspensions
Minor league call-ups
Changes in playing time (e.g. – platoon player becomes an everyday player)
Changes in role (e.g. – middle reliever becomes a closer)
Changes in batting order position.

Fantasy Football Crystal Ball

See a demo here: http://www.fantasyfootballcrystalball.com/DraftGameAssistance.aspx

Fantasy Football Crystal Ball is both a draft and game assistance tool via consolidation of rankings and scoring of experts. For the draft, consolidating draft rankings allows for a side-by- side comparison of expert projections, allowing the fantasy owner to conclude which picks are consensus and which are risky “reach” picks. During the regular season, consolidating predictions, tailoring those predictions to an owner’s roster, and scoring those predictions greatly streamlines the weekly process.

There are two technological breakthroughs that make Fantasy Football Crystal Ball unique. First, we developed a software toolkit that fully automates collection of experts’ predictions. This toolkit is configurable and scalable across expert sources and sports. Second, we developed a mathematical model for scoring the experts that is both meaningful and fair. It allows an owner to discriminate among and between the experts at a glance for his/her roster’s weekly start-sit decisions. It rewards good predictions while penalizing bad predictions appropriately for both start advice and sit advice.

Myfantasyleague.com/Fantasy Sharks Draft Coach

www.fantasysharks.com

Available as a free add-on to MyFantasyLeague.com customers, the Draft and Lineup Coach make suggestions on who to draft or start based on proprietary FantasySharks.com algorithms.

Draft Coach

The Draft Coach has been available at MyFantasyLeague.com for those leagues since 2005. Mid-draft, a MyFantasyLeague.com customer can elect to look at the FantasySharks.com Draft Coach and the Draft Coach will read the scoring system, roster requirements and players drafted for the owners league, then after applying our proprietary algorithm which utilizes position scarcity, value and player tier’ing to make a suggestion, will cross reference the season projections at FantasySharks.com and make suggestions as to who is the next best selection for that particular owner.

Click here for a Draft Coach in progress when viewed from a MyFantasyLeague.com league. The Draft Coach helped 35,000 players draft a team this preseason.

Lineup Coach

The Lineup Coach has also been available at MyFantasyLeague.com for those leagues since 2005. The Lineup Coach will read the players league scoring and roster requirements then make suggestions on who to start based on FantasySharks.com weekly projections, bye weeks and our own ’stud’ rating for players.

Click here for a Lineup Coach when viewed from a MyFantasyLeague.com league

The Lineup Coach continues to be a successful tool and is projected to make around 200,000 starting lineup projections for the 2009 NFL season.

Rotowire.com

http://www.rotowire.com/baseball/draftsoftware.htm
http://www.rotowire.com/football/draftsoftware.htm
http://www.rotowire.com/basketball/draftsoftware.htm
http://www.rotowire.com/hockey/draftsoftware.htm
http://www.rotowire.com/golf/draftsoftware.htm

Use the following to download the software/access fully the pages above:

UserName: Fsta

Password: fsta

RotoWire’s draft software for five different sports allows fantasy players to keep track of an entire draft or auction in real time and provides player projections, player rankings, dollar values, player news and more. Fantasy players can research all of the players, sort by categories and statistics, view projected league standings and much more. RotoWire was the first web site to create draft software for hockey, golf and basketball and the first to offer it for five different sports.

Print or Magazine Ad

This award will recognize the most creative ad of 2009. Ads for any fantasy product are eligible and will be submitted directly to the committee for review.

Best Fantasy Magazine

This award will recognize the 2009 fantasy magazine with the best combination of information, presentation, and innovation.

Athlon

Athlon Sports provides the premier source of fantasy football draft preparation in its Fantasy Football Analyst, a 160-page, full-color newsstand publication. Athlon’s Dan and Kelly Grogan analyze more than 370 players (up from just over 200 last year) and rank more than 500 in an expanded CheatSheets section that includes Estimated Fantasy Points, dollar values, stat projections and brief comments. The staff mock draft is bigger and better than ever, and there is loads of strategic advice from the Grogans. Team beat writers answer key fantasy questions as the focal point of refurbished team pages. And magazine buyers get free online access to updated CheatSheets that are updated daily throughout the preseason. The Fantasy Football Analyst is packed with everything fantasy players need to prepare for draft day and start their journey to a fantasy championship.

http://corpftp.athlonsports.com/

Then access the file using the following:

User ID: getfile
Password: Production2k
Directory: outgoing/fantasy magazine

Fantasy Sports Services Inc (XML Team)

Hockey Yearbook Magazine (Print)

http://magazine.forecaster.ca/hk09/TSFHockey0910.pdf

http://magazine.forecaster.ca/hk09/TSFHockey0910-Top500.pdf

(Note: the second URL – Top500 — is included as a tear-out within the magazine.)

Reader-friendly, THE SPORTS FORECASTER bursts at the bindings with facts, figures and an unsurpassed forecasts section, where the top 500 players are laid out in a handy, tear-out format. It’s a one-stop shop for sports fans, filled with player and team profiles. All the tools you need for total fantasy sports dominance!

Footballguys.com

Footballguys.com 2009 Strategy Guide (http://footballguys.com/cdcheck/fullmag.pdf). You can also easily view the magazine at this URL: http://www.footballguys.com/free.php. Our entire CD’s contents can be viewed here: http://www.footballguys.com/cdcheck/cd.htm.

The Footballguys.com Magazine was available free on the Footballguys.com website for the first time in 2009. The full-color, 250-page guide was also distributed as a PDF file on 150,000 CDs.

Coverage includes the following sections:

Multiple strategy articles (including an updated look at the ground-breaking Value Based Drafting strategy and a mock draft that delves into the drafting strategies of 12 staff members)
Cheatsheets, rankings, and projections (including rankings from multiple staff members)
News (including an injury recap, coaching and player movement, and a rundown of pressing preseason issues)

Fanball/Hotbox Sports

Fanball/Hotbox Sports Fantasy Basketball Magazine

Web Site Name and URL: www.fanball.com; www.hotboxsports.com

NFL.com

NFL.com Fantasy football 2009 preview.

Rotoworld

Rotoworld.com & Beckett Media Fantasy Football, Baseball, and Basketball Draft Guide

The most comprehensive draft guide features more than 500 player’s profiles in football, 1000 in baseball, and 350 in basketball. Included in the draft guide is Stat Projections, Player profiles, Sleepers, Busts, Rookies, Fantasy Point Scoring, Roto-style scoring, ADP report, Tiering system, Depth Charts, Running back report, Closer report, Mock Draft Recaps, Contract Year analysis, Schedule analysis, Dynasty/Keeper Rankings, Auction Values, over 30 strategy articles.

Rotowire

http://www.rotowire.com/magazine/index_MLB2009.htm

RotoWire’s fantasy baseball magazine includes more than 1,500 player profiles, dollar values, projected stats, cheatsheets, articles by Will Carroll, John Sickels, Jeff Erickson and more! We would argue RotoWire’s fantasy baseball magazine includes more player profiles than any other print magazine in any sport, and each player profile offers considerable depth. They offer a big advantage when a fantasy baseball player scrambles for research on an unknown player during a draft or auction.

Best New Web Site or Site Update

This award will be presented to companies that are new to the fantasy market since January 1, 2009 or have done a considerable upgrade to their site. The site will be judged based upon the professional quality, overall offer value presented and innovative use of technology.

Fantasy Sports Channel/Blog Talk Radio

The original version of the FSC was essentially a standard BlogTalkRadio template which is used for any of their established channels. Although the page provided streaming audio, programming listings, and host profiles, many people found it too busy and hard to navigate.

In September of 2009, the FSC’s creator and managing editor, Marc Ronick worked with a web developer to create a much more user friendly web site that includes all of the features from the old page with a plethora of new features such as: player news updates, player rankings, fantasy sports articles & blogs, more organized host/directory, topical poll questions, and more.

For a comparison of our old layout vs our new layout, please follow the links below:

Old site: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/channels/fantasysports

New site: http://www.fsc.fm

2009’s new look site also brought bigger and better industry names such as John Hansen and Adam Caplan of fantasyguru.com, Jay Clemons (SI.com & 2008 FSWA Football Writer of the Year), and Mike Harmon of FOX Sports Radio to name a few.

Dream11.com

Dream11.com is the flagship brand of Dream11 Gaming Pvt. Ltd. It is a unique and innovative Fantasy Cricket portal that offers users ’The World’s 1st Graphical Fantasy Cricket Game’. The portal also allows users to compete and connect with millions of cricket fanatics and develop ‘cricket communities’ that further adds to the fun quotient. Features like Live Scores, News, Player Profiles, Schedules, Standings, Statistics, Games and Gallery, along with Community tools, ensure a complete Fantasy Cricket experience for users. Dream11.com was launched on 25^th May, 2009 just before the ICC World Twenty20, 2009.

To access our draft room:
- Please visit www.dream11.com
- Login on the top with:
  - Username: jcleveland@fsta.org
  - Password: jcleveland
  - Once you are logged-in please click on Fantasy Cricket in the top navigation

Now click on the “Play Now” button that you will see close to the center of the screen.

Cheatsheet Creator (FanSoft Media)

CheatSheet Creator was created as an alternative to the archaic methods of draft preparation. After years of inefficiently creating draft preparation notes on legal pads and Microsoft Excel spreadsheets, we decided that there had to be a better way.

CheatSheet Creator is a free web based service that works as a virtual notebook that is user friendly and fun to use. Users can write player notes, drag/drop and add/remove players in a sleek AJAX technology driven environment. When the time comes for the draft, users can go to the “Create a Report” area, and have their customized cheat sheet available at the click of a button. Signup is completely free, and can be done so directly below:

http://www.cheatsheetcreator.com/site/index.php/register

The site was up as a closed BETA in late summer of ‘08, but official launched (after a full re-development) to the public in the summer of 2009.

Fantrax

Is there any other information you would like us to consider:

- We are built from the ground up to be fully translatable, and Fantrax will soon be offered in French, Spanish and other languages.

- We implement new features at an unheard of pace (often a few per week), largely based on user demand (sometimes within a day or 2!).

- Unlike certain niche sites that have a relatively high degree

Hotbox Sports

Hotbox Sports offers a variation on head to head fantasy games designed to bring the excitement of fantasy football to other sports. Hotbox Sports fantasy basketball launched in late 2008.

Owners play two head-to-head contests per week; game periods are Mon-Wed and Fri-Sun. If a player has 2 games in a given game period, owners must choose which game will count towards their score. The result is a game where fans can feel the impact of their starter’s performance while watching the game. This leads to more “down to the wire” moments and yes, more screaming at the television. Preliminary data shows very high page-views, eluding to the fact that this might be the missing link for lackluster profits and shrinking popularity of fantasy basketball.

Hotbox Sports included an innovation to their site this year that could be a new standard in all fantasy sports. We would like the board to consider this development separately from our scheduling innovation. One frustrating element of fantasy sports is misinformation regarding players’ injury status as well as their coach’s intentions regarding their playing time for a given game. The goal here is to combat the negative feelings an owner feels when they make a wrong call, whether it be to start a player who sits the bench or to sit one who plays despite injury-hype. For this, Hotbox Sports includes injury reserve slots as part of the starting rosters of each team. Every team chooses a reserve for the Center, Forward, and Guard positions. If a starter does not play, the reserve player’s score is automatically substituted for the player who sat out. The benefits here are twofold: 1) owners do not have to be concerned about bogus information handed out by the likes of a Bill Belichek or Mike Shanahan because they have a backup plan in place 2) owners do not have to be inconvenienced by being forced to be available minutes before gametime for a last-minute roster decision.

Specialty Products or Services

This is a company award and will recognize the member company with the best combination of service, high quality products, and innovation. The products should be designed to enhance a fantasy sport experience and may include companies supplying trophies, rings, draft boards, promotional items, etc.

AccuScore

Fantasy Scout™ is the most advanced tool kit for Fantasy Sports ever integrated into a league manager; available for MLB Fantasy players on ESPN and for NFL Fantasy players on both ESPN and CBS. Leveraging AccuScore’s patented simulation engine, Fantasy Scout saves you time by finding free agents and waiver wire pick up for you; helps you optimize your roster and evaluate trades; all using your league’s custom scoring options.

Fantasy Scout is used by both ESPN and CBS to help drive revenue and subscription numbers. Tied directly into the user’s custom scoring options for their leagues, Fantasy Scout gives the user tools to help win their fantasy league and make them more competitive. For example. Fantasy Scout trade analyzer gives the user complete information. If someone wanted to trade you Peyton Manning for Maurice Jones-Drew, maybe that seems like an even trade but without knowing who you have on your bench and what your league’s scoring customizations are, any recommendation on that trade is useless. But with Fantasy Scout, you will see how the trade performs with your bench players filling the vacant spots.

Spend hours trolling the free agent pool for that hidden gem? Fantasy Scout does the work for you, finding a player or players that are worth picking up and which players on your team you should drop to get them. If you play in multiple leagues, the time savings of this tool alone makes Fantasy Scout worth the price.

Can’t decide who to start? Two running backs and two wide receivers or one running back and three wide receivers? Fantasy Scout will tell you who to start and who to bench including how you should handle your flex positions.

Example/Demonstration:

http://espn.accuscore.com/fantasyscout-nfl/espn/scout.php?tool=tra1&leagueId=485&teamId=1&seasonId=2009

Advanced Sports Media (iPhone Ap)

http://www.draftanalyzer.com

Key Features:

Rotoworld/NBC Sports Season Pass

- $14.99 a season pass

http://www.rotoworld.com/premium/seasonpass/football/main_page.aspx
http://www.rotoworld.com/premium/seasonpass/basketball/main_page.aspx
http://www.rotoworld.com/premium/seasonpass/baseball/main_page.aspx

The Season Pass acts like a co-pilot for a fantasy manager. It provides projections and rankings that are continually updated as the season progresses. Included in the Season Pass is Customizable Scoring, Positional Stat Projections, Weekly/Daily Player Projections, Premium Playing Time Report, Premium Chat rooms, Weekly Tiers, Pick Up of the day, Strength of Schedule, Weekly Schedule Breakdown, Injury Report, Playoff Rankings, Mid-Season Report, Fantasy Points Allowed, Play-by-Play Report, and tons of articles. The Season Pass also has RotoDirect…sends breaking player news in your inbox. PlayerTracker…allows you to track your players through the Season Pass. Rotoworld Oracle…tells you who to start each week.

Leaguesafe.com

LeagueSafe is an online escrow service that secures and manages fantasy leagues’ finances. In a nutshell, it’s like PayPal, with added features designed specifically to facilitate payment of fantasy entry fees and provide a safe environment for funds throughout the season. In the preseason, league fees are deposited via credit card or E-check. In-season, funds are locked down in a FDIC-insured bank account, and 100% of the funds are paid back to league members at the end of the season.

Fantasy Football Crystal Ball

http://fantasyfootballcrystalball.com/

In consolidating predictions of multiple experts in a single place, tailoring those predictions to an owner’s roster each week, and scoring those predictions, Fantasy Football Crystal Ball provides a unique combination of features that makes the process fast, easy and precise.

“How do you make the best start-sit decisions?” Most fantasy owners make these decisions by combining information from a variety of expert sources. However, with the multitude of sites offering weekly rankings, this task becomes onerous, mentally-taxing, and very time-consuming.

“Is it worth the time spent?” The answer is a resounding “YES!” Fantasy Football Crystal Ball grew out of an analysis of our own historical data, taken from actual league results over the last five years which shows that making the right start-sit decisions is the difference between winning and losing. Our data show that in almost all cases, the league leaders were invariably those with the highest coaching percentage.

“How do you make this easier, faster, and more precise?” Fantasy Football Crystal Ball collects and aggregates weekly start sit rankings from numerous sources. Furthermore, we developed a user interface that would show expert predictions for the PARTICULAR ROSTER of a fantasy coach. The last piece to the puzzle was to develop a retrospective ranking algorithm that shows a fantasy coach how accurate the experts were for his/her OWN ROSTER. We launched the site this season, and we are well on our way to building the best decision-support site in all of fantasy sports.

See a demo here: http://www.fantasyfootballcrystalball.com/SpecialtyProducts.aspx

Mission Competition

http://www.missioncompetition.com/

Have you ever participated in a fantasy league when someone quit? No fun, right? Mission Competition can replace “dead” teams with active ones within 48 hours of notice. Our goal is to keep your fantasy league competitive and fair.

If we win your league we will NOT collect any league prizes.

Best Online Content Service

This award will be presented to the company with the best online information service to enhance a fantasy participant’s experience. The online service should demonstrate expert fantasy knowledge and a unique and creative ability to support and engage the user.

BaseballHQ.com

http://www.BaseballHQ.com

Baseball HQ has been providing advanced analytical information to the fantasy baseball-only marketplace since 1996. It is one of the deepest content sites in the industry, producing more than 1000 articles each season. It is the home of exclusive strategies such as the LIMA Plan, Portfolio3 and Ron Shandler’s daily updated player projections. HQ covers the widest scope of game formats including Rotisserie, simulations, head-to-head, salary cap contests and other alternative games. HQ writers and readers have won 23 national championships since 1997. HQ’s information is used by many Major League GMs, and several HQ analysts have been advisors to the St. Louis Cardinals.

Summary of content:

Daily, in-depth news analysis with complete statistical support data
Columns written by national industry experts
Medically-trained injury analyst on staff
Player projections updated daily
Exclusive statistical concepts and databases
Pitching logs, with evaluation gauges
Bullpen charts, with leading indicators
Batter and pitcher consistency charts (for H2H gamers)
Writer-supported, interactive reader forums
Daily player target lists
Searchable player database with news log
Complete library of research results
Data files with 12 years of history
Minor league prospect reports
Minor league organization reports
Major league equivalent statistics files
Customized team profiler and stat-tracker
Customized fantasy draft guides
Strategic draft prep tools, like Rotisserie grids
Customized Rotisserie values
Daily fantasy strategy columns
Support for sim, salary cap, online gaming, H2H, points and more
Groundbreaking strategies like the LIMA Plan and Portfolio3 Plan
Personalized advisor service

We were one of the first subscription-based sites (launched in September 1996) and entered the industry as the most expensive ($99/year). From there, we’ve carved out the high-end market, maintaining an exclusively pay-for-access model, and continue to grow by annual double-digit rates. Editor and publisher Ron Shandler writes a weekly column for USA Today and blogs for the Huffington Post.

To access the site:
USER NAME trial
PASSWORD carpenter

CBSSports.com

http://www.cbssports.com/fantasy

Regardless of what fantasy service players use, all fanatics will want to bookmark CBSSports.com Fantasy News. Launched in the summer of 2008, CBSSports.com Fantasy News has quickly become the leading destination for fantasy sports news and information, regardless of what fantasy sports provider player’s use.

The concept with CBSSports.com Fantasy News was to give fantasy players around the world open AND FREE access to the most coveted analysis and data in the business. CBSSports.com Fantasy News represents the first time a major developer of fantasy sports products has built a site designed solely for news and information and made it available to the public, regardless of what fantasy sports provider they use.

CBSSports.com Fantasy News allows fantasy players from across the industry to consume information and analysis from the entire team of award-winning CBSSports.com fantasy sports writers as well as from CBSSports.com national columnists and senior writers, all free of charge. CBSSports.com Fantasy News is a stand-alone destination that is heavily linked across CBSSports.com and other CBS Interactive sites where applicable.

CBSSports.com Fantasy News covers eight different sports (see full list below), giving users around the world free access to exclusive player updates, columns, breaking news and blogs. CBSSports.com Fantasy News also allows users to tap into an enormous amount of data-mining information from the CBSSports.com base of users, the most engaged and passionate fantasy players in the industry. From the most added/most dropped players to draft averages to the most traded players, visitors to CBSSports.com Fantasy News have access to hundreds of statistical breakdowns.

CBSSports.com Fantasy News will cover pro football, college football, pro basketball, college basketball, baseball, hockey, golf & auto racing.

ESPN

http://games.espn.go.com/frontpage

ESPN.com’s Fantasy section features the most robust collection of analysts in the industry. Between Matthew Berry, Eric Karabell, Jason Grey, Christopher Harris, Tristan H. Cockcroft and Stephania Bell, ESPN has a voice for every fan. Whether it’s nuts-and-bolts features like Out of the Box or Stephania Bell’s injury blog or transcendent content like Matthew Berry’s Love/Hate column or the Fantasy Focus podcast, ESPN prides itself in serving both casual and hardcore fans.

Is there any other information you would like us to consider: ESPN.com Fantasy provides content not just on ESPN.com, but on TV (Fantasy Football Now), Radio (ESPN Fantasy Kickoff Specials), Podcasts (Fantasy Focus) and Mobile (iphone Draft Kit). ESPN Fantasy analysts chat twice per day, Monday through Friday (with a three-hour block on NFL Sundays), a service unmatched in the industry.

Some particular features worth highlighting:

Live inactives updates
http://sports.espn.go.com/fantasy/football/ffl/story?id=4608157

Eric Karabell’s blog
http://insider.espn.go.com/espn/blog/karabell/index

Out of the Box
http://sports.espn.go.com/sports/baseball/flb/outOfTheBox?page=ootb090608

Christopher Harris’ The Breakdown
http://games.espn.go.com/frontpage/breakdown?matchup=12

Footballguys.com

http://www.Footballguys.com

Whether it’s free or premium content you are after, Footballguys.com prides itself in providing a one-stop-shop source for all things football. With a staff of over 30 people, Footballguys.com will produce over 50,000 pages of online content this season.

Footballguys.com is the KING of FREE Content. We spend approximately 4 hours a day crafting a daily email that we send EVERY DAY from the day after the NFL Draft until the start of the season (143 issues in total): http://footballguys.com/updates.php Our free message board: http://forums.footballguys.com/forum/# is the busiest football board by a mile. In fact, it is a top 75 message board on the entire internet (as rated by big-boards.com). All content released before July 15^th is completely free. This includes hundreds of strategy articles, player and team evaluations, spotlights, projections, rankings, etc. This year we released our 250 page all-color magazine for free. We also released free versions of our popular drafting programs (these versions were fully functioning, but were not updated with new projections – user would have to do that manually). We released 300+ podcasts, our first training camp update, a popular Rate My Team application and all of our news for free. Just judged on Footballguys.com free content, we probably had the best football website in 2009. But we certainly did not stop there.

Each week, we release over 100 features to our subscribers. We cover projections, rankings, sleepers, IDP, Dynasty, and everything in-between. We are fanatical about football and do a lot of heavy lifting each week so that fantasy players have a decided edge in their leagues. Our leave-no-stone unturned approach to football yielded us with over 37,000 subscribers in 2009.

http://subscribers.footballguys.com/2009/09week10.php

user: fsta2009
pass: fsta2009

Rotoworld/NBC Sports

http://www.rotoworld.com/

Free, comprehensive, timely, insightful player news and columns. Over 175k player blurbs written since Oct 1, 2008. Rotoworld.com’s 24/7 operations aggregates news from a variety of sources and analyzes and opines on what that news means for fantasy players.

- Rotoworld.com ranked as the most trafficked pure-play Fantasy Sports site by Comscore, Nielsen Net Ratings.

- Over 500million pageviews and 15million plus uniques since October 2008.

- Rotoworld.com News Widget is in on over 15,000 locations on the Internet.

Best Broadcast

This award will recognize the website with the best combination of information and presentation on television.

CBSSports.com

http://fantasynews.cbssports.com/fantasyfootballtoday

Back for its second season, CBSSports.com’s groundbreaking original live video production, FANTASY FOOTBALL TODAY, helps fantasy football players prepare for battle each and every week from 11 am ET to 1 pm ET, taking viewers right up to kickoff.

In its debut for the 2008 season, FANTASY FOOTBALL TODAY recorded tremendous traffic, averaging approximately 500,000 weekly viewers, making it easily the largest and most watched live program of its kind on the Internet.

Hosted by Jason Horowitz, the face of much of the original video on CBSSports.com, FANTASY FOOTBALL TODAY features guests and experts, including segments with the cast of THE NFL TODAY on CBS Sports as well as reports from NFL ON CBS analysts in stadiums across the league, giving fantasy players around the world access the latest breaking NFL news and information.

In 2009, a new face joined the FANTASY FOOTBALL TODAY set as CBS College Sports Network Studio Analyst and NFL veteran Brian Jones joined Horowitz and Fantasy Football experts from CBSSports.com. Together, the FANTASY FOOTBALL TODAY crew interacts with viewers, providing expert advice to guide their fantasy football team, regardless of what fantasy sports provider they use. Available free of charge by presenting sponsors Ford, Sprint & Edge Shaving Gel the 2009 FANTASY FOOTBALL TODAY video player has a wider screen (640 X 360 pixels) and an improved video stream (approx. 800 kb/s), utilizing Flash technology to deliver an optimal viewing experience. Additionally, during FANTASY FOOTBALL TODAY viewers have access to on-demand highlights from previous segments of the show so fans can get a quick recap of any important information they might have missed.

A link to the home of FANTASY FOOTBALL TODAY is distributed on demand via the CBS Audience Network and its over 300 partners, which include TV.com, AOL, MSN, Yahoo, Fancast, Joost, Bebo, Sling Media, IMDb.com, TVGuide.com, and Slide, as well as Web sites from CBS’s 29 owned television, 144 radio, and up to 183 affiliated stations.

ESPN

http://games.espn.go.com/frontpage/surround/surroundIndex

Fantasy Football Now airs every Sunday during the NFL season from 11:30 a.m. until 1:00 p.m. ET. The show can be seen on ESPN.com, the iPhone and ESPN2 and ESPN2HD. Host Erik Kuselias and analysts Matthew Berry, Tim Hasselbeck and Stephania Bell guide fantasy players through all of the day’s decisions. Molly Qerim provides breaking news updates on inactives, and the show whips around to NFL game sites to get on-the-field, fantasy-specific updates from NFL reporters such as Michael Smith, Rachel Nichols and Sal Palantonio.

Fantasy Football Now’s innovative video player features embedded weekly position-by-position rankings, inactive updates,Twitter tweets and DVR capability.

NFL.com

Fantasy chat — television – airs on NFL Network every Tuesday (5-6pm EST), discusses top fantasy stories of the week: (http://www.nfl.com/videos/nfl-fantasy/09000d5d81448a11/WK-11-fantasy-advice)

Fantasy starts, sits – television – airs on NFL Network every Friday (5-6pm EST) (http://www.nfl.com/videos/nfl-fantasy/09000d5d8142b442/Week-10-Fantasy-Start-em-Sit-em)

Fantasy sleepers — television – airs on NFL Network every Saturday (7-8 EST): (http://www.nfl.com/videos/nfl-fantasy/09000d5d81430048/Top-10-Fantasy-sleepers)

RotoExperts

Fantasy Playbook

http://www.ubatv.com/Channel.aspx?Show=3d

Fantasy Playbook is a weekly, live streaming internet TV show on UBATV, and is a joint effort between RotoExperts and FREE THE FAN. Experts Scott Engel and Adam Ronis are joined by host Derek Tabacco and top industry insiders. Games are fully previewed from the fantasy perspective, and user interaction is encouraged. The show is shot on location in New York’s Financial District and utilizes a professional studio and equipment.

Is there any other information you would like us to consider: The first episode of the show was a full industry mock draft. Several of the 12 participants joined for analysis in the studio or via Skype.

Rotoworld/NBC Sports

The Fantasy Fix:

http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/25863080/ns/sports-nfl

Video:

http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/22825103/vp/34000250#34000250

Rotoworld.com’s Managing Editor Gregg Rosenthal and Tiffany Simons break down the latest fantasy news with their weekly Fantasy Fix Show. They also do a Live Fantasy Fix show every Sunday during the NFL season providing callers with critical roster advice.

GridIron Fantasy Football (World Championship of Fantasy Football)

The World Championship of Fantasy Football Main Event, Celebrity League and $25K Platinum League on Versus Network! For the first time in the history of high stakes fantasy football, the World Championship of Fantasy Football Main Event festivities were nationally broadcast to over 70 million households on Versus. Nationally acclaimed Winnercomm Productions teamed with Comcast to provide sports fans and specifically fantasy sports fans an inside look into the premier high stakes event in the world. The World Championship of Fantasy Football received coverage from ESPN Magazine, Fox Sports, ESPN, Washington Post, New York Times and Wall Street Journal to name just a few for its nationally televised broadcast of the World Championship of Fantasy Football. Among those attending WCOFF Main Event in 2009 were Evander Holyfield, Montell Jordan, Erik Kuselias, Daniel Negreanu, Erick Lindgren, Dennis Phillips, Roberto Clemente Jr. and Gary Payton.

Watch the WCOFF Television Premiere as seen on Versus at http://www.wcofs.com/wcoff/wcofftv

Best Podcast

This award will recognize the website with the best combination of information and presentation in an audio podcast.

Baseball HQ

Baseball HQ Radio uncovers the inner workings of what it takes to win in its weekly podcast. Host Patrick Davitt is joined by top analysts and special guests from within the fantasy baseball industry, for interviews and insights, each week from January through August. All shows are free 30+ minute mp3 files available for download or subscription through iTunes.

EACH WEEK: American League Market Watch, National League Market Watch, Minor League Minute, Brandon Kruse’s Skills Monitor, Ray Murphy’s Speculator, Ron Shandler’s Master Notes. Weekly feature segments include reports from Spring Training, Rick Wilton (Dr. HQ), outside experts (e.g. Jeff Erickson of Rotowire, Todd Zola of Mastersball, etc.), fantasy roundtables, strategy insiders and more.

March 28, 2009

http://www.baseballhq.com/radio/hqradio032809.mp3

Show #9 of 2009 features Part One of a Rotisserie Auction Roundtable with BaseballHQ.com editor Ron Shandler and Roto analyst Craig Neuman … Harold Nichols analyzes the NL, and Market Pulse columnist Matt Beagle talks AL in our regular Market Watch segments … Brandon Kruse discusses starting pitchers in our “Skills Monitor” segment… Rob Gordon looks at White Sox infield prospect Gordon Beckham in the “Minor League Minute” … and Shandler explains how to use 2009 as a steppingstone to 2010 (and have fun doing it) in his “Master Notes” … Runs 48:20

Blog Talk Radio

There isn’t another single web site on the internet that provides more FREE fantasy sports advice and content from more proven experts. Major industry experts along with up and comers have all joined forces to create a one stop shop at no charge to the fantasy sports channel audience. Truly one of the most valuable fantasy sports tools on the web or any other media outlet.

FantasyPros911.com/The FSC: 24-Hour Talking for A Cure

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/talkingbaseballlive/2009/03/07/24-hour-talking-for-a-cure-1

Summary: Lenny Melnick, Paul Greco, Tony Cincotta host a 24 hour live fantasy baseball talkathon to help raise money for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation.

ESPN

http://sports.espn.go.com/espnradio/podcast/archive?id=2942325

Fantasy Focus Football is a daily podcast featuring Matthew Berry, Nate Ravitz and producer Jay “Pod Vader” Soderberg. The show prides itself on personality-driven fantasy analysis and features recurring segments like the Name Game, Stephania Bell’s injury analysis and discussion of the popular Man’s League. Matthew and Nate frequently make fantasy-performance-based wagers that are then tracked on “The Board.” Guests of the show in 2009 have included NFL players Adrian Peterson, Maurice Jones-Drew, Reggie Wayne, Matt Forte and Matthew Stafford.

Fantasy Focus Football has been nominated for two awards these year at PodcastAwards.com, including Best Sports Podcast and People’s Choice.

Football Guys

“The Audible”, Footballguys.com’s fantasy football podcast is your one-stop shop for all things NFL. With over 300 shows a year, The Footballguys podcast will take you through the college All-star games, the NFL Draft, Preseason fantasy prep and through each week of the NFL season. Unlike other football podcasts, “The Audible” covers football all year long.

“The Audible” has been on the air the last four years, and unlike other podcasts we broadcast all year long. Hosts, Cecil Lammey and Sigmund Bloom love to talk football, and are recognized as two of the most knowledgeable analysts in the fantasy football community. Each year, Footballguys.com releases over 300 episodes full of the best football information, interviews, opinions, and insight that you can find anywhere on the internet.

We cover the draft beat from January to April, giving a fantasy football spin to what’s transpiring in the NFL. We report regularly on free agency, coaching changes, and other news from around the league. We also are in attendance at certain pro days, where we report and interview more top prospects. Our draft coverage wraps up at Radio City Music Hall in New York City. Sigmund attends the event, and is on the floor of the draft with full media credentials where he gets to talk football with some of the best in the business like Jon Gruden, Brian Baldinger, and Adam Schefter. Cecil reports from Broncos headquarters (Dove Valley), interviewing players and talking to analysts like Paul Burmeister and Mark Schlereth.

Our podcast is driven first and foremost by the love of football, breaking down barriers between the fans and the game, and covering the game from the thinking fan’s perspective – fantasy football is just another way that we engage our love of the game.

http://podcast.footballguys.com/2009/Footballguys-Audible-2009-Vol84a.mp3

RotoExperts

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/rotoradio

RotoRadio is a featured “station” on BlogTalkRadio’s Fantasy Sports Channel. Award-winning Fantasy veteran Scott Engel co-hosts Sunday and Thursday podcasts on football and baseball. The suite of shows also includes a Fantasy Basketball podcast, “Sports Smack”, an “anything goes” program, and an auto racing show co-hosted by Mike Forde of NASCAR

Top industry guests are welcomed are welcomed every week, and have included Peter King, Gil Brandt, Michael Fabiano, Ron Shandler, Brad Evans and many others. The list is a virtual “who’s who” of the Fantasy Indusrty. The NASCAR show may be one of a kind.

Best Video Podcast

This award will recognize the website with the best combination of information and presentation in a video podcast.

ESPN

http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=4619615

http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=4629449

ESPN.com Fantasy Focus is a daily video show available on ESPN.com or iTunes. Generally about six minutes, the show provides analysis and advice with host Paul Severino and analysts Matthew Berry, Eric Karabell, Christopher Harris, Keith Lipscomb and Stephania Bell. In 2009, this show moved to an ESPN television studio, providing a higher level of video quality.

RotoExperts.com

Fantasy Playbook: http://www.ubatv.com/Channel.aspx?Show=5b

Mandt Bros. Productions (Fantasy Sports Girl)

http://www.fantasysportsgirl.com

We are the leading video content provider for fantasy news and information. Whether it is prepping for your draft, looking for tips on the waiver wire, or keeping up with the latest injury reports, our site delivers practical and useful tips in a most entertaining package. The site is year round and provides not only football, basketball and baseball coverage, but also hockey, nascar and even Premiere League soccer.

Stinkball

http://stinkball.com

The video podcast StinkBall.com would most like to submit can be found on the homepage at http://www.StinkBall.com. All other video podcasts can be found on the StinkBall.com official blog at http://www.StinkBall.com/blog in the podcasts category. Stinkball.com video podcasts have featured monthly NFL news and fantasy football updates, as well as expert interviews from the 2009 FSTA Spring Conference. StinkBall.com Fantasy Football is the first ever fantasy football web site dedicated solely to a loser-league style contest. Currently StinkBall.com offers free teams, public leagues and private leagues for members that want a new, innovative challenge and to develop new fantasy football skills. Unlike traditional fantasy football web sites, to win the fantasy football contests found on StinkBall.com, site members must have extensive knowledge about the NFL and use strategic thinking based on “negative” outcome football stats to predict the worst player performances in order to gain more points and win their league and the overall season contest. Essentially members must choose fantasy DUDS instead of fantasy STUDS in order to win big. At StinkBall.com: If You Stink, You Win!!

In the first year of operation the StinkBall.com system has been in a testing phase. The season long contest has been running and members can add free teams and create leagues, however technical adjustments have been made throughout the season as the stats have been calculated and the scoring system implemented for the first time.

FSTA Media