Yahoo!, NFLPA Settle Fantasy Lawsuit

Stigma from the "too cool" crowd aside, fantasy sports -- especially fantasy football -- are a huge business. Some estimates show up to 15 million people taking part in fantasy football each year with the amount of money changing hands estimated to be around a billion dollars.

Naturally, the NFL Players Association couldn't stand to see all this money being thrown around without wanting a piece of it. I mean, Yahoo! was using players' pictures and statistics to help make money! God forbid a few guys put together a neighborhood fantasy league without having part of their league entry fee go to the players they are following.

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Thus, the NFLPA decided to charge Yahoo! royalties for using pictures and stats on a likeness basis. Yahoo! claimed they shouldn't have to pay a dime because the information is readily available to the public. The situation has been settled out of court. So we can all now breathe a sigh of relief.

There are two distinct sides to this:

1. People are profiting off the NFL players. Therefore the players deserve a cut of the loot.

2. Where does it end? Do sports bars owe a cut of their beer sales on Sundays considering the NFL games garner much more of a crowd than any other day of the week? Do beer, soft drink and snack food companies owe the league a percentage of their late-January/early-February revenue, considering what the Super Bowl does for sales in those particular -- and many other -- avenues? Pizza delivery?

Obviously, I fall on the side of the latter. The NFL makes plenty of money from television and merchandise revenues in addition to their direct revenue streams like ticket sales and parking in and around the stadiums.

There's also this layer: There are many fans who only starting paying attention to football and watching it because of fantasy football. Then you have the people who used to only watch their favorite team and the playoffs, but now subscribe to NFL Sunday Ticket because they like to watch all their fantasy players -- which means more revenue to the league and the players.

The bottom line is that the NFL has a revenue stream that has been partially aided by fantasy football, whether the players want to admit it or not. Even if it is a small percentage, it's helping them. They aren't going to be able to monopolize fantasy football on the internet by making everyone play on NFL.com or NFLPlayers.com, so they might as well embrace how much the hobby of millions helps them earn their lofty paychecks every week.