Final Essay

Do You Think Fantasy Sports Leagues Should Pay Royalties to Professional Leagues and Players?

           

Did you know that roughly 36 million people play fantasy sports in North America and the average amount spent per player is one hundred dollars, which means fantasy sports is roughly a 3.6 billion dollar industry. Fantasy sports leagues consist of participants who act as owners to build teams that compete against each other based on the statistics generated by real players on professional sports teams. Fantasy sports have been around long before the internet existed and scores would have to be manually calculated by a leagues commissioner. Now with the internet, there are several sports sites available where points are automatically calculated for the league. With more and more people playing fantasy sports a question keeps coming up, should fantasy sports leagues pay royalties to professional leagues and players? With any argument there are always two sides, the people that are for paying royalties say that fantasy leagues are benefiting from the hard work of professional sports teams and athletes. The people that are opposed to this say that the professional athletes already make enough money and that their names and statistics are public knowledge and they should not receive any royalties. I am definitely one of those people who say they should not receive royalties.

            One of the biggest things that bother me is, Major League Baseball or MLB and other sport leagues and their players make entirely too much money already and now they are going after not only the sites that offer fantasy sports but the people who are playing. “The average salary of the NBA is 5.15 million, MLB is 3.31 million, and NFL is 1.9 million” (Dorish). If you think that athletes or the people paying them need more money then you are crazy. Fantasy sports are helping the sports world, not hurting it. “You say Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez and Albert Pujols are exploited because they're bought and sold in fake transactions in a fake construct? Well, how much of their chunky (and very real) salaries are owed to all that fakery? Without fantasy ginning up interest in their game, do they still command the numbers they command?” (Smith). I could not agree with this any more and I know without the fans, most professional athletes wouldn’t make any money and would probably be flipping burgers ant some fast food chain somewhere. I personally have a friend who five years ago had no interest in any sport until I talked them into playing fantasy baseball and now he goes to at least ten games a year just because he knows the players and what is going on, and that’s just baseball. Now he is also playing fantasy football, buying jerseys and just spending money that directly helps sports. If more people were like him, and I’m sure there are a bunch out there that are, then that can only mean one thing, fantasy sports helps real sports.

            The next reason that leagues should not pay any royalties is, the names and stats of the professional athletes is public knowledge. They knowingly put themselves in that position and in my opinion cannot say that their names or stats cannot be used. “Those stats are public domain. They must be. If they're not--if the courts ultimately decide they aren't simply because money changes hands among the fantasy nerds who use them--we'll all be paying A-Rod's salary, eventually. The National Pastime not only won't belong to us anymore, we'll be paying MLB a fee every time we use the phrase "National Pastime"” (Smith). I am a huge fan of baseball and think that it is “The National Pastime” and if we had to pay more than we already do just because of the greed of the players and management I think I would lose a little of my love for the game. There have been a few instances where this issue has gone to court. The case before the high court--Major League Baseball Advanced Media v. CBC Distribution and Marketing--was a high-stakes battle between professional athletes and fantasy sports businesses. Ultimately the case involved striking a balance between free-speech guarantees and the publicity rights of famous people (Richey). I just don’t understand how it is any different reading the stats in the newspaper just for the information or calculating them to compete against other people to see who knows the most about a sport. CBC went to court, arguing that it didn't need a license to operate a fantasy baseball league using publicly available information about players. The courts agreed (Richey). So in this case MLB was trying to go after the companies that create the sites available for playing fantasy sports and they lost. I think this is a good thing because they were trying to get this company to pay for using the stats and names of players.

The last reason that I think that professional teams and athletes should not receive is because a lot of the time fantasy sports are just played for fun. It’s not just that they want the people playing fantasy sports to pay them but they are going after the sites that design the leagues online. Their argument is that the sites need to pay to use the information. They should not have to pay for information that they are just organizing for the public to use for free. That’s right I said free, most fantasy sites are free of charge and only make money on advertising. Even if there is money involved, the owners of the fantasy teams spend quite a bit of time on their teams and deserve to make whatever money they earn. I know that in my leagues I spend about 10 to 15 hours a week all year round, just getting ready to play each matchup and outside of the year just as much time getting ready for the next year.

I think that the main argument for paying royalties to players and leagues is that people are benefiting from the hard work of the athletes and teams. I agree that people are benefiting from their hard work, however I think that they should be able to. I know for a fact that I have more than doubled the money that I have invested in fantasy sports over the last ten years and I believe I deserve it. So, the main argument is they should get money from us because we make money off of them. If you turn things around, the only reason they are in the position they are in is because the fans of the game work hard at their jobs so they can afford to go to games and buy their favorite apparel to support their favorite teams and players. A recent study by the National Sporting Goods Association (NSGA), shows that Americans 16 years and older spent more than $8 billion on sports logo apparel (Guigotti). So really the teams and players are also benefiting from the hard work of the people who support them. Should fans get paid royalties or get kickbacks because they benefit from our hard work. If that was the question people would think it’s absurd because it makes no sense and I agree. If it makes no sense on way than it doesn’t the other way also.

In conclusion, I do not feel that professional sports teams or athletes should be paid royalties from fantasy sports players, leagues, or sites. I feel that I made a good argument of this, whether it is the fact that the athletes and teams make too much money already or that the information used is public knowledge. I also feel that I proved that the argument for paying them royalties because people are benefiting from them is not a valid argument. I hope after reading all that I had to say you can develop your own opinion on this topic. I just hope you choose the right side.

 

                                                             

 

 

 

 

 

 

Works Cited

Smith, Ben. "Baseball Squeezing Fantasy Geeks Dry." Journal Gazette (Fort Wayne, IN). 15 Aug 2006: 6.B. SIRS Issues Researcher. Web. 10 Dec 2013.

Richey, Warren. "High Court Rejects Fantasy Baseball Challenge." Christian Science Monitor. 03 Jun 2008: n.p. SIRS Issues Researcher. Web. 10 Dec 2013.

Dorish, Joe. "Average Salaries in the NBA, NFL, MLB and NHL." Yahoo Sports. Yahoo, 12 Nov. 2011. Web. 10 Dec. 2013

Guigotti, Daniel. "How Much Americans Spend on Sports Each Year." Bad Credit Loans Approved by Capcreditcom. Forbes, 2013. Web. 11 Dec.