Welcome to Fantasy Hell

MLB is back to being its shortsighted self. It seems that Major League Baseball Advanced Media, a division of Major League Baseball, is trying to reign in the use of statistics for fantasy baseball. Last month, MLBAM acquired exclusive rights from the MLB Players Association "to fantasy games using Major League Baseball players for the next five years." Now, MLBAM has notified certain fantasy host sites that their license fees are now as follows: $50,000 if you have 5,000 or fewer subscribers; $500,000 for more than 5,000 subscribers.

This seems like an attempt to drive the large players out of business, but stay within the anti-trust letter of the law by not eliminating all competitors.

Of course, a lawsuit has been filed. The gist is, while MLBAM may control licenses for the MLBPA logos, they do not control the actual statistics. Dave Pinto does an excellent run down of the case law behind such a suit. In short, courts have ruled that, "(while) video and audio broadcasts of sports events are protected under copyright law, the facts (the statistics) contained in them are not."

Given that all that matters in playing fantasy games is access to the statistics, it would seem that the MLBAM cannot control these games above and beyond MLBPA materials under copywrite.

What’s really galling about this is that MLB, again, doesn’t seem to get it.

With the Bears a crappy team and me, a non-gambling type, the only thing that gets me watching the NFL at all is fantasy football. It keeps me part of their fan base.

Why would MLB, with 50% of their teams functionally irrelevant each year to the pennant chases, try to limit the ways in which fans can make themselves closer to the sport? Is it worth the extra revenue to limit the creativity that multiple companies can bring to fantasy games? Not to mention that by the very fact of ESPN and Sportsline et al having fantasy baseball games, they are providing free advertising to the sport.

More stupidity from the Bud Selig regime.