FREE FANTASY BASEBALL BEGINS AT ESPN.COM

ESPN TO ACQUIRE AWARD-WINNING SITE TALENTED MR. ROTO, CREATOR MATTHEW BERRY JOINS AS SR. DIRECTOR OF FANTASY GAMES

USA Softball Star Jennie Finch Joins ESPN as Fantasy Sports Personality

As Fantasy Baseball fans prepare to report to their own spring training, ESPN.com is swinging into the season with a brand new ESPN Fantasy Baseball – which is now completely free for the first time. ESPN also announced today a deal to acquire the fantasy sports site Talented Mr. Roto and the hiring of its creator, Matthew Berry, as senior director of fantasy games. In addition, former Olympic Gold Medalist and avid fantasy sports player Jennie Finch has joined ESPN.com as a fantasy sports columnist and analyst.

“We expect the launch of free ESPN Fantasy Baseball to build on the enormous fantasy sports success we’ve seen over the past three years,” said John Kosner, senior vice president and general manager, ESPN New Media. “The addition of Matthew, Jennie and the Talented Mr. Roto team to an already industry-leading editorial team of Eric Karabell, Scott Engel and Tristan Cockcroft allows us to solidify our role as the leading fantasy content destination and enhance our service to some of the most dedicated and knowledgeable sports fans around – fantasy players.”

According to the Fall 2006 SRI Knowledge Networks ESPN All Day, Every Day study, fantasy sports participants consume 19 hours and 47 minutes of ESPN media each week, and Fantasy sports users spend 352 percent more time on ESPN.com than the typical adult.

FREE ESPN FANTASY BASEBALL
In 2007, ESPN Fantasy Baseball presented by Dick’s Sporting Goods will be entirely free to play for the first time in ESPN’s 12 seasons offering fantasy baseball. The new game launches on the heels of a second-consecutive banner year for ESPN Fantasy Football – which doubled the number of teams and leagues playing in 2006 (compared to 2005).

The new ESPN Fantasy Baseball will deliver fans a host of new features, and will continue to deliver industry-leading fantasy football content. Among the new features of ESPN Fantasy Baseball, are (all features are free in ESPN Fantasy Baseball):

• Live Scoring – players will get ESPN Fantasy Baseball live scoring for free;
• Customizable Rules and Scoring – league managers have complete control over the rules and scoring for their leagues, including rotisserie, head-to-head, and points-based;
• Multiple Draft Options – teams and leagues can draft in multiple ways, including:
  • Private live online draft – at a designated time;
  • Live Draft Lobby online draft – the popular draft lobby returns for teams and leagues that want to “drop-in” and draft on the fly, or join an open public league;
  • Automated online draft – via ESPN’s improved list-ranker draft tool;
  • Offline draft – get together with friends, draft and upload the results to ESPN.com;
• Mock Draft Lobby – the new mock draft lobby lets players drop in at any time to run through a mock draft -- for fun, to practice for their real draft and see who and how other ESPN players are drafting.
• Embedded Player Information Cards – players will be able to get all the information on each of their players – from ESPN, Scouts Inc., Talented Mr. Roto and more – right from their roster;

Additionally, ESPN.com will offer a comprehensive Online Draft Kit that includes complete rankings, cheat sheets and draft strategies, sleepers, busts, breakthrough players, salary deals, top rookies and more. The draft kit is available for an additional $9.95 at ESPN.com.

ESPN ACQUIRES TALENTED MR. ROTO, SIGNS FINCH
ESPN has acquired the award-winning fantasy sports site Talented Mr. Roto and has hired the site’s creator, Berry, as senior director of fantasy games, fantasy sports writer and on-air analyst.

Launched by Berry in March 2004 as an online fan group, Talented Mr. Roto quickly and organically became known as an online community with quality, timely fantasy news and analysis from top writers and analysts covering all sports.  Developing as a place for "Personality Driven Fantasy Analysis," the site has earned 51 Fantasy Sports Writers Award (FSWA) nominations (winning 12), and four Fantasy Sports Trade Association (FSTA) award nominations (including Best Site).  With the acquisition, Talented Mr. Roto subscribers will automatically receive a subscription to ESPN.com’s award-winning premium content service, ESPN Insider.

Berry, a four time FSWA award-winner and the 2006 FSWA Fantasy Basketball Writer of the Year, will lead product and editorial development for ESPN.com, serve as a lead writer and on-air personality and will seek to expand upon integration of fantasy sports across all of ESPN’s media assets. He takes the position looking to build upon ESPN.com’s reputation for industry-leading fantasy sports editorial, featuring the last two FSWA Fantasy Football Writers of the Year – Scott Engel (2006-2007) and Eric Karabell (2005-2006) – as well as FSWA award-winner Tristan Cockcroft, award-wining contributor Will Carroll, and the team of experts at ESPN Scouts Inc. In a recent survey more than 40 percent of fantasy players said ESPN has the most useful fantasy content, double our nearest competitor.*

With the acquisition, Talented Mr. Roto’s network of more than 50 fantasy sports columnists, reporters, scouts and stringers will contribute to ESPN.com – including FSWA-nominated editor Pete Becker and two-time FSWA award-winner Christopher Harris – joining Berry, Karabell, Engel, Cockcroft and Carroll to offer the deepest pool of expert content online.

Also joining ESPN.com’s fantasy sports team this baseball season is Finch, who will write a weekly column, host a weekly chat, provide analysis for online video and podcasts and appear on select ESPN television and radio programs. She holds the NCAA softball record for consecutive wins (60), helped The University of Arizona (where her number, 27, was retired this year) to a NCAA Women’s College World Series title, and was a member of the gold medal-winning 2004 USA Olympic team. Finch first worked for ESPN as a television analyst for the 2004 NCAA Women’s College World Series.

* November 2006 TNS/ESPN Sports Poll

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