Fantasy Sports Maturing as Lawyers Now Involved

I suppose a sign of the maturity of any industry is the appearance of lawyers. In this case, the appearance fills a unique need - the disputes that can arise in fantasy sports leagues. Until now, if a trade appeared unfair, players added/dropped possibly outside alloted time windows, collusion by league participants, etc., the disputes had to be handled by the league commissioner, who more likely than not was also a league participant and in some cases was one of the parties to the dispute.

Now there is a venue for impartial hearing of these disputes - SportsJudge.com. For a fee of $15 per dispute or $100 for a season package (since when were lawyers this cheap), you can get your dispute heard. Not happy that your rival traded for Michael Vick for a case of beer, pizza and a date with his sister right before he played you in a crucial game and your commissioner is a wimp? Take them to fantasy court!

The concept is so new and interesting, even the magazine of the American Bar Association did an article on the site. The article can be found here. With fantasy sports having potential to deal with very large prize monies (see previous post on high-stakes prizes in fantasy sports), the potential for disputes to arise that have very large economic consequences. Right now, this is an informal forum, but the time may come where a high-stakes fantasy dispute ends up in a real court.