Few finagle the chance to manage a real professional football team, but more than 20 million Americans run fantasy football teams. They assemble their rosters from real NFL players and compete against other fantasy managers' teams. The players' statistics on the real-life gridiron determine which fantasy teams win.
One of the most important decisions fantasy football managers make is which players start for each week's match. A year ago a team of entrepreneurs from State College turned that weekly choice into a website called Matchup Huddle, where fantasy managers could advise others on which fantasy players should be “benched” each week.
“We think that the people sitting at home watching football on the weekends are just as good as the 'experts,' ” says Matchup Huddle co-founder Dan Behringer.
On Labor Day Behringer's team released a social Matchup Huddle game that can only be played on Facebook. The game will track users' advice and weigh which players give the best suggestions. And during the 17-week NFL regular season, each week's best Matchup Huddle player will win an iPad. “We're really taking advantage of the social aspect of sports,” Behringer says.
Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Central and Northern Pennsylvania is investing $75,000 in the company, which is going toward making final changes to the game and operating it during the season. The company plans to launch other social-networking games if this venture is a success.
Source: Dan Behringer, Matchup Huddle
Writer: Rebecca VanderMeulen