To any and all fantasy players: Just to save you some time in writing a letter yourself ... please cut, paste, sign, edit in any way you wish, and send to any or all of those connected with, or with influence over, MLB (anyone with appropriate email links to those individuals feel free to post those below for all to use):
To Whom It May Concern:
Fantasy players are hard core baseball fans. Fans that love the game so much that they spend countless hours analyzing teams, players and strategies. They no doubt spend more money than most supporting the game by purchasing tickets, MLB merchandise and watching advertising-supported media.
Most fantasy games are structured such that a majority percentage of entry fees paid by players to join fantasy leagues are paid back in the form of prize money to those fantasy players whose teams performed best during the season. However, MLB recently paid $10 million per year to the MLB Players Association for the right to extract licensing fees out of those who provide fantasy games, fees which will no doubt come either directly or indirectly from the players’ prize pool, and thus the pockets of fantasy players. This can be viewed in no way but that of a monumental insult.
MLB recently put out a press release speaking of their intent to support, promote and grow fantasy games and those who operate them, yet their actions suggest they are doing the exact opposite. They also announced that “Opening Day for the 2005 Fantasy Baseball Season will be next Thursday, February 17”.
From a fantasy player’s perspective, could we suggest a truthful press release from MLB’s Advanced Media CEO Bob Bowman or the head of MLB’s fantasy division, Gregg Klayman, should have read.
“Just to say thank you to all of you hard core, dedicated baseball fans from which we extract billions of dollars to pay inflated-ego athletes tens of millions of dollars per year and to further inflate the personal wealth of our small club of wealthy team owners, we are instituting a National Fantasy Baseball opening day celebration.
Join us on February 17 in celebrating the fact that all fantasy baseball players will be paying us in the aggregate an additional minimum $10 million per year for the right to use baseball statistics that you have previously used for free. Also, a heartfelt thank you to all of the web-site game operators for successfully growing the industry to such proportions that we may now extract millions of additional profits from your hard work. It is truly a celebratory occasion for Major League Baseball”.
Signed,
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[ February 10, 2005, 10:31 PM: Message edited by: KJ Duke ]