Monday, June 5, 2006

Are Fantasy Leagues Bad for Baseball?

In January, Greg reported on a brewing dispute between Major League Baseball and CBC Distribution & Marketing, a supplier of player names and statistics to fantasy leagues. This dispute is now in court: CBC has sued baseball, claiming a first amendment violation. The plaintiff's complaint is here; trial is scheduled for September 5.

In last Sunday's New York Times, George Vecsey suggested that MLB's "boobs" should "stop trying to gouge these ersatz leagues and instead worry about its abandonment of its traditional working class fan base." Along the way, he took a number of swipes at fantasy leagues:

I've never understood the appeal of fantasy sports leagues . . . .

I find fantasy leagues to be as empty as reality shows on the tube or as the brief poker fad (it's over now, isn’t it?) . . . .

[F]antasy leagues are a sure sign somebody has way too much spare time.

[F]antasy league types ought to get a life.
Rising in defense of fantasy leagues, letterer-to-the-editor Todd Hemphill of Trinity, Florida, offers an explanation for the success of fantasy baseball this Sunday,
There was a time when rooting for the local teams made sense. With few exceptions there was continuity from year to year. The players were part of your community. When they succeeded, there was a sense of pride and accomplishment. Now players are hired guns, spinning through a revolving door of multimillion dollar offers, living in mansions far removed from the cities they supposedly represent. Owners are businessmen, period.

Is it better to be a Florida Marlins fan and watch your team marched off to auction block after every winning season? No thanks.

Instead, we create virtual teams. We make decisions about our teams. We vie with other owners with pride and genuine rewards at stake. It keeps our interest in sports alive and frees us from meaningless attachments to teams that no longer have anything to do with us.
The interesting thing about this defense of fantasy leagues is that it does seem to provide a sensible business reason for baseball to try to make life difficult for fantasy leagues. If fantasy and roto-baseball replace come to replace team allegiances, this may cut into MLB’s profits over the long-run. Roto-players certainly don’t have any reason to attend a game live. I would also suspect that they have little reason, unlike participants in an NCAA tournament pool, to watch baseball games on TV. Instead, they watch highlights or, more likely, simply check box scores for their players on the internet. Is it so wrong for MLB to want a piece of the action, to the extent that it is taking away viewers (and thus hurting ad sales) and cutting in to live attendance?

0 comments:

Post a Comment