How Does Fantasy Football Make Money?

Fantasy football is a $1 billion industry according to Fox Business Journal, and there are currently between 15 million and 18 million fantasy sports users today, with about 85% of them playing fantasy football according to CNN money. But how does this industry bring in such great revenues from what most people use for free? Multiple providers have different views on how to make their money off fantasy football. Yahoo!, and CBS are two of the main providers of fantasy football, but they have different views of how to produce money off of their services.

Yahoo is the biggest provider of fantasy football, nearly doubling the amount of users last season of other big name providers such as ESPN. Their dominance in the fantasy football industry is due to the fact that they push their free services more to their customers, rather than trying to sell premium services for a fee. This is why many marketers believe they have been able to hold on to the majority of the market share for so long. Their belief is that by allowing for their services to be completely free draws more traffic to their website. With more traffic being brought into Yahoo!, it allows them to generate higher revenues through the use of more advertising. The more traffic on the website allows for new consumers to choose their free services compared to other providers that charge for their premium leagues.

CBS is another leader in the world of fantasy football, but they have a different point of view on how to generate revenues. Unlike Yahoo!, CBS Still believes in their premium services to draw in consumers. Although they do have free services on their website due to the free competition of their competitors, they believe promoting their premium products is the best way to bring in money to their company. CBS believes they promote to “high end” customers which also allows them to be appealing to advertisers, stating their fantasy football advertisement inventory has been sold out for the past three years.
Both these companies do an exceptional job of using different marketing strategies to draw in customers to their websites. Although they use different tactics, they both seem to be effective in their own way. Fantasy football is a fast growing industry which advertisers are going to keep a close eye on to ensure they don’t miss out on the potential profits to be made.

JaMarcus Russell’s Road Back to the NFL

JaMarcus Russell has been known as one of the biggest NFL flops in history. He was drafted to the Oakland Raiders as the number one overall pick in the 2007 draft. He ended up cashing in on $31 million in payroll checks without showing the team any type of high performance play. He blamed external sources such as coach Tom Cable, his teammates, and sleep apnea for his poor performance. Russell went 7-18 in the 25 games he played with the Raiders before the team released him for the 2010 season.

The way the numbers work out with Russell is that he was paid approximately $5 million per win, $2 million per touchdown pass, and $100,000 for each pass he completed. In his last season for the team he was fined for being overweight, along with having one of the worst years a quarterback could possibly have. He completed less than 50% of his throws, and only three touchdowns, with 11 interceptions.

JaMarcus Russell is now attempting a new tactic to get into the NFL. He is using self-made videos of himself practicing and training, then uploading them to sites such as YouTube and Bleacher Report. The videos are titled “JaMarcus Russell’s Road Back to the NFL.” It shows him participating through exercises and drills to help him get back into shape. This allows him to let people witness his progress, and to make one last attempt to get signed by an NFL team.

So is his attempt at using viral videos a good tactic for trying to reemerge into the NFL? This answer will have to wait. No other player has been in this situation before, where they were cut by a team, and then attempt to use viral videos to get attention drawn to them. Other players such as Terrell Owens have used other forms of media such as twitter and news casts to draw attention prior to being released, but no other player has attempted YouTube. Regardless if his attempt works, or not, it is an innovative idea on how to market yourself online and build your personal image.