Fantasy Baseball Victory!!!
There's no question that Fantasy Sports has become a huge interactive draw card and conversation starter. So much so that ESPN has regular programming dedicated to who's hot, who's not and trade rumors/recommendations etc.
In fact, when I was asked in an interview at ExactTarget's user conference what was the one e-mail I always look forward to/open up every day...I said my Fantasy Baseball update.
...but this post is not about how brands can tap into fantasy sports or what the conversational marketing implications are with respect to Fantasy Sports, it's more to reflect on this South African-born player's victory in a league of his geeky peers!
That's right, "Bobo the Clown" (my team) has just wrapped up a momentous and awesome victory in the coveted, "Social Media Geeks Unite" fantasy league, besting the following power players in the process:
- Daddy Rockstars - Geoff Manning and on Twitter, geoffmanning
- Drew's Dawgs - Drew McLellan and on Twitter, drewmclellan
- Elijah Dukes Charm School - Dan Cordella and on Twitter, filthyfowl
- Fantasy twits - warren sukernek and on Twitter, warrenss
- northoftheborder - Jennifer Evans and on Twitter, jsabini
- Salinas Valley Lettuce Heads - Mike Sansone and on Twitter, mikesansone
- social media geeks unite - Kelly Kermode and on Twitter, ???
- Tatooine Banthas - marc sirkin and on Twitter, msirkin
- The Royal Expos - Mark Goren and on Twitter, markgoren
Fantasy Twits gave me a run right at the end, but ultimately the clowns proved too much for the competition!
I guess there are some "community" proof points in this story. I did use twitter to round up a league of social media folk and within 30 minutes or so we had our 10 players. We even created a Twitter ID, but truth be told it wasn't used much. In fact, the smack talk was rather minimal throughout the season. Perhaps next year...
Lessons learned from this rookie? Simple. Never follow your heart. If I had, I would have had a Yankees-filled lineup that would surely have underdelivered.
Value bets: Xavier Nady (who was a Pirate when I acquired him), Jamie Moyer and Cory Hart
MVP's: C.C. Sabathia, Johan Santana and Grady Sizemore
