The NFL in their quest for world domination will announce today that they will be including video highlights to their fantasy football game this year according to The Wall Street Journal:
The video element comes in especially handy when selecting free agents. If a running back on the waiver wire has 85 yards and a touchdown at halftime of a game one week, fantasy players can pull up his name and view any big play highlights he made so far in that game or previous ones. Having the video so handy for scouting is unique to the NFL's game. The league has held tight to its online video rights, even hesitating to share much with the network partners who pay them a mint for TV rights.
Honestly, I didn't even know NFL.com had fantasy football, but according to the article they do. It has been powered by CBS Sports for the last few years. The NFL has decided it needs more money and will go out their own this season. Here is their reasoning:
NFL senior vice president of media strategy and digital media Brian Rolappsays that the NFL decided to make this charge after analyzing studies that show fantasy players to be more engaged than those who don't play. They spend more time on NFL.com, they buy more jerseys, they buy more tickets to games and they skew male and younger — the sweet-spot demographic for advertisers. "Fantasy players do everything more than anybody,"
That leads me to a question: What is your fantasy football site of choice? I have always been partial to Yahoo because I think their design is the easiest to read and find the stats you are looking for. ESPN is decent, but I don't really like their layout. We have done the Official MCM league on Flea Flicker the last couple of years because of a deal between SB Nation and AOL who owns Flea Flicker, and to be quite frank, their site sucks.
A little food for thought this morning because it is never to early to talk about fantasy football!