FSTA.ORG — Events

2008 FSTA Awards Nominees

Voting is now closed. The winners will be announced January 27-28 at the 2009 FSTA Winter Business Conference Sponsored by RotoExperts.com

Fantasy Commissioner Product: This award recognizes the company with the best and most innovative commissioner tool in the industry. The tool must be customizable by the league’s commissioner and have live draft capability.

CBSSports.com Commissioner: The 2008 CBSSports.com Commissioner is the most customizable Commissioner League management product on the market and one able to handle leagues with up to 20 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. The 2008 CBSSports.com Commissioner is available for Fantasy Football, Fantasy Baseball, Fantasy Basketball & Fantasy Hockey.
ESPN Fantasy League Manager: Our free, fully customizable League Manager style fantasy game combines an innovative feature set of Live Scoring, Statistics and Research and Draft Tools with the best analysis in the industry, across multiple mediums. Our users enjoy mock draft lobbies, mobile access and unrivaled customer support. We feature the League Manager style for Football, Baseball, Basketball, Racing and Hockey.
Fanball.com Football Commissioner: Since 2001, Fanball Commissioner has proven to be one of the most comprehensive fantasy football league managers online. Fanball Commissioner allows you to set up fully customizable fantasy football leagues through our set up wizard, utilize our live draft room during your fantasy football draft, and follow your fantasy team on Sundays with live scoring. Our 2008 enhancements included a built in basic scoring option that allows for complete league set up in less than 5 minutes, a live draft room that loads seamlessly and allows for quick and easy player searches, and live scoring that includes mobile access to your team.
Fantrax: Fantrax Live Draft and Auction are near development completion and will be ready in December. Aside from that, Fantrax currently has a huge amount of features sure to please the whole gamut of Fantasy Sports fans. Fantrax is extremely flexible and unique options for Salaries & Contracts. Any scoring category can be created for any position, e.g. Defenseman +/- or Forward Penalty Minutes. Start and end your season at any time - run it for a week if you like!
MyFantasyLeague.com (FB): MyFantasyLeague.com is a feature-rich fantasy football league management system that has been serving the industry for almost 15 years.
RealTime Fantasy Sports (FB): RealTime Fantasy Sports provides the richest and deepest set of features available able in a fantasy football commissioner service. In 2008 RealTime Fantasy Sports introduced 56 major new features or feature enhancements to its Full Season Commissioner service product. This set of new features plus our hundreds of existing features give our users a fantasy commissioner service next to none. Having done live scoring since the 1990's our Full Season Commissioner service has delivered an outstanding scoring experience for 2008 with no major statistical outages or site downtime. Our customers have enjoyed stable, accurate, and FAST scoring updates all season. Customer's favorite new feature for 2008 has been the ability to build their own league page by adding or removing modules and using an intuitive drag-n-drop system to arrange the information on the page in any manner they desire.

Draft Style Tool: This award recognizes the company with the best and most innovative draft style league tool.

CBSSports.com Live Draft Room: All CBSSports.com Fantasy products, whether they be football, basketball, baseball, hockey, auto racing or golf use the award-winning CBSSports.com Live Draft Room. 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.
Mock Draft Central: Mock Draft Central (MDC) is the choice of the public and industry for mock drafts, average draft position (ADP) and player trend reports for all sports. MDC won FSTA Awards in 2007 for Draft Style Tool and Specialty Product or Service and was a finalist for Draft Assistance Tool.

Draft Style Contest: This award recognizes the company with the best draft style league contest. 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.

CBSSports.com Free Fantasy Football: One of the most popular Fantasy Football games on the planet is 100% FREE. 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 - with absolutely no upgrade fees or hidden costs. 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.
FanaticFantasyFootball.com LLC (FB): We provide commissioner services for fantasy football leagues. 2008 is our first year in the fantasy sports business. We plan to expand to other sports as we grow.
Fanball Draft and Play MLB (NFL, NBA, NHL, NASCAR: Fanball’s suite of Draft & Play games have been their fastest growing games, with over 30,000 entries. The games feature multiple price points and prizes, different levels of play, multiple scoring options and head to head play. The strength of these games comes from the superior design, great web sites with easy to follow rules and sign up process, spectacular draft rooms with error free drafts, live scoring, league web site with user friendly tools and information to help each player manage their team. The performance of these games convinced partners such as Comcast and Fantasy Football Open Championship to select Fanball to run a very similar version of these games for them.
Head2Head The Draft 2008: H2H provides live, on-location fantasy football drafts in local markets. The draft is a 16 round, 12 team league format that is promoted as a local market championship. The event integrates a party, draft girls, local media and local sport stars in an affordable price range per team of $39.95 to $500. Our online site provides in-season support of the league with live stats updates and player/injury news. We also support a Free Agent bidding process for in-season roster acquisitions. The overall winner receives $10,000 and the league prizes can range from a trophy to $1,000 per league.
PASPN.Net Mock GM Offseason & Real-time Fantasy Basketball: The ultimate year-round NBA fantasy basketball game. In the offseason, take over the GM duties of an NBA team or become a sports agent and build your clientele list by representing players in contract negotiations. During the regular season, compete against other GMs revamped rosters in head-to-head competition or against other sports agents and their players’ performance and utilization. Two games intertwined into one, you pick your angle of play! Manage your team with live scoring, stats, news and expert advice. This is the NBA!' We presented a new drafting style this year without current game offering. Unlike traditional fantasy basketball where you draft players, GMs “Draft” an NBA teams on a first come, first serve basis as is, along with their existing players, existing payroll and any relationships that come with the players and their agents. Agents “Draft” players on a first come, first serve basis to represent based on their final player rating from the previous season.
U-Sports (College FB, BB): U-Sports provides a hyper-customizable commissioner product which hosts fantasy college football and fantasy college basketball contests. Some of the customizable features include - Talent Pool (which of the 120 football teams and 349 basketball teams are used in the league), Number of fantasy teams (from 4-24 including odd numbers), Draft Type (Live, Automated, or Offline), Length of season.

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.

Fanball Challenge Games: The most comprehensive suite of Challenge games in the industry, covering all sports with multiple games and scoring options. We’ve awarded more prize money than any other national challenges, over $55,000,000 since 1992. The web sites for these games have under gone major renovations this past year, making them more user friendly while maintaining the rules and integrity that they have been known for the past 16 years. These games were the basis for the lawsuit with MPBAM/MLBPA, and their structure was a major factor in proving player stats are in the public domain and can be used for these games without having to get permission or pay royalties to the player associations for their use.
PASPN.Net Mock GM Offseason & Real-time Fantasy Basketball: The ultimate year-round NBA fantasy basketball game. In the offseason, take over the GM duties of an NBA team or become a sports agent and build your clientele list by representing players in contract negotiations. During the regular season, compete against other GMs revamped rosters in head-to-head competition or against other sports agents and their players’ performance and utilization. Two games intertwined into one, you pick your angle of play! Manage your team with live scoring, stats, news and expert advice. This is the NBA!' Not only does Mock GM include a salary cap, it also includes the rules and regulations that govern the salary cap by enforcing the NBA’s collective bargaining agreement (CBA) in our game. Mock GMs have to follow the rules of real NBA GMs when trading player salaries (trades have to come within 20% + 100K) The game also includes the rules and regulations on offering contract minimums and maximums when offering a player a contract based on how many years they have been in the league.
Sports Buff Salary Cap Style Football: Sports Buff Fantasy Football remains an industry leader in salary cap style football. Contestants slug it out all year during the 17 week regular season to position themselves to compete with only the best of the best in the end, and vie for the coveted “Mr. Fantasy Football 2008” title and a Grand Prize of $30,000. In the NFL, the week-to-week wars produce many different scenarios and Sports Buff Fantasy Football caters to the casual fan as well as the hardcore competitor with weekly prizes as well as overall prizes. As is the case in the NFL, anybody can beat anybody on any given week and at Sports Buff, we believe in that same theory so the last place overall team stands an equal chance to win the $100 weekly prize and the $1,000 overall top weekly prize. For an investment of under $200, EVERY player is eligible to win any one of several prizes by staying competitive.

Live Fantasy Event or Contest: This award will recognize the company managing the most compelling on-premise, live fantasy event or contest.

AOL Sports (FB): A live expert chat that is run every Sunday from 10:30AM EST to kickoff. We field every single reader question and update all the injuries at a very rapid pace using the 'Cover It Live' software.
ESPN Fantasy Football Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony (FB): ESPN finished a great year in Fantasy Football by holding a live “Hall of Fame” induction ceremony in Las Vegas on Super Bowl weekend. Capitalizing off of ESPN The Magazine’s NEXT party, which recognizes the NEXT big things and people in sports, the ceremony featured the Hall of Fame’s newest members (Brandon Marshall, Derek Anderson and more) receiving their own honorary red jackets, emblazoned with the ESPN Fantasy Football logo and captured for replay on ESPN and ESPN.com. The ceremony was filmed for replay on ESPN.com’s Fantasy pages, to great reception.
FLW Fantasy Fishing: FantasyFishing.com is the site for the newest, most-rewarding game in fantasy sports – FLW Fantasy Fishing. FLW Fantasy Fishing gave away $100,000 to the top fantasy player for each of the Wal-Mart FLW tournaments in 2008. That’s seven tournaments – six regular-season events plus the year-end Forrest Wood Cup – and, thus, seven $100,000 fantasy winners. But here’s the coup de grace: In addition to those prizes, the overall cumulative points winner at the end of the season – Michael Thompson - won $1 million. FLW Fantasy Fishing truly is the most rewarding fantasy-sports game ever created. Lots of fantasy games like to claim they have the richest paybacks out there, but they don’t. In FLW Fantasy Fishing, there were more than 4,000 winners and $2.3 million in cash and prizes given away.

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.

Alma Mater Football League: AMFL is a new and unique method of playing college fantasy football. The focus of play is on a participant’s favorite college team and those who know their favorite teams will have a competitive advantage. The current method of playing fantasy football forces participants to choose players from teams other than their favorites in order to be successful. For the true fan, this is a conflict of interest. This is especially true for college fans, who tend to have a deeper sense of loyalty since their favorite players cannot be traded. AMFL’s focus on one team is not a limitation, it opens up more opportunities for a more detailed level of play within that team. Participants choose athletes from only one school and their athlete pool matches their school’s full roster. A position-based weighted point system gives equal points for similar full-season performances across positions. This allows AMFL to have a modified roster relative to traditional fantasy football, further supporting the ‘one school athlete pool’ from which the participant chooses.
ESPN Streak for the Cash: ESPN’s new daily game, “Streak for the Cash”, debuted in August 2008 and has quickly become one of ESPN’s most popular and sought after interactive destinations, averaging 47% growth in unique users week over week. Users are encouraged to build a winning streak by choosing a new winner every day (or multiple times each day!). The first user to reach 25 consecutive successful picks wins $1 million. With significant integration across TV, radio and mobile, ESPN’s users are never far from SFTC and can even play on the go. SFTC is exceptional for being driving sponsorship dollars since its pilot launch in August.
FLW Fantasy Fishing: FantasyFishing.com is the site for the newest, most-rewarding game in fantasy sports – FLW Fantasy Fishing. FLW Fantasy Fishing gave away $100,000 to the top fantasy player for each of the Wal-Mart FLW tournaments in 2008. That’s seven tournaments – six regular-season events plus the year-end Forrest Wood Cup – and, thus, seven $100,000 fantasy winners. But here’s the coup de grace: In addition to those prizes, the overall cumulative points winner at the end of the season – Michael Thompson - won $1 million. FLW Fantasy Fishing truly is the most rewarding fantasy-sports game ever created. In FLW Fantasy Fishing, there were more than 4,000 winners and $2.3 million in cash and prizes given away.
Head2Head Match Play Madness: This game was designed as a single elimination bracket style game for the 2008 WGC match play event held in February. The user makes all of their picks before the start of play on Wednesday from the field of sixty-four (64) starting golfers. They then use their expertise to make selections as they advance to the championship match-up on Sunday. The excitement of this format makes the correct selections worth more points as the rounds advance to the championship. No points are scored for an incorrect selection. Live Scoring was available throughout the event so the participant could follow up to the minute action. The Grand Prize winner took home a prize from PGA TOUR Experiences with an ARV of $5,000.
PASPN.Net Mock GM Offseason & Real-time Fantasy Basketball: The ultimate year-round NBA fantasy basketball game. In the offseason, take over the GM duties of an NBA team or become a sports agent and build your clientele list by representing players in contract negotiations. During the regular season, compete against other GMs revamped rosters in head-to-head competition or against other sports agents and their players’ performance and utilization. Two games intertwined into one, you pick your angle of play! Manage your team with live scoring, stats, news and expert advice. This is the NBA!' PASPN.net’s Mock GM is unique because it is the first fantasy basketball game governed by the rules of the NBA collective bargaining agreement. In addition, the game combines the business aspect of the NBA offseason with play and excitement of the NBA regular season. It also is the first fantasy basketball to introduce two different user roles (the GM and the Agent) intertwined in one game.
Pay The Fan Fantasy Sports (FB,Racing): The site offers unique games to the fantasy player – breaking from the tradition of drafts and commissioners for football and salary cap limitations for racing. The football game allows the player a new roster each week and each week Pay The Fan awards the team with the high score $10,000. You can only use a player 2 times over the course of the 17 week season so the player must chose wisely. The NASCAR game also allows the player a new team each week but the player is limited to the number of starts for each driver – 6 times over the 36 race season. And the team with the high score for the week wins $3000. Racing days and NFL game days take on a new meaning when playing at Pay The Fan. Season long prize money is huge and rewards players for their efforts so they can “Get Paid Like a Pro!” PTF is fortunate to have Dale Jarrett and Terry Bradshaw among the ownership. These two athletes are legends in their respective sports and provide free advice to the players.

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.

CBSSports.com User Generated Player Updates: Starting with football season in 2008, CBSSports.com is allowing Fantasy sports fanatics to write and submit their own player updates for the entire CBSSports.com community to read. Now, in addition to the expert commentary and analysis from the team of CBSSports.com Fantasy sports writers, users can get insights and opinions on all Fantasy players submitted by fellow Fantasy addicts across the United States and around the world. The user generated player updates will be posted on each and every player page throughout CBSSports.com and CBSSports.com Fantasy News and are available for football, baseball, basketball, hockey, auto racing and golf. To date, CBSSports.com Fantasy fanatics have submitted over 30,000 of their own Fantasy player updates!
ESPN Streak for the Cash: ESPN’s new daily game, “Streak for the Cash”, debuted in August 2008 and has quickly become one of ESPN’s most popular and sought after interactive destinations, averaging 47% growth in unique users week over week. Users are encouraged to build a winning streak by choosing a new winner every day (or multiple times each day!). The first user to reach 25 consecutive successful picks wins $1 million. With significant integration across TV, radio and mobile, ESPN’s users are never far from SFTC and can even play on the go. SFTC is exceptional for being driving sponsorship dollars since its pilot launch in August. Since launch in August, Streak for the Cash has experienced an average of 47% week over week growth, become one of ESPN’s most popular interactive destinations and a major driver for editorial content and ESPN fan community conversations.
Accuscore.com GMC Fantasy Scout: Accuscore, the world’s leading provider of forecasted sports data, analysis and tools along with GMC is proud to bring you the most advanced fantasy tool anywhere, the GMC Fantasy Scout. The data presented is forecasted data, created by the AccuScore Super Computer, based on a highly complex computer simulation engine. The forecasted fantasy points are based on the league’s custom scoring options. This data updates every day as needed based on changes in injury status, weather and depth chart. As the season progresses, historical data is presented for prior weeks and forecasted data is shown for future weeks.
LeagueSafe.com: Simply put, we're a fantasy commissioner's best friend. We eliminate the hassle of managing league entry fees and payouts by automating the entire process. League members pay their dues using one of our convenient and 100 percent safe and secure online payment options. League funds are held safely in an FDIC-insured account at our partner bank and distributed in accordance with league rules at season's end.
Rosterdilemma.com: Rosterdilemma.com is a fantasy football research tool where you post and vote which player to start or sit each week. The forum is where you can post your ‘Roster Dilemmas’ and display them to the community to see what your fellow fantasy players have voted regarding which player you should select to start that week. Rosterdilemma.com integrates fantasy sports into the world of Web 2.0, social websites, and streamlines statistical data. Rosterdilemma.com supplements the existing expert analysis to help fantasy footballers make the most educated decisions during the fantasy football season.

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

CBSSports.com Fantasy Football Downloadable Draft Kit: The CBSSports.com Fantasy Football Downloadable Draft Kit is a comprehensive draft preparation guide available for free in a download friendly and print friendly format. Players can view it online or print it out and take it to their draft party. Unlike a magazine, the Downloadable Draft Kit is updated regularly to ensure the latest information. The content includes cheat sheets, player rankings, draft day strategies, projected breakouts, sleepers, and busts, positional breakdowns and additional expert analysis compiled by veteran CBSSports.com Fantasy Football writers Dave Richard and Jamey Eisenberg. Just this Fantasy Football season alone, the CBSSports.com Fantasy Football Downloadable Draft Kit was downloaded over 500,000 times – all FOR FREE – by Fantasy Football fanatics around the world.
The Huddle Fantasy Football Draft Kit: Provide a description of your product or service: During the NFL pre-season The Huddle’s Draft Kit is available to all subscribers, with many features also available for free. Most features are currently open to all site visitors and available for committee review. The Huddle’s Draft Kit provides everything the fantasy hobbyist needs to have a successful draft. Player rankings, cheat sheets, projected stats, player analysis on over 340 players, draft strategy articles, analyzed mock drafts (an industry exclusive) and more. All league types are covered – performance, td-only, auction, dynasty, IDP, etc. via our customized cheat sheet application and various other features.
ESPN Fantasy Football/Baseball Draft Kit: The ESPN Draft Kits provided users with a full complement of forecasting and analytical tools in order to maximize their draft-day success. Each was built on three pillars: 1. A complete set of projections and 50-to-150-word profiles for hundreds of players (MLB: more than 775, NFL: More than 400, NBA: More than 250 and NHL: More than 300). These were displayed in a "magazine" layout providing the reader with a ranked, sortable database of easy-to-read information which included last year's stats, the projection, position eligibility and even a picture. 2. In-depth strategy and analysis from the stable of industry-recognized ESPN experts. Each kit catered to the novice, the casual gamer and the hard-core player which allows ESPN to help grow and strengthen the fantasy customer base. Several themed and branded articles appeared across the gamut of our draft kit offerings, providing games a seamless experience when transitioning from game to game. 3. Tools: From daily-updated depth charts, cheat sheets and specialized rankings to exploiting the strengths of ESPN.com's "regular" sports platforms, a massive stats database, a network of baseball reporters unrivaled in the field, a treasure trove of first-hand-sourced information; Everything a gamer might need to prepare for draft day was one click away. All of our draft kits were fully accessible to gamers for free. With the use of sponsorship dollars and the realization that a strong and healthy gaming audience is more important than monetizing what is essentially the best tool at our disposal to capture a wider audience for the fantasy world, we gave the user the best experience possible regardless of economic circumstance. We believe this contributed to ESPN's 35% percent growth in fantasy gaming in 2008.
RotoExperts: Provide a description of your product or service: RotoExperts Fantasy Football Draft Kit contained 36 advice columns and features for fantasy football players, including Chris Bang’s evolutionary “No Running Back” Theory which has seen a fair amount of success this year over the typical Rb/Rb theory that has permeated the industry, as well as some of the most in-depth pre-season team previews, all of which were featured on SI.com. We broke down all 32 offensive lines, provided auction draft tips, player projections and a host of other tools, including Scott Engel’s “One Man Draft.” Our draft kit was free to registered users where most sites charged for theirs.
RotoWire Fantasy Baseball Draft Kit: RotoWire's fantasy baseball draft kit includes over 1,500 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.
KFFL.com's Fantasy Football Draft Guide: KFFL's preseason draft guide provides fantasy football players with real-time fantasy football rankings, player projections and analysis, covering sleepers, busts, in-depth player analysis, player news, divisional breakdowns, mock drafts with analysis, individual defensive player coverage and much, much more. In addition to our preseason guide fantasy analysis, which is updated throughout the preseason, KFFL also offers fantasy players the ability to customize our player projections to their specific league's scoring system through our Cheat Sheet Calculator. All of KFFL's fantasy football preseason guide is available online for free.

Fantasy Draft 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.

CBSSports.com Mock Drafts: CBSSports.com provides the ultimate mock drafting experience for Fantasy Football, Baseball, Basketball & Hockey. Players are provided with the most options for practicing their draft strategy. The coolest part is that users can choose their draft position, so they can draft from the same position that they have in their real draft. Plus, there is live chat during the draft and both the draft chat and draft results are automatically stored for future reference. Users can even choose to use these draft results as their rank lists in their CBSSports.com fantasy league or print them for more flexibility. Mock drafting is unlimited, so users can draft as many times as they like!
Draft Dynamix Draft Analyzer: #1 Selling PC-based downloadable draft assistance tool for fantasy football. CBSSports.com, ESPN, Fanball, RTSports and many other leading fantasy sports companies have chosen to sell the Draft Analyzer over the competition because of its robust features and industry leading player recommendation engine. The Draft Analyzer is the ONLY draft software program integrated into CBSSports.com and ESPN’s league manager and on-line live draft room. This integration enables users to download their league settings at the press of a button and take advantage of all the great features of the Draft Analyzer during their on-line or off-line draft. More leading fantasy sports companies have chosen to partner with the Draft Analyzer than all of the other draft assistance tools combined. As with other draft assistance tools, users can personalize their scoring rules and league settings in the Draft Analyzer to create a more accurate player ranking list for their specific league. However, the Draft Analyzer is the only draft assistance tool that enables its users to select from up to 7 different expert sources of detailed player projections, notes and news from some of the best fantasy sports experts in the business. All of the content provided by these expert sources is updated daily through-out the pre-season at the press of a button. Users can benefit from the wisdom of the crowds theory by selecting an aggregated player ranking list that combines up to 5 expert sources into one ultimate player ranking list.
Mock Draft Central: Mock Draft Central (MDC) is the choice of the public and industry for mock drafts, average draft position (ADP) and player trend reports for all sports.
RotoLab, DraftLab, HoopLab: Starting our 7th year in business, RotoLab has consistently provided best in class draft tools for serious players of the game. RotoLab has exclusive data partnerships with the top Fantasy Baseball content site, BaseballHQ.com and one of the best Football content sites in the industry, TheHuddle.com, as well as a contract with long-time Hoops projection guru, HoopsKlyce. RotoLab develops Draft prep/in-draft tools for the three main sports based on 27 years of programming experience and 24 years of Fantasy Sports experience by the lead developer. This provides our development effort with a direct, hands-on approach that you cannot get from market studies or by outsourcing the programming work. A rich set of features and usability, rather than market share, drives the direction of the RotoLab Draft Tool lineup.

Print or Magazine Ad: This award will recognize the most creative and effective ad of 2008. Ads for any fantasy product are eligible and will be submitted directly to the committee for review.

CBSSports.com FANTASY FOOTBALL TODAY
Fantrax
Fanball - Gatefold (4 Page) Ad in Fantasy Football Index & Fanball Cheat Sheets
LeagueSafe.com
MyFantasyLeague.com
RotoWire 2008 Fantasy Football print ad
U-Sports (College FB, BB)

Best Fantasy Magazine: This award will recognize the 2008 fantasy magazine with the best combination of information, presentation, and innovation.

Athlon/Grogan’s Fantasy Football Analyst: In our 23rd year of publishing Grogan’s Fantasy Football Magazine, our goal is to provide help for drafting and managing a great fantasy football team. All Facts not Fluff has been our approach. We try to promote fantasy football at every turn. Our quality and presentation attracts some of the larger national advertisers.
Baseball HQ - Baseball Forecaster: Published since 1986, the Baseball Forecaster was the first publication to develop sabermetric applications for fantasy league play. The Forecaster contains accurate projections, fully supported and intuitively logical. It is a source used by Major League GMs, the media and other fantasy services. We were the innovators of strategies like the LIMA Plan and the Portfolio3 Plan, and new gaming formats like Rotisserie7 and Quint-Inning. And....... the book will be featured in a movie next spring starring Catherine Zeta-Jones.
CBSSports.com FANTASY FOOTBALL TODAY: The 2008 CBSSports.com/Pro Football Weekly Fantasy Football Guide offers a variety of draft cheat sheets, in-depth player profiles and position rankings that no serious Fantasy Football player should be without before or during the season. In 2005, the CBSSports.com Fantasy Football magazine won the Fantasy Sports Trade Association award for the Best Fantasy Football Magazine. CBSSports.com printed 500,000 issues of the 2008 CBSSports.com/Pro Football Weekly Fantasy Football Guide and the magazine was available for purchase in bookstores across the country such as Barnes & Noble and Borders as well as online by simply visiting fantasy.cbssports.com.
ESPN The Magazine Fantasy Football Draft Guide (FB): ESPN The Magazine’s Fantasy Football Draft Guide is an annual comprehensive preview of the upcoming NFL season and provides the best positional and team guides, ESPN exclusive inside access and advice and analysis for your Fantasy league. Features industry-best research and analysis by ESPN’s “The Talented Mr. Roto” Matthew Berry, “The Sports Guy” Bill Simmons, Eric Karabell, John Clayton, injury expert Stephania Bell and more.
Fanball Fantasy Football Draft Issue: The best football magazine of 2008! From design, to content, to pages, to projections, to distribution, to advertising, to sell through, it has it all. The third of the 3 Fanball football magazines. A major undertaking, this magazine has an almost completely new staff of writers, which was assembled by Ryan Houston. He specifically selected writers based on their experience, writing talents and fantasy football knowledge. The magazine received numerous emails and letters from customers who purchased it, complementing us on the style, layout, design and information. It had three unique covers to make each region of the country (and Canada) feel we were catering to them, the only fantasy football magazine in the market place to go to these extremes. The results was an unprecedented over 55% sell through.
RotoWire 2008 Fantasy Baseball Guide: RotoWire's fantasy baseball magazine includes more than 1400 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.
Rotoworld/NBC Sports (FB, Baseball): The most comprehensive draft guide features more than 500 player’s profiles in football, 1000 in baseball. 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.

Best New Web Site or Site Update: This award will be presented to companies that are new to the fantasy market since January 1, 2008 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.

AOL Sports (FB) Fanhouse: From the site that brought you the internet's best collection of sports blogs comes Fantasy FanHouse, a blog dedicated to providing fantasy advice, including short articles, injury updates, and expert chats.
CBSSports.com College Fantasy Football: New for 2008, CBSSports.com launched an all-new version of their College Fantasy Football game, continuing to be the only major fantasy sports service provider with a collegiate fantasy football game. While CBSSports.com first launched College Fantasy Football in 2005, the 2008 version of the game marks an important point in the evolution of the product as for the first time individual player names are used. Prior to this season, CBSSports.com College Fantasy Football used school names and positions, such as "FLORIDA QB" and "MICHIGAN RB" in lieu of actual player names. CBSSports.com College Fantasy Football is once again offered completely free of charge and allows users to recruit a team of college football players from any of the 120 Division I programs or customize their player pool to include any conference they choose (two minimum). Users can create a private group and invite their friends or simply join a public group and play against college football fanatics from around the globe, competing head-to-head for the season championship. (All groups consist of ten teams.) CBSSports.com College Fantasy Football is run using the same software and product design as the rest of the award-winning fantasy sports products on CBSSports.com.
FantasySportsBusiness.com: FSB.com features weekly profiles of individuals and businesses making a difference in the industry -- featuring a variety of start-ups and experienced players that make up the fantasy sports industry. It tracks the trends that are shaping our growing industry and gives a voice to the issues that matter to fantasy players and providers. FSB.com also chronicles the newest and latest in fantasy news through FSB Daily, a daily email and RSS feed that keeps the top minds in the industry informed. The overall profile of the fantasy sports player has remained fairly consistent, but the requirement for industry knowledge for companies catering to the players has increased 10-fold, and FantasySportsBusiness.com has become a very important daily stop for the serious fantasy sports professional. Beyond the entertaining profiles and quality, in-depth news, FSB.com is a burgeoning source for industry event updates, market research, industry jobs, and more.
FantasySportsGirl.com: FantasySportsGirl.com is the most advanced and updated video news and information fantasy site on the web. No other fantasy site comes close to producing and updating as many videos on fantasy news and information as www.fantasysportsgirl.com. These awards are to recognize companies that are pushing the fantasy sports industry to new limits. Well, www.fantaysportsgirl.com is the clear leader in showing the potential that video updates have for the web with multiple videos a day, team by team previews and draft reviews.
LeagueSafe.com: Simply put, we're a fantasy commissioner's best friend. We eliminate the hassle of managing league entry fees and payouts by automating the entire process. League members pay their dues using one of our convenient and 100 percent safe and secure online payment options. League funds are held safely in an FDIC-insured account at our partner bank and distributed in accordance with league rules at season's end.
One Season Fantasy sports stock market: OneSeason.com is the first sports trading platform in the United States that uses real money. Users showcase their sports knowledge by acquiring and trading virtual shares of their favorite players, teams and leagues realizing market returns based on their skill. On OneSeason.com users build a “Sportfolio” as they trade shares, called Synthetic Ownership Interests (SOIs), via a free market system that is driven solely by supply and demand. Users determine who is issued, when they are issued and the valuation of every issue. While blue-chip stocks fluctuate based on earnings, OneSeason.com’s SOIs change based on public perception in the market; which could include game performance, off-field activity, legacy prospects and fan opinions. OneSeason.com has issued Initial Player Offerings (IPOs) for popular athletes and teams across the four major U.S. sports (Football, Basketball, Baseball and Hockey) and expects to expand to other sports as users demand. Unlike fantasy sports, trading on OneSeason.com occurs for all sports on a year round basis – hence the name OneSeason.com.
RotoExperts: RotoExperts is an up and coming player in the fantasy sports industry. Our initial focus has been in providing high quality content for our readers and providing content to other web sites. Since our launch in February of 2008, we have forged strategic partnerships with Sports Illustrated Online, USA Today’s Sports Weekly, USA Today Daily News and the Arena Football League. By the time this vote is taken it is likely we will have announced at least one more key strategic partnership. In June of 2008 we hired Scott Engel to lead our content team and have developed numerous previously unknown writers into syndicated columnists. Our mission is to develop the next generation of fantasy sports writers who deliver journalistic quality content. We currently provide almost a dozen weekly columns to SI.com alone, and that will increase as our other coverage of baseball and NCAA hoops rolls out.
Sports Data Hub: SportsDataHub.com provides point-and-click interactive visualization tools that let fans analyze football data the way their minds work - forward, backward, and sideways. The interactive tools, supported by our comprehensive database, enhance the fan's online experience and performance in all aspects of fantasy football data analysis from draft through in-season start/sit/trade decisions. Our site was recently described as “stats on steroids.” We focus solely on providing point and click interactive tools and stats for the most complete fantasy football research experience. Fans can use our tools to perform broad analysis bringing in factors such as coach tendencies, venue, weather, and even officials. A recent article in USA Today (http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/sports/20081120/c5fsv20_st.art.htm) shows the type of analysis that can easily be performed on our site. While this type of analysis is probably not for all types of fantasy football players it does provide another dimension for people to use in their start-sit decision making that could help them get an edge. Doing this type of analysis outside our site would require more time and manual steps to pull the data from multiple sites.

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, mock drafts, promotional items, etc.

BlogTalkRadio: The Fantasy Sports Channel (FB,BB,Baseball,H): The first radio channel devoted entirely to fantasy sports (all sports checked above plus racing and golf coming soon). The FSC provides fantasy sports advice, news and commentary 24 hours a day with at least 8 hours a day of live, continuous, interactive programming. We currently stream over 40 shows in our inaugural season with industry leaders such as footballguys.com, fantasyfootball.com, fantasybasektball.com, thefantasyfootballguys.com, melnickandgrecofantasysports, rotoexperts.com, ffreport.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.
FantasyDispute.com: FantasyDispute.com resolves your fantasy sports disputes in a fair, quick, and inexpensive way. Neutral fantasy experts rule on the propriety of trades or any other league dispute. FantasyDispute.com keeps the INTEGRITY of your league at its highest by using an outside expert to handle disputes between team owners or disputes involving your commissioner. Same Day Response!
Fantasy Trophies LLC: We make hand-made fantasy sports trophies worth bragging about. Our trophies are sculpted, cast, hand-finished, and mounted on a solid white oak base. They are also pretty damn funny (we think).
LeagueSafe.com: Simply put, we're a fantasy commissioner's best friend. We eliminate the hassle of managing league entry fees and payouts by automating the entire process. League members pay their dues using one of our convenient and 100 percent safe and secure online payment options. League funds are held safely in an FDIC-insured account at our partner bank and distributed in accordance with league rules at season's end.
Sports Data Hub: SportsDataHub.com provides point-and-click interactive visualization tools that let fans analyze football data the way their minds work - forward, backward, and sideways. The interactive tools, supported by our comprehensive database, enhance the fan's online experience and performance in all aspects of fantasy football data analysis from draft through in-season start/sit/trade decisions.
Titlecraft Inc. - The Ultimate Fantasy Football Trophy: Customized handcrafted, high-quality, limited edition trophy that will make your friends wish they were you. These are the Terry Bradshaw of trophies – everything about them screams champion.

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: 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 20 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.
CBSSports.com Fantasy News Site: In June of 2008, CBSSports.com launched a news and information site specifically geared to the world of fantasy sports, giving fantasy players around the world open 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. CBSSports.com Fantasy News is a stand-alone destination that is heavily linked across CBSSports.com and other CBS Interactive sites when applicable.
ESPN Insider Answer Guys: As part of ESPN’s premium subscription service, Insider, users are able to submit a question about their fantasy team to ESPN.com experts, including exclusive Insider columnists Eric Karabell and Jason Grey. Users are allowed one question per week during football, baseball, basketball and hockey seasons, and are guaranteed to receive a personal, detailed answer within 24 hours. ESPN experts answer thousands of questions each week during peak times, in time for users to set their rosters for game day.
Fanball - Owners Edge NFL: Acclaimed by fantasy football players everywhere, this is the service to use if you are serious about winning your league.
The Huddle Fantasy Football Service: The Huddle is the longest running and most awarded full-service fantasy football site on the Internet. A full-service web site since 1997. Since its inception The Huddle has been providing everything the fantasy hobbyist needs to succeed. Pre-season draft kit with player rankings, customized cheat sheets, projected stats, player analysis, draft strategy articles, analyzed mock drafts and more. During the season the fantasy football player will find weekly advice on free agents and trades, fantasy stats, player rankings, game predictions, start/bench list (an Internet original), injury updates and more. The Huddle also provides fantasy news with analysis and one of the largest and most highly regarded fantasy football communities on the web – complete with message board forums, chat room and blogs.
KFFL Hot off the Wire: KFFL's Hot off the Wire daily news service has been a mainstay in the fantasy football world since 1997! Updated 24/7 every day of the year, KFFL lets fantasy players know all of the latest NFL news as it happens. From breaking news to daily injury reports, KFFL's team provides a central location for fantasy fanatics to stay on top of their fantasy players and the news surrounding them. KFFL's Hot off the Wire has powered many other fantasy services' news coverage over the years, providing key fantasy football news to companies such as Yahoo! Sports, FOX Sports, The Huddle, MyFantasyLeague.com, RTSports.com and many others. There is a reason these companies rely on KFFL's news, as KFFL's quality, commitment and dedication has shown through for over a decade in keeping players in the know. KFFL also provides fantasy baseball and fantasy NASCAR Hot off the Wire news services.
RotoWire.com: RotoWire.com is the oldest and largest independently owned fantasy sports and specializes in fantasy sports content and is one of the few sites charging a premium for this information with a $59.99 annual fee. RotoWire.com features 24/7 player news, customized projections, free draft software, wireless alerts and email news flashes for MLB, NFL, NBA, NHL, college football and basketball, golf, auto racing and international soccer.
Rotoworld/NBC Sports (All Sports): Free, comprehensive, timely, insightful player news and columns. Over 150k player blurbs written since Oct 1, 2007. 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.

Best Blog: This award will recognize the website with the best combination of information and presentation in a Blog.

AOL Sports (FB): From the site that brought you the internet's best collection of sports blogs comes Fantasy FanHouse, a blog dedicated to providing fantasy advice, including short articles, injury updates, and expert chats.
ESPN Stephania Bell's Injury Blog (FB): Stephania Bell is a physical therapist who is a board-certified orthopedic clinical specialist and a certified strength and conditioning specialist. She uses her specialized knowledge to explain the nature and significance of football injuries three times a week during the football season; post-game, mid-week and pregame. Stephania's unique knowledge base allows her to read through the disinformation provided by NFL teams and accurately predict a player's effectiveness in upcoming games or for the balance of the season. A polished (and published) author, she is able to explain complicated medical concepts in an approachable yet still comprehensive fashion. Stephania has developed a vast network of NFL beat reporters and exchanges information through this network to the reader's benefit, on both sides of the exchange.
Fanball - Godfather of Fantasy Sports Blog: Entertaining and educational blog on fantasy sports, covering many aspects, and sharing many fantasy baseball strategies. A note from Charlie: I’m getting old and won’t have many more chances to win this award! Known by many to have saved the industry, so if nothing else the graphics on the site deserve some special recognition. Marlan Brando would be proud!
The Fantasy Baseball Sherpa’s Blog: Focuses on fantasy baseball strategies that can be used to prepare for a draft/auction before the season begins and improve a team once the season has started.
Fantasy Football Sherpa’s Blog: Provides weekly recommendations re: best available waiver wire options and detailed analysis of upcoming week’s games. Game analysis features specific advice on which players are worth starting and which players should be avoided for each matchup. Not afraid to make counterintuitive calls regarding star players (e.g. – bench LaDainian Tomlinson, bench Peyton Manning) if a specific matchup is unfavorable.
RotoWire's blog area, also called RotoSynthesis: RotoWire's blog area provides fantasy, team and overall league analysis for MLB, NFL, NBA, NHL, college football, college basketball, auto racing, golf and soccer. It features contributions from the over 100 RotoWire beat writers, editors columnists and contributors. The NBA blog postings are also syndicated to NBA.com.
Sporting News Fantasy Source Blitz blog (FB): The Blitz keeps fantasy owners up-to-date by mixing news and enterprise pieces. On Sunday, we have a mailbag post where people can ask last-minute lineup questions, an game-time decisions post with injury updates and an in-game blog with running commentary during the games. Then, we recap every game in the weekly roundup. Fantasy Source Blitz has grown in popularity since we launched it this fall.
William Del Pilar's Locker Room Buzz: KFFL's William Del Pilar's Locker Room Buzz fantasy football blog covers a variety of key fantasy football information designed to help both the casual and hard-core fantasy football player take their game to the next level. Ranging in topics from behind the scenes information on news fantasy players need to be aware of to key statistical matchup breakdowns, Del Pilar uses his experience to help players win. His fantasy football blog is released multiple times per week during the regular season.

Best Podcast: This award will recognize the website with the best combination of information and presentation using Podcasts.

BlogTalkRadio: The Fantasy Sports Channel (FB,BB,Baseball,H): The first radio channel devoted entirely to fantasy sports (all sports checked above plus racing and golf coming soon). The FSC provides fantasy sports advice, news and commentary 24 hours a day with at least 8 hours a day of live, continuous, interactive programming. We currently stream over 40 shows in our inaugural season with industry leaders such as footballguys.com, fantasyfootball.com, fantasybasektball.com, thefantasyfootballguys.com, melnickandgrecofantasysports, rotoexperts.com, ffreport.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.
CBSSports.com FANTASY FOOTBALL TODAY(FB): New for the 2008 Fantasy Football season, CBSSports.com created an all-new and groundbreaking original video production, FANTASY FOOTBALL TODAY. FANTASY FOOTBALL TODAY is a completely live 90-minute studio produced show that is streamed live on the Internet each and every Sunday morning of the regular season from 11 AM - 12:30 PM ET on CBSSports.com. It is worth noting, ANYONE can watch this live video show on CBSSports.com. You do not have to use CBSSports.com as your Fantasy Sports provider to view this unique production. 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 CBS Sports NFL analysts in stadiums across the league, giving fantasy players around the world access the latest breaking NFL news and information. Horowitz, along with CBSSports.com Fantasy Football Senior Writers Jamey Eisenberg and Dave Richard, respond to e-mails from viewers needing expert advice to guide their fantasy football team, regardless of what fantasy sports provider they use. No other competing show on the Internet features segments with analysts at NFL stadiums giving updates with the latest news. The show is truly a one-of-a-kind production.
ESPN Fantasy Focus Baseball: This is a daily, 15-20 minute podcast with fantasy baseball news and analysis, hosted by Nate Ravitz and Matthew Berry and featuring “Pod Vader” and other recurring characters. Is there any other information you would like us to consider: The Fantasy Focus Baseball podcast introduced “the board”, on which Matthew and Nate tracked their player-based “wagers” throughout the season. The board gave birth to the controversy known as “The War by the Shore”, in which the two hosts debated whether a famous “Dave Bush vs. Barry Zito” bet belonged on the board. Each day, the podcast provided daily news, listener emails and the “Fantasy Forward”, which provided start/sit advice for that evening’s slate of games.
ESPN Fantasy Focus Football: This is a daily, 25-30 minute podcast with fantasy football news and analysis, hosted by Nate Ravitz and Matthew Berry and featuring Stephania Bell, “Pod Vader” and other recurring characters. The Fantasy Focus Football podcast featured the “Man’s League”, in which 15 listeners competed against producer Jay Soderberg (“Pod Vader’). The podcast raised over $5,000 for the Jimmy V Foundation through the selection process for this league. Listeners attempted to bribe their way into the league with such off-the-wall offers as having Matthew Berry officiate a wedding, a judge naming the podcast hosts in a legal ruling, and a guy offering to come to Bristol dressed as a gorilla. The hosts take great pride in offering both analysis and entertainment, as evidenced by on-air guests such as football players Reggie Williams, Darren McFadden, Lance Moore and entertainers like actress Lori Loughlin. The podcast consistently among the top 5 sports podcasts on Itunes, and outdraws other popular ESPN podcasts like the BS Report with Bill Simmons, Football Today and Mike and Mike.
FantasySportsGirl.com: It’s real simple, no other fantasy site comes close to producing and updating as many videos on fantasy news and information as www.fantasysportsgirl.com. These awards are to recognize companies that are pushing the fantasy sports industry to new limits. Well, www.fantaysportsgirl.com is the clear leader in showing the potential that video updates have for the web with multiple videos a day, team by team previews and draft reviews.
RotoExperts.com Start em and Sit em Sunday: Jonathan Phillips, Ben Ice and Scott Engel cover gameday issues and help you tackle tough lineup decisions along with insight from leading industry experts and live reports from game sites.