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BREAKING NEWS & VIEWS

Paying for Service: SportingNews.com’s Fantasy Scout
Sunday, May 10, 2009

Internet users are reticent to pay for general content or mere access, but they do seem willing to lay out cash for entertainment experiences and service. SportingNews.com’s highly successful fee-based fantasy football games got a serious boost last year from a Fantasy Scout application that satisfied both needs. In partnership with Accuscore, SportingNews.com created an application that ran simulations of every upcoming NFL game and predictions of player performance. Trust us, sports-averse readers, nothing appeals to fantasy league players more than numbers and projections. Accuscore ran every conceivable variable on players and games through a super-computer to render predictions that helped league players adjust their line-ups and make smarter trades. The tool included a roster optimizer that advised players on their best line-ups based on Accuscore’s algorithms and helped players decide which Free Agents to pick up. The tool even compares your rosters with other players' roster to help identify good trade possibilities. 

Rather than a simple tool fantasy gamers could use within the confines of the SportingNews.com leagues, Fantasy Scout also had a Trade Machine widget that could run in a player’s Facebook, MySpace, iGoogle or Friendster pages so users could evaluate player trade proposals at any time from the places they spent the most time, their social networks. The site also leveraged the data in the free content areas, where curious visitors to the game day coverage piled up hundreds of thousands of page views exploring how the computers were projecting the day’s outcomes.

SportingNews created a compelling tool that drove its fantasy gamers even more deeply into the entertainment experience. It paid off for the publisher in two ways. Sponsor GMC enjoyed brand exposure on every Fantasy Scout screen, the social media placements around the Web, and on every NFL-related content page. For the fantasy leagues at SportingNews.com, it increased engagement measurably. The average player spent three minutes with Fantasy Scout every time he accessed the tool. Moreover, SportingNews.com realized a 300% increase in fantasy football sign-ups. In the site’s Draft & Trade Platinum program, players buy single teams for $24.99 and 5-team packs for $99.99, a significant revenue source for the company.

If you have breaking news to share please contact Steve Smith at ssmith@accessintel.com

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