Yahoo! sues for fantasy football info

Adrian Peterson may produce his statistics, but the Vikings star's imaginary "owners" make use of them in fantasy football leagues. Now a dispute over usage and ownership of Peterson's rushing yards and all those other National Football League stats has gone to federal court in Minneapolis.

Yahoo alleges that the NFL Players Association has no right to charge for the use of players' names, pictures and on-field statistics, according to its suit filed this week. The association has asserted that using those things without paying for them violates its players' rights.

Fantasy sports is a $1 billion business, and as its popularity has grown, so have lawsuits over who controls the information needed to play. The players? Or the public?

"These leagues have simply smelled money and tried to go after it any way they could," said Paul Charchian, host of "Fantasy Football Weekly" on KFAN radio for 15 years and president of the Fantasy Sports Trade Association, which represents about 120 companies.

So far, the courts have sided with the businesses operating fantasy sites.

In 2007, the Eighth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decided that CBC Distribution and Marketing Inc. could use Major League Baseball players' names and statistics for its fantasy baseball products -- without paying a fee. The U.S. Supreme Court elected not to review the case.

But baseball's not football.

Although some have argued that the MLB decision applies to all sports leagues, the NFL disagrees. When CBS Interactive Inc. which runs the popular www.cbssports.com, filed suit over the issue in Minnesota last year, the NFL Players Association argued in a countersuit that the 2007 ruling was "unique and erroneous."

U.S. District Judge Ann Montgomery disagreed, writing in April that players' names and statistics are protected by the First Amendment. The players association appealed last month.

Those companies' success in Eighth Circuit venues "almost certainly" led Yahoo to file in Minnesota as well, said William McGeveran, a University of Minnesota Law School professor who studies trademark and Internet law.

Like other companies, Yahoo used to pay for players' statistics. But its last agreement to do so expired in March, and the company did not renew.

The NFL Players Association "has threatened Yahoo with litigation if Yahoo does not pay royalties," according to Yahoo's complaint. But Yahoo filed first, asking the court for a declaration that the association "may not continue to extract money from Yahoo for the use of this publicly available information."

The Players Association declined to comment on Wednesday.

The association's attempt to have Yahoo pay for the statistics "suggests that they don't seem to understand the obvious and tangible benefits they get from the proliferation of fantasy play," Charchian said.

As of last July, there were more than 27 million fantasy sports players in the United States, according to the Fantasy Sports Trade Association, and the industry's revenue was in the range of $800 million to $1 billion.

Charchian and others argue that those fantasy players make better fans.

They watch more games, follow more players and buy more products.

Yahoo offers both free and fee-based fantasy sports options. It's "Football PLUS '09" package goes for $124 per league, which allows up to 20 teams. Its "StatTracker" -- which it calls "the best feature in all of fantasy sports," gives players "real-time stats and scores." It comes as part of the PLUS package, but on its own it's $9.99.

MLB case discussed in class

McGeveran has cited the MLB case in his courses at the University of Minnesota Law School. He said students there, many of them fantasy league players, made an "excellent" point: Right now, dozens of companies, large and small, compete in the fantasy sports industry with different rules, interfaces and prices.

"Part of the reason you have trademark law is to make sure everyone's competing fairly," he said. "If you allowed the players to control this, that would reduce competition."

Jenna Ross • 612-673-7168