Goodbye fantasy baseball?

Fantasy game operators -- ESPN, Yahoo, etc. -- have been paying millions of dollars licensing fees to MLBPA, NFLPA and NBA (which licenses player rights) for more than a decade. The landscape of fantasy sports from a user standpoint would change very little, if at all, due to a ruling in favor of either party.

 

Regardless of who pays what now, it's still a shitty move.

 

hey, maybe it's a good idea

if MLB is successful, some of these fantasy geeks can go out and get a life now

 

There you go making sense again.

 

It's not about who owns the data, which is in the public domain. It's about the ability to use players names in association with that data for a predominantly commercial purpose (as opposed to first amendment-protected products like newspapers, etc.). Essentially, the argument is that the players add value to the product; that the numbers are brought to life through their individual performances. The players don't see it as any different than a board game like Strat-o-matic. The legal term is "right of publicity."

 

Let's not lose sight of the fact that the panel of judges didn't seem inclined to side with MLB on this one.

 

Exactly.

Be VERY fucking careful, baseball.

It's more than 50 percent of the reason I watch the sport.

 

We have no idea what was on the minds of the judges, nor did the AP reporter who wrote a story that doesn't begin to describe the case in legal terms.

And again, fantasy baseball doesn't go away or even change very much, regardless of which side wins this case.

 

Really? I pulled this from the initial post. It sounds like the judges have indeed expressed something of an opinion:

A federal appeals panel of three judges seemed skeptical that MLB could take financial control of a game that uses publicly available statistics and widely known names of players.

"MLB is like a public religion. Everyone knows (the players') names and what they look like," said U.S. Judge Morris Arnold. "This is just part of being an American, isn't it?"

 

Every time I think baseball can't shit on its fans any more than it already does, I read something like this. Whether it's Bud Lite or the union pushing for this, I can't think of a more short-sighted attitude. Fantasy baseball brings more attention to the game, which can lead to more revenue. Why would you turn off a large segment of your fan base (and risk the loss of cash down the road) to get an up-front licensing fee?
It doesn't make sense.

 

It's amazing to me that they'd even try to pull this crap. But, I guess the greed of multimillionaires never ends.