Fantasy football scores big in the US

It's autumn in the US, a time when young men's hearts turn to... Fantasy Football?

In preparation for the start of the NFL season on September 10, the Fantasy Sports Trade Association (www.fsta.org) is anticipating an estimated 20 million fantasy football players and $1.5 billion in revenue. Most of that comes from brands eager to reach 18-49 year old males.

The largest of these sites is Yahoo (http://fantasysports.yahoo.com/ffl), with 4 million active fantasy football players. Ben Strong, Senior Director of Yahoo Sports, notes that in addition to the returning sponsors of Toyota and Sprint, Yahoo added two additional title sponsors this year. Rich Calacci, senior vice president of sales at CBSSports.com was "able to grow our revenue year over year. Our clients have grown up playing this and are now in senior management."

In an advertising environment with few bright spots, brands and agencies are proactively embracing this segment. Best Buy has launched its own "casual" fantasy football promotion. Instead of a competition spanning the five month season, players can select a new team every week and compete against celebrities to win prizes.

If anything, the recession has helped bring new fans. Paul Charchian, president of the Fantasy Sports Trade Association, calls fantasy sports "extremely cost-effective entertainment. Men will find other things to scrimp on first."

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Marketers get 'Married on MySpace'

MySpace could use some good news. First, a leaked memo confirmed that Google has no intention of renewing its disastrous $300 million annual search and advertising deal. Then Comscore announced that since May (in addition to MySpace's declining traffic and time spent per user), Facebook has surpassed its rival in the US. In an environment where parent company Newscorp suffered $5.4 billion in fiscal year losses, the inevitable layoffs ensued. Nearly one third of MySpace staff were let go in June. 

However, adversity breeds innovation. At a time when audiences could really use a sappy love story, the wedding-themed web series "Married on MySpace" brought 13 million video views and seamlessly integrated brands like Disney, JC Penney and Unilever.

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