"Baseball Boyfriend" and CBS Fantasy Sports

Yesterday, something called "Baseball Boyfriend" was released. A lot of people got kind of mad about it.

Essentially a fantasy baseball game designed for females who don't really like baseball that much, Baseball Boyfriend allows contestants to choose one player - their "BBBF" as they refer to it - and earn points based on how well they do, as opposed to having to draft an entire team. The chosen player can be switched - errr, "dumped" and replaced - throughout the year.

This generated some controversy, as Twitter filled up with snarky complaints about the game treating all women like teenage girls and assuming that none of them knew anything about baseball. I didn't quite understand all of the outrage, though I admit to laughing at some of it. Interested baseball fans - male and female - have many full fantasy sports options to choose from. If anything, my biggest concern is how limited a market Baseball Boyfriend may have, but that's the analytic side of me speaking.

If you haven't guessed, Baseball Boyfriend as a game doesn't particularly interest me. It did capture my attention, though, as one of the first releases to come from CBS Fantasy Sports' new open platform, which  allows independent developers to create apps based off of the popular game and sell it through CBS' new "Fantasy Games and Apps" online store.

There's two intriguing angles to this. The first is the possibilities it opens up for entrepreneurs. Fantasy sports is  kind of massive. It's been the driving force behind other industries, creating increased interest in advanced sports analysis for public consumption (like FanGraphs) and on prospect research. Much of that has been caused by the need fans have to get an edge in their own fantasy leagues. CBS' new platform could provide further opportunities for some of these businesses to integrate with and profit from fantasy sports. There's also an opportunity for entrepreneurs to innovate and provide products and services that simply help improve the gaming experience. The nature of fantasy sports - with annual signups, and many players being involved in multiple leagues - also creates a strong opportunity to generate recurring revenues, as opposed to the one-time purchases found with many apps.

The other side of the coin is the potential this move has for CBS. By crowdsourcing innovations for its own service, CBS Fantasy Sports could breakthrough from the tough rivalry it finds itself in with Yahoo and ESPN. It's a model that has been proven successful in many other digital industries, and as a fan of entrepreneurship, innovation, and fantasy sports, it's one I'm very excited to see take flight.

Finding a Niche: The Key to Digital Sports Start-Ups

A blog post on BusinessInsider.com caught my attention last year, and it's been sitting around my bookmarks since then.

"It's Time To Knock Down The Barriers To Digital Sports Startups" says Brian Litvack, who goes on to discuss the lacking start-up ecosystem in the sports world. He points to reasons such as the dominance of the big media players like ESPN and Yahoo, fickle audiences with constant high expectations, the difficulties of obtaining official team sponsorships, and the challenges of the typical advertising models for sustaining early-stage web start-ups.

Litvack calls upon the major sports leagues to help change this: "It would be interesting to see the NBA, NFL, or MLBAM develop a program to support and work with digital companies to enhance the sports fan experience. Creating a more favorable environment would be welcome by the tech community as there's no shortage of ideas, sports-crazed entrepreneurs, and potential in sports."

Of course that would be ideal, and seems like a win-win which would allow sports start-ups to see greater opportunities, and more engaged fans for the sports leagues. But calling upon established players like those to change is generally futile. While within those organizations, innovative spirit certainly lives - specifically with MLB Advanced Media and some its work - there probably isn't much hope of a wish like Litvack's coming to fruition.

This doesn't have to be doom and gloom for digital sports start-ups, though. While these barriers are certainly problematic, their impact is probably far bigger on start-ups attempting to cater to majorities, rather than those catering to niches. And if it's majorities a start-up is after, perhaps this isn't the space they should be entering (at first). As Litvack points out, the major players like ESPN, Yahoo and the league's themselves have saturated those markets pretty well.

Rather, it may very well be those niche start-ups that have the most potential in the current digital sports ecosystem. As popular as the likes of ESPN are, their popularity requires that they cater to a middle-ground of fans, leaving unmet needs of specific groups that don't fit in. Often, that's the die-hard fans. And the great thing about die-hard fans is that they're far more likely to spend to get their fix than the general consumer. That means advertising models don't necessarily need to be the default.

One of my favourite examples - as a self-described baseball nut - is Ottoneu. Ottoneu is a fantasy baseball game for the die-hard fan. The game is played "dynasty" style, allowing it to be enjoyed year round, with deep teams full of minor league prospects, and scoring is based off of "advanced statistics", known to be more accurate at judging a player's real value than those like RBIs and runs scored.

That may not tickle the interest of most, who are more than pleased to enjoy the fantasy games offered by ESPN and Yahoo. But for those looking for more, Ottoneu has that solution.

Better yet, they've perfectly identified their method of reaching that market, pairing with FanGraphs - one of the industry leaders in advanced baseball analysis, research and commentary - for their launch this past year.

Without a user base likely large enough to support sustainability through advertising, Ottoneu has logically been using a subscription model, charging as little as $9.99 for the full-year, per team. With the niche market salivating something different than the mainstream offerings, Ottoneu has seemingly had little trouble getting potential customers to spend.

Ottoneu is a classic example of the opportunities that do exist in the digital sports start-up landscape, despite the obvious challenges and barriers that are there. Hopefully I'll get a chance to chat a bit with Ottoneu's founder, Niv, who has always been open to discussing his business, about the results he's seen in the first year of Ottoneu and what his plans are going forward. It's a niche market, for sure, but like any start-up, a great product always has the chance to capture more attention or expand into more directions than it imagined.

If anyone has other examples of digital sports start-ups succeeding in a niche, or even finding surprisingly strong results reaching larger markets, I'd love to hear about them over Twitter or in the comments section.