Two New Faces Join FSTA Board
Wednesday, March 4th, 2009
This year’s election is complete, and CBS Sports and XML Team Solutions will now gain representation on the Fantasy Sports Trade Association’s board of directors.
CBS’ Danielle MacLean and XML’s Alan Karben joined incumbents Brett Baker (Fantasy Coverage), Jeff Thomas (World Fantasy Games) and Whitney Walters (The Huddle) as the five members voted to a new three-year term on the board.
“I think I may be the first person to run for a slot on the FSTA board on a geek platform,” Karben says. “I hope to help FSTA members discover ways to cooperate technically that make everyone’s work a bit easier. In a manner that doesn’t affect competitive advantage.”
Karben says he sees potential for greater enhancements to fantasy game features, especially by the smaller outfits, if companies can work together on some of the more mundane tasks involved in hosting the contests.
“Most of the innovations in our industry have come from companies that don’t have the luxury of large engineering staffs,” he says. “If you clear the product development process of some of the drudgery that most every firms faces — exchanging data with partners, wrestling with terminology and identification codes — then you free them up to spend more energy building the features that bring new players in and keep them coming back.”
MacLean, meanwhile, hails from the most mainstream of companies now represented on the FSTA’s board. She could tap into CBS’ larger audience to gleen the kind of information that could help member companies better understand their consumers.
“As a board member, I intend to help facilitate insights as it pertains to research and marketplace analysis,” she says. “I am excited to help the organization grow and to aid in positioning the industry to media, partners and advertisers.”
The CBS connection could also help to open doors to bigger-budget sponsors for fantasy providers.
Finally, quite frankly, it can’t hurt to add a woman to the mix, especially in an industry that seems to be playing to a growing female audience.
Should any of the five not be able to fulfill their duties, Mock Draft Central’s Geoff Stein was chosen as the first alternate.
The chosen five will join the board in the new term that begins April 1. As we reported earlier, the group will then be charged with selecting a new president. FSB.com will have more on that process when the time comes.
