The Fantasy Sports & Gaming Association (FSGA), formerly the Fantasy Sports Trade Association, is a

Middleton, Wisconsin Middleton is a city in Dane County, Wisconsin, United States, and a suburb of the state capital, Madison. Middleton's motto is "The Good Neighbor City." The population was 21,827 at the 2020 census. In 2007, Middleton was chosen as the best pl ...

-based trade group representing the

fantasy sports A fantasy sport (also known less commonly as rotisserie or roto) is a game, often played using the Internet, where participants assemble imaginary or virtual teams composed of proxies of real players of a professional sport. These teams compete bas ...

and gaming industries. In 2019, the FSTA changed its name to the Fantasy Sports & Gaming Association with to coincide with changes in US law allowing states to enable sports betting. Founded in 1998, the FSGA provides demographic data, annual conferences, and collective action, including lobbying, to support the growth of fantasy sports and sports betting leagues. Its members range from small startups to large media corporations. The FSGA currently holds two annual conferences, one in the summer and one in the winter.

History

In 1997, CDM Fantasy Sports, a St. Louis, Missouri-based fantasy sports company, invited competitors Sportsline, Prime Sports Interactive, Sports Buff Fantasy Sports, and ''

The Sporting News The ''Sporting News'' is a website and former magazine publication owned by Sporting News Holdings, which is a U.S.-based sports media company formed in December 2020 by a private investor consortium. It was originally established in 1886 as a pr ...

'' to St. Louis to discuss pending legislation that could severely limit the growth of the fantasy sports industry. Over the next year, the companies communicated without an official organization and tracked the legislation. In 1998, during a fantasy sports conference in Las Vegas hosted by Fantasy Insights, a meeting was organized to again discuss pending legislation and several other topics related to the industry. The representatives from CDM, Fantasy Insights,

EA Sports EA Sports is a division of Electronic Arts that develops and publishes sports video games. Formerly a marketing gimmick of Electronic Arts, in which they tried to imitate real-life sports networks by calling themselves the "EA Sports Network ...

, ''The Sporting News'', and USFANS decided that it was time to create an official organization to help promote fantasy sports, and the Fantasy Sports Trade Association was born. Carl Foster was president from 1999 to 2002. Greg Ambrosius was president from 2003 to 2006. Jeff Thomas was the president from 2006 to 2008. Paul Charchian was president from 2009 to 2020. Stacie Stern became the new leader, with the position title changed to chairperson, in 2020 and currently heads the organization.

Demographic data

The FSGA has tracked the growth of fantasy sports from 500,000 players in 1988. FSGA demographic data shows that of the 59.3 million people who played fantasy sports in the US and Canada in 2017, 43.2 million were American adults. In 2019, 45.9 million American adults participated. The FSGA estimated that 19% of American adults played fantasy sports in 2019, compared to 13% in 2014. A 2019 FSGA survey found that 81% of fantasy sports players were male, 50% were between the ages of 18 and 34 (with an average age of 37.7), 67% were employed full-time, and 47% made more than $75,000 per year. A 2015 analysis found that 89.8% were white and 51.5% were unmarried. According to the FSGA, the most popular fantasy sport in the US and Canada is gridiron football, which is played by approximately 78% of fantasy participants. The next most popular sports are

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding t ...

(39%),

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular court, compete with the primary objective of shooting a basketball (approximately in diameter) through the defender's h ...

(19%),

ice hockey Ice hockey (or simply hockey) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an ice skating rink with lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. In ice hockey, two opposing teams use ice h ...

(18%), and

association football Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...

(14%).

Legal issues

The FSGA has been at the forefront of the tension that has existed between fantasy sports companies and professional leagues and players associations over the rights to player profiles and statistics. The issue came to a head with the lawsuit of

Major League Baseball Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization and the oldest major professional sports league in the world. MLB is composed of 30 total teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (AL), ...

Advanced Media (MLBAM), MLB's Internet wing, vs. St. Louis-based CBC Distribution and Marketing Inc., the parent company of CDM Sports. When CBC was denied a new licensing agreement with MLBAM (they had acquired the rights from the baseball players' association) for its fantasy baseball game, CBC filed suit. The FSGA filed a

friend of the court brief An ''amicus curiae'' (; ) is an individual or organization who is not a party to a legal case, but who is permitted to assist a court by offering information, expertise, or insight that has a bearing on the issues in the case. The decision on ...

in support of CBC arguing that intellectual property laws and so-called "right of publicity" laws do not apply to the statistics used in fantasy sports. The FSGA also argued that if MLBAM won the lawsuit it would have a dramatic impact on the industry, which was largely ignored by the major sports leagues for years while a number of smaller entrepreneurs grew it into a multi-billion-dollar industry, and a ruling could allow the MLBAM to have a monopoly over the industry. "This will be a defining moment in the fantasy sports industry," said Charlie Wiegert, executive vice president of CBC. "The other leagues are all watching this case. If MLB prevailed, it just would have been a matter of time before they followed up. Their player unions are just waiting for the opportunity." CBC won the lawsuit as U.S. District Court Judge Mary Ann Medler ruled that statistics are part of the public domain and can be used at no cost by all fantasy companies. "The names and playing records of major-league baseball players as used in CBC's fantasy games are not copyrightable," Medler wrote. "Therefore, federal copyright law does not pre-empt the players' claimed right of publicity." The 8th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the decision in October 2007. "It would be strange law that a person would not have a First Amendment right to use information that is available to everyone," a three-judge panel said in its ruling.

Board of directors

The Fantasy Sports Trade Association is managed by an elected Board of Directors that hosts elections each year in February.

Hall of Fame

Beginning in 2000, the FSGA has honored past members and contributors to fantasy sports with induction into its Hall of Fame. As of 2014, 17 people have been inducted into the FSGA Hall of Fame. They are:

References

External links

FSGA Web Site
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fantasy Sports and Gaming Association Fantasy sports Trade associations based in the United States Organizations established in 1999 1999 establishments in Wisconsin