fantasy sports
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Facebook now offers fantasy sports and pop culture games
Facebook has launched fantasy games that let you predict the outcomes of TV shows and sports matches, including baseball and soccer.
You can make DraftKings sports bets using your Dish DVR
Dish and DraftKings have made a sports betting app available on Hopper DVRs — you can watch and speculate on a match using your TV.
Alexa adds in-depth NFL stats ahead of the new season
Alexa's football knowledge is now decidedly more profound. Amazon has added a slew of info to its voice assistant's repertoire that includes "comprehensive, in-depth" stats for NFL teams and their players. If you want to know your favorite player's rushing yards or how many penalty yards the team has racked up, it's just a quick question away. You can even ask about fantasy football scores if your reputation is on the line.
Former pro League of Legends team opens wallets to fantasy eSports
Former League of Legends team Vulcun started a new fantasy eSports website, offering a $250,000 prize pool for League of Legends spectators. Much like other fantasy sports such as baseball and football, players participate in daily challenges by selecting a team of competitors during the upcoming 2015 League of Legends Championship Series. Also like other daily fantasy sports challenges, both of Vulcun's free and paid leagues work on a salary cap basis; the best League of Legends players in the LCS will be more expensive to roster, so fantasy players will need to be discerning about the athletes they add to their teams. Founded by Ali Moiz and Murtaza Hussain, Vulcun earned $1.3 million in funding from investors such as eVentures, Battery Ventures and 500Startups, and the team plans to "re-invest every single dollar we make at increasing the prize pool for League fans." While this season's fantasy League of Legends prize pool is $250,000, Vulcun's next goal is to reach $1 million. The next LCS season begins on January 22, so those interested in Vulcun's fantasy challenges will need to request an invite to its closed beta. As League of Legends continues to grow in popularity as a competitive sport, universities are awarding scholarships to student eSports athletes. [Image: Riot Games]
Team Stream is one stop shopping for all your sports information
Team Stream lets you follow all your favorite teams: MLB, NFL, NCAA, NHL, NBA and more; plus your favorite players, including all those on your fantasy teams. If you use an app for scores, another one to track your favorite baseball team, a third for your favorite college team and even another one to follow your fantasy team, Bleacher Report has the solution that gives you all that information and more in a single app and its free. It works on all iOs devices running iOs 7.0 or later. The navigation and set up is easy, just select the edit button in the upper left corner and then go through all the sports, players, and other choices. This personalizes the app just the way you need it to satisfy your individual needs. In the list you will find your local teams based on your location. There will be several people choices like your fantasy team members, MLB players, NBA players and top news stories. You can add as many as you like and will get notifications whenever they do something newsworthy. I entered many of my favorite teams and a player. The notifications started almost immediately, each one appearing on my device individually. If you go to the app you can access all of the latest ones by tapping the small arrow next to the Team Stream name at the top. Team Stream offers more than just team and player news. You can select NFL news or MLB news and other longer form stories. For example, you can add "Uniform Watch", one of my personal favorites, to keep track of all the changes teams are making in their uniforms. For example new Cardinal pitcher John Lackey acquired his favorite number 41 from current Cardinal pitcher Pat Neshek. You will also find a "Trending" stream in the choices so you can keep up to date on the very latest and most popular stories. After using the app for a couple of days I found that it performed quickly and supplied me with just about every bit of information I needed. Team Stream will remain on my phone and be my go-to choice for everything sports related.
Build your dream League team with Fantasy LCS
Haven't cracked the realm of League of Legends play that'll let you earn thousands of dollars from competing in the League Championship Series? Neither have a lot of other people, but that doesn't mean you can't enjoy watching the world's best compete! Riot Games is launching the beta of Fantasy LCS this summer, which will let players construct imaginary team-ups between contestants from the North American and European LCS Leagues. Players can either join a pre-existing Fantasy LCS league or create one and invite their friends. Once a league is completely filled, players can begin selecting their roster. Teams include seven starters, which cover the top, jungler, mid, support and marksman positions in League matches, along with one extra flex player for any desired position and one real-life, non-imaginary LCS team. Participants will also pick three alternate players to sub for those in starter positions, but only starters will earn points in a league. Starting lineups can be modified each week, allowing for reactions to a LCS player's real-world performance or to just heed gut instincts. Players that weren't selected by anyone in a league can also be swapped in from a free agent pool. After starters are decided for the week, a player's team will be matched against a competitor's in their league, earning points for the abilities of their roster both on an individual LCS player and general LCS team level. The highest-scoring team wins a week's matchup, with the overall best record earning bragging rights for a league's top player at the end of the season. There's a fair amount of interest in Fantasy LCS, which has led to stability issues for the service, but everything is operating as normal at the time of this writing. [Image: Riot Games]
Fantasy sports and MMO games
The Forge tackles an interesting question: are fantasy sports MMOs? Some of the more traditional sports fans would probably deny it, but Matt echoes a great case made by Charles Hudson: they feature repetitive gameplay, a combination of luck, skill, and strategy, and there is the obvious social element. I don't know if I would call fantasy sports "virtual worlds" (so this is likely the last you'll see of them on Massively for the foreseeable future), but it's definitely true that both fantasy sports and MMOs share the same type of social gameplay that's made them both so popular.Now, Matt says they also have a story, and to a certain extent, he's right. The real allure of sports is knowing all the stories behind it-- that Brett Favre's father passed away right before he played, or that the star hockey player is leaving right after the game ends to go see the birth of his baby. Behind all the stats, sports is one big storytelling session, and Sportscenter is the biggest daily soap opera of all time.But I don't think it's the story element that pulls in fantasy sports players-- it's the competitive element. The numbers all break down, and at the end of the year, you have a clear ranking that says who's better than who at predicting sports outcomes, and by how much. There is a certain amount of that competitive draw in PvP, but MMOs, I think, are far too distant from the actual numbers to make a sports fan happy. They may be interested in story, but at the end of the day, the game comes down to runs, strikes, and outs, and I think that's the way they like it.
