By JIMMY D / Fishing for fantasy sports's richest contest | Jimmy's archive
You have all seen the $10 million Perfect Bracket contest for college basketball each March and the $1 million NFL fantasy games.
But you have all learned that winning the big prize in those games requires you to pick all 65 March Madness games perfectly or to pick the top NFL players every week all season. If you don’t, you win secondary prizes (usually a TV, some ball caps or a much smaller cash prize).
Anyone know which fantasy game offers the most guaranteed prize money of any contest ever played? It’s a fantasy fishing game with $7.3 million in guaranteed cash prizes, with a $1 million guaranteed first prize and seven $100,000 prizes.
Notice that we mentioned the word ‘guaranteed’ three times in that paragraph? No bait and switch here.
American anglers wanted to raise the profile of sportfishing and turned to a huge prize (aka advertising) and a fantasy contest to do it. They brought in WalMart as a title sponsor – pretty big name. It just goes to show the real power of fantasy sports
Jimmy got to thinking about this again while fishing with his two little Jimmys this week.
They were trying to hook some freshly stocked rainbow trout in the local brook, not snag huge bass in a big tournament in Georgia. And one comment from eight-year-old little Jimmy, complimenting his father on being adept at putting worms on hooks, summed up the evening perfectly.
“Dad, you a quite the master baiter.” True story.
Speaking of true stories and ones with happy endings, the US Supreme Court refused last Monday to hear Major League Baseball’s appeal of a ruling involving player stats. A lower-court judge ruled fantasy player names and stats are not copyrighted material meaning fantasy companies did not need an expensive licensing deal from baseball in order to run games for fantasy nuts.
What does that mean to the average fantasy sports fan? Well, it means that a lot of the creative and unique games and features that cropped up in recent years will stick around, because the people who put their time and investment into developing those games can now continue to do so without the threat of MLB shutting them down.
Within a day, CBS Sportsline had launched a Fantasy New site and more new sites, more prizes and more innovation is expected this summer and fall. This all presumes that the NFL, rumoured to be looking at bringing a lawsuit in a different state court, doesn’t get to court and actually win.
There is a fun doomsday scenario article that appeared the Wall Street Journal last week, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121261386287146347.html?mod=googlenews_wsj . It’s a fun read.
Baseball Q&A
Q: Grady Sizemore, why are you hitting just .262 when Jimmy needed more from you?
A: The Tribe has collectively hit the batting skids. We thought Sizemore was recession-proof but his average is down and we were expecting gains – no status quo or losses – in his 2007 numbers.
Q: Carl Crawford, why are you hitting just .266 and why have you stolen just 17 bases when Jimmy needed more from you?
A: While the Rays have surged to contender status in the AL East, Crawford has been just average and his average is way down from his perennial +.300 numbers. And not getting on base means he ain’t stealing bases, which is crippling Jimmy in that category.
Q: John Smoltz, why can you not keep that damn shoulder in shape so you can pitch?
A: Well, when you’re 41 and coming off a couple of major surgeries, there are no guarantees. This hurts the Braves and Smoltz owners who figured they could bank on strikeouts and wins (if he remained as a starter) or low WHIP and saves (if he went back to the bullpen). Looks like you get neither and you should look at scooping Rafael Soriano off waivers.
Q: Chipper Jones, what the hell are you doing!?
A: Still hitting .420 as of Monday, Chipper is a blue-chip stock for sure. And he’s starting to get Barry Bonds type of treatment with intentional walks too, which will boost his OBP (which is currently an absurd .504).
Stay busy and stay lucky.
Jimmy D
jpoole@herald.ca |
