February, 2009

Knee Injury Can’t Stop Brady from Scoring in Fantasy

Saturday, February 28th, 2009

It’s been a big weekend for Tom Brady, and it has nothing to do with the Patriots trading Matt Cassel on Saturday.

The Web was abuzz Friday with reports that the star quarterback and secretly wed his Brazilian supermodel girlfriend, Gisele Bundchen, in Santa Monica, Calif. Even if all the reports somehow turned out to be false, it was a fantasy bonanza for Brady owners.

No, your cousin Frank doesn’t score any points in his keeper league for his quarterback getting hitched — even to a supermodel. Anyone with Brady on the roster in their celebrity fantasy league, however, is racking up the points.

“Tom Brady just came off the bench to become an every day starter,” says Ed Menendez, co-founder of Hollywood Draft. “Now you have to keep an eye on them to have another kid and to cash in on those baby points.”

In Menendez’s game — and other similar contests — participants build a roster of celebrities and score for things such as the person merely showing up in the news, having a child or getting married. With Hollywood Draft’s focus on the number of times a celebrity gets mentioned in various print and online sources, a union of this magnitude not only makes for a big day but could start a scoring run.

“It’s like picking up Darren Sproles and riding his 3-4 week fantasy point wave,” Menendez says. “Now you hang on and hope he doesn’t celebrate too much and get a DUI.”

Count on Mr. and Mrs. Brady showing up on plenty of rosters in Hollywood Draft’s next round of play, which is set to begin on March 1.

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Some FSTA Board Members Still Serving Terms

Friday, February 27th, 2009

As we reported last night, 17 candidates are up for election to five spots on the board of directors for the Fantasy Sports Trade Association. As you might have noticed, four of those people are board incumbents. That might lead one to wonder about the remainder of the current board.

Well, association manager Justin Cleveland informs FSB.com that Paul Charchian (LeagueSafe), Jeff Christiansen (FF Toolbox), Jim Corelis (STATS), Jeff Coruccini (Fantasy Football Starters), Kelly Grogan (Athlon/Grogan’s), Scott Higgins (EchoStar), Howard Kamen (USA Today), Ted Kasten (Advanced Sports Media), Peter Schoenke (RotoWire) and Charlie Wiegert (CDM Sports/Fanball) are in the middle of their terms and not yet up for re-election.

The lone current board member who has decided not to seek another term is Dan Cypra of Fantasy Fanatics.

The new term, which runs for three years, will start on April 1 (and we’re not fooling).

See main story for the list of candidates.

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Saturday Last Day for FSTA Board Vote

Friday, February 27th, 2009

The Fantasy Sports Trade Association is holding an election for five three-year roles on its board of directors. The voting is open only to member companies, with each company only allowed a single ballot.

Members who have yet to make their selections can download the official ballot here and find the available candidate bios on the FSTA’s website. The list of options includes 17 members of the fantasy sports community, four of whom already reside on the board.

In alphabetical order, those up for election are …

Brett Baker, Fantasy Coverage (incumbent)

Craig Davis, Fantasy Planet

Bill Green, Fantasy Dispute (incumbent)

John Hartman, Pay The Fan

Scott Iverson, FLW Outdoors

Alan Karben, XML Team Solutions

Michael Mandt, Fantasy Sports Girl

Danielle MacLean, CBS Sports

Lawr Michaels, Creative Sports

Greg Robitaille, Fantasy Football Draft

Regi Simon, World of Entrepreneurship Inc.

Geoff Stein, Mock Draft Central

Scott Swanay, Swanay Sports Consulting/Fantasy Sherpa

Jeff Thomas, World Fantasy Games (current president)

Whitney Walters, The Huddle (incumbent)

Clint Webb, SportsDirect

David Wu, RotoHog

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Fantasy Baseball Advice from the Guys Who Started It

Wednesday, February 25th, 2009

“I was a schmuck for not making any money on this thing,” Daniel Okrent says early in a Forbes.com story posted Wednesday.

Although Okrent is universally attributed with creating what we know most commonly as fantasy baseball, he and his fellow originators failed to capitalize on their copyrighted Rotisserie Baseball.

But while the Forbes report leads with that unfortunate tale, the crux of the item is really the advice sought from Okrent and several of his leaguemates — as well as select other experts from the fantasy industry.

Forbes went to the eight gentlemen listed below in search of some player recommendations and a bit of sage advice. You’ll have to click on the links for the players. For the words of wisdom on the other hand, look no further than …

Daniel Okrent, creator of Rotisserie Baseball: Pay attention to your wife.

Ron Shandler, Baseball HQ: Decide whether you are in this to have fun or to win. In many cases, those two goals are mutually exclusive.

Harry Stein, original member of Okrent’s league: Bid up superstars (in auction drafts), but make sure someone else gets them. The successful rotisserie player does not get wedded to the idea of landing a particular player. And avoid one-dimensional players.

Scott Swanay, FantasyBaseballSherpa.com: Use a set of player rankings that quantifies position scarcity. If time permits, compare your player rankings to Average Draft Position (ADP) data from a credible source (such as Mock Draft Central) to avoid picking your targeted players too soon.

Sam Walker, Fantasyland: Read psychology books. The way to win is to understand the people in your league and to know what they do before they do it. Try to get inside peoples’ heads.

Bobby Jurney, 2008 winner of NBC Sports’ National Fantasy Baseball Championship: Know the players. It is easy to draft the big names, but nine times out of 10, that is not going to win you anything. It is the people who do the research and know all of the players, big and small, that are going to be successful.

Cary Schneider, original member of Okrent’s league: Find someone younger than you to give you information. If you’re over 30 you won’t know who any of these players are.

Nando Di Fino, The Wall Street Journal: Don’t follow the experts blindly. And read Rotoworld or Rotowire every day. (Di Fino forgot to add: “… and FSB.com.”)

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