Fantasy Video Games

As Fornelli put it yesterday, the Supreme Court refusing to hear MLB Advanced Media's case regarding statistics on fantasy sports is a good thing, especially for fantasy players. Note that it is also a good thing for American sport fans who like their sports coverage cheaper and enjoy this basic thing we call "freedom" as well.

It really should not be an issue -- these statistics only exist because we, the American consumers, are willing to pump billions of dollars each year into attending, watching and becoming obsessively immersed in these sports. And judging by some of MLB.com's CEO Bob Bowman's responses in an interview with Darren Rovell, that concept is not lost on the large entities that are attempting to take control of stats back.

Darren: What was your reaction when you found out that the Supreme Court wouldn't hear this?

Bowman: I don't think our reaction was one of great surprise. Since September of '06, when the magistrate first ruled in Missouri, we've been operating as if that was going to be the case. The Court of Appeals upheld it, now the Supreme Court denied, so it won't be heard. Until further action, that is the law of the land. Further action may occur. We weren't surprised and we've been running our business as if it were the case.

It's a brief but excellent interview, and I highly suggest taking the link over to Rovell's page for the full answers. The other main points of contention -- and these are the "good" reasons, if I may play moral policeman for a second -- are the $50 million MLBAM paid to the players' union for the rights to the statistics several years ago and the "likeness" issue.

So, you know that whole fantasy stats lawsuit stuff? Explaining the ins and outs would take far too many paragraphs and it's not all that interesting, but the gist of it is this: the court held that the use of players names, in a fantasy football context, is protected speech under the first amendment.

At the surface, it doesn't sound very interesting: if you use one of the big fantasy league providers (ESPN, Yahoo, Sportsline, etc), it probably won't change a thing. If you use a smaller fantasy provider that may or may not have been operating without a license, well, things are looking good that they won't be shut down in the future.

But are there implications beyond fantasy sports? If the courts have decided that "names" are no longer intellectual property, can we expect sports video games like Madden 2009 to start including the actual names of historical players, instead of vague names like QB 16 for Joe Montana?