Name: Michael Levine
Nickname: People call me a lot of names. None of which I’ll share in this forum. I used to play in a heavy metal band in high school, though, and had an alter-ego called Ike McKaslin.
Job title(s): Senior Product Manager, Fantasy Sports
Full-time in fantasy? 10 years
Age: 36
Education: Graduated from a small but great school in Pennsylvania — Moravian College — and also attended Syracuse University for my freshman and sophomore years.
Family status: Married (Jillian - Wife), no kids … yet
Favorite fantasy sport to play: Baseball
Favorite sport to watch: Baseball
Favorite team (any sport): Philadelphia Phillies
All-time favorite athlete: Allen Iverson
Years playing fantasy: 16

I got my start in the fantasy industry when: SportsLine.com hired me for technical support of their Commissioner product shortly after they acquired Commissioner.com.

Since then, my fantasy résumé includes: Producer, Production Manager, Product Manager and now Senior Product Manager.

Three questions

1. You’ve been on the CBS fantasy scene since 2000. How has your job changed in that time?

Quite a bit. As you can see from the jobs listed above, I started in technical support. That was mostly just a way to get my foot in the door for what I thought at the time (and turned out to be right) was a great opportunity with CBS SportsLine. But it really helped me to understand this business from the ground up. My background is in both IT and business management, so I think my unique skill set at the time allowed me to advance rapidly through the system.

The combination of my product knowledge and technical ability allowed me to move into a producer role, which is more or less a technical role that involves getting everything in the fantasy realm up on the site. I then moved into a managerial role with respect to site production. From there I think my understanding of our products from a business perspective helped me move into a product manager role. In that role, we set the product goals and objectives and then develop and implement the strategies and tactics for each individual product on the site. My current job is the senior product manager, where I am working closely with our director of fantasy sports, Danielle MacLean, on both long- and short-term strategies for our fantasy business as a whole.

2. Football is the clear king of American fantasy sports. What percentage of your time and effort would you say is devoted to football-specific tasks? Has that changed in recent years with fantasy’s growth and branching out?

Percentage-wise, yes, football has traditionally dominated my time and effort — especially in terms of site production, where we have a much more comprehensive suite of products in football than in any other sport. We also manage NFL.com’s main suite of products, so between our two businesses there is certainly enough football work to keep us busy for a while. But we’re also constantly assessing our place in the market and evaluating opportunities across all sports that would be beneficial for our business as a whole. That is really taking most of my time right now and only a portion of those opportunities revolve around football exclusively.

3. CBSSports.com has seemed to try to involve users more heavily in the past couple of years, most notably with the user-generated player news updates. Why do you think such user outlets (such as blogs and forums, as well) are so important, and how has your audience responded?

Well, you just need to take a look at the Web as a whole to see why user outlets such as blogs and forums are so important. When you see sites like Facebook, YouTube and Twitter dominating the web traffic, it is clear that users want their voice to be heard. It only makes sense to see that translate to fantasy, where everyone I’ve ever encountered in this business has an opinion about something. We try to make it as easy as possible for our users to have a conversation about fantasy on our site, and our audience response has been tremendously favorable.

Bonus: Listed among your favorite teams are the Sixers, Flyers, Phillies and Penn State, which sure seems to peg you as a Philly boy. How the heck did you escape the grasp of the Eagles?

It’s a long, boring story that basically ties into family allegiances. I’ll spare everyone the long version and just say that I grew up in Allentown, PA, (about an hour north of Philly) which made it easy to follow the Philadelphia teams and adopt them as my own. Pro Football was actually the last sport I picked up, and since I was older, I was able to form my own opinions about which teams I wanted to follow.

Organization: Fantasy Sports Trade Association
Launch date: 1999

As the FSTA gets ready to host its 2009 winter business conference this Tuesday and Wednesday in Florida, president Jeff Thomas (who also owns this site) and association manager Justin Cleveland took time out to answer some questions about the organization. In five cases, initials indicate the particular respondent to clarify first-person accounts. The other answers have been cobbled together from material supplied by both Thomas and Cleveland.

1) Can you describe the fantasy industry landscape of 1998-99, when the FSTA was being organized? How connected were companies and leaders in the industry at that point and before?
JT: In the 1997 to 1999 time frame, we were still primarily talking about pre-Internet fantasy sports. Games and leagues were just starting to cross over from PC to the Internet. Most content companies were still delivering their products via mail and fax. The larger game operators were managing games via interactive voice response systems and live customer service reps.

The industry was made up of a relatively small group of game and league operators. Anyone competing on the national scene kept in touch. We all knew each other. For some reason, a long list of companies claim to have been around during those times, but most were content-only companies or were operating games on a very small, local level. As larger companies started looking for help to run their games, they would reach out to a few companies. We quickly got to know each other, for many reasons, including the fact that we were bidding against each other for every project.

The challenges of the times were primarily licensing issues/expense and legality. Content companies have never had to deal with licensing issues, so it was a game- and league-operator issue only. All or most game operators looked at working with the players associations from a marketing perspective — work with them, pay them a bit of a ransom, and they will help promote your products. In the end, they didn’t do much to promote.

From a legality perspective, companies and players associations and leagues worked to communicate a simple message: Fantasy sports are games of skill. Many, to be safe, operated using a void-of-all-services, free-entry option.

2) The FSTA history page cites a 1997 meeting hosted by CDM Fantasy Sports, where they invited Sportsline, Prime Sports Interactive, Sports Buff, and Sporting News to St. Louis. Was this the first meeting of the FSTA?
JT: Not really. It was the first organized meeting of the top game and league management companies of the 1990s, and we discussed whether an association of some kind should be created. We were more focused on lobbying efforts that CDM was spearheading, to communicate why fantasy sports are legal and should be excluded from any gambling law that was being discussed.

In the mid-1990s, meetings and conventions were held in Nevada and Minnesota and Florida, hosted by Fantasy Insights and Fantasy Football Weekly. In 1998, during a Fantasy Insights Convention, a meeting was organized to again discuss pending legislation and several other topics related to the industry. The representatives from CDM, Fantasy Insights, EA Sports, The Sporting News, and USFANS decided that it was time to create an official organization to help promote fantasy sports, and the Fantasy Sports Trade Association was born. The first FSTA conference was held in 1999.

3) How did the FSTA go about trying to bring together fantasy sports companies at the start? How receptive of the idea were leaders around the industry in those early days?
JT: The first two FSTA Presidents were Carl Foster from USFANS and Greg Ambrosius from Krause. They both did a great job of creating opportunities for industry executives to network. We were a very small industry then, and we’re still small in many ways. The industry is like a poker game — we can learn a lot from each other, but nobody wants to show everything they’re working on. The network has definite benefits, but it’s certainly still true that industry participants don’t want to give away all of their plans.

4) Why was and is it important for fantasy sports companies to be unified in such a way? What has the FSTA enabled the industry to accomplish that the individual companies couldn’t have done themselves?
JC: Every fantasy sports company serves a different segment of the potential audience. By uniting through the FSTA, these companies can learn different ways of doing business that may attract new clients. It’s like a writer’s colloquium — we can get together and talk about our work in an open, honest environment and receive beneficial feedback.

It’s almost funny to think about any fantasy company needing another today, when the games have become a financial juggernaut and there are multinational corporations that are presenting fantasy sports products. The FSTA grew out of the era when fantasy sports were a cottage industry that appealed to a niche audience. By working together within the FSTA, these early companies were able to reinforce their strengths while collaborating on their weaknesses to create a more polished product that appealed to wider audiences. At the same time they were all innovating to set the standards we all enjoy today.

As for today, by providing a unified front through the FSTA, fantasy companies have been able to work with and understand rules and laws regarding copyrights and to differentiate games of skill from games of chance to follow guidelines published in UIGEA legislation. For example, I was working today with a gentleman who started up a company but was having trouble finding a merchant services provider. More than a few auditors have flagged fantasy sports as high risk. He called me and I was able to work with their legal department to differentiate fantasy sports from gambling and get his company’s application approved.

That’s where the FSTA is as relevant as ever: We are a clearinghouse of information regarding the industry, a powerful networking tool and a backup for both fantasy sports providers and a protection for players.

5) What has the FSTA meant to the promotion of the fantasy sports industry as a whole and its acclimation into American sports’ mainstream?
As mentioned earlier, the early days of the FSTA were marked by a small group of dedicated game providers. Since then we have been part of a concerted effort to help promote the industry. What the FSTA does is provide a unified, unbiased perspective on fantasy sports games to the media and public. Since our research isn’t tied to any one company or type of game, we can speak for the industry as a whole and, at the same time, promote individuals.

Starting our marketing research efforts with Dr. Kim Beason of the University of Mississippi began to give us measurements to discuss, consumer behavior to discuss and debate, and answers to provide to journalists. Journalistic demand for our opinions and our statistical research has grown every year. It’s almost too much too keep up with now.

6) What are the benefits of membership in the FSTA? Why should a company join?
Anyone who has ever been a factor or will be a factor in the fantasy sports industry is a member of the FSTA or attends our conferences. We represent the large, medium, small and tiny companies. We represent the startups, the brands wanting to learn about fantasy sports and individuals that just want to brainstorm about potential entrepreneurial efforts.

Membership in the FSTA gives access to research that will help businesses better address their current clients and attract new traffic. Twice annually the FSTA holds a research symposium and business conference where everyone from upstart companies to the leaders of the industry convene for two days of networking and sharing ideas and successful strategies to help grow the industry. Being a member of the FSTA gives discounted conference registration.

Membership also provides instant recognition and legitimization — users can know that the FSTA seal is a mark of quality and integrity.

7) What was the impetus for the creation of the FSTA Industry Recognition Awards?
They were designed to celebrate the successes in our industry as recognized by our members. The awards are, like membership in the FSTA, a great way to prove the value of a product. Nothing validates more than a statue (or, in our case, a plaque and electronic icon)! The entire process was redesigned in 2005 to create a nomination process, a review and finalist process, and an audited final outcome for all categories.

How important are the awards to the overall value of the FSTA and membership in it?
Put yourself in the shoes of a fantasy sports startup trying to make a name for yourself or trying to impress investors. A FSTA Industry Recognition Award can help prove a concept and build business development opportunities along the way. Overall, the awards are just a small part of the value proposition of the FSTA. That said, making the finalist list or winning the award certainly brings 100 times the value of our low annual membership fee.

9) How has the FSTA changed to serve an industry that has exploded in size, reach and diversity of products, and how will it continue to adapt to a still-growing market?
Each president has moved the Association forward, with changes that have supported the industry along the way. We made some difficult decisions over the past three years, including taking on the responsibility of owning and managing our own business conferences twice a year. We now make modest profits on each conference, and the cash flow has helped hire a dedicated association manager to support the board of directors and the membership. We have also created several distinct committees and assigned board members to each committee. A board position isn’t something to add to your résumé or to impress co-workers. Board members must now contribute on a monthly basis. Committees include executive committee, business conference, finance, communication, membership, market research and awards. The committees report on progress during monthly board calls. If they do nothing or don’t accomplish much, they hear about it from other board members that are carrying their weight.

Committees are modified, added or discontinued to address current issues and needs. We added the communication committee in 2008 based on the sheer volume of communication that’s required to keep members up-to-date and to grow the Association.

10) What else should we expect to see from the FSTA, going forward?
JT: More of the same. We’ve created a model that works for our members. We will continue to evolve. One area to watch is the definition of “fantasy sports.” We now have the UIGEA and successful rulings in the CDM-MLB case to help guide our industry. This has also opened doors to companies that would like to use the “fantasy” label for their own gains. If a game is not fantasy, there’s nothing stopping a company from using the fantasy label, but we should provide clear guidelines, and I see some advancement in this area in the next year or two. Without this guideline, consumers and legislators could very well be confused, and that could end up reversing much of the hard work and accomplishment of the past five years.

Company: CBS Sports Fantasy
Site: CBSSports.com

When you’re undefeated in the Fantasy Sports Trade Association awards category of Best Commissioner Product, it’s fair to say you’re probably doing something right.

In 1997, CBS and SportsLine joined forces to offer fantasy games at CBS.Sportsline.com — an address that still takes you to the site today. A year later, the FSTA was formed and since 1999, the latter has awarded the former for those games.

“In the early days, we probably won by default, as our feature set was well above everyone else’s,” says Tony Fernandez, who takes the lead on the building and operation of fantasy games as vice president of sports technology for CBS Interactive. “As the competition catches up, we have realized that we must be better than the rest in performance, reliability, usability, content, support, etc. It’s about the overall experience, not just the product.”

That experience began with the products of SportsLine USA, created by Mike Levy in 1994 and launched on the Web in 1995, before many of us even knew that the Internet was about to change our lives.

In 1996, SportsLine began to offer fantasy games on the Web, and by the following March, the company reached a deal with CBS to deliver the games to a broader audience. Soon after, CBS.Sportsline.com also presented fantasy offerings in basketball, hockey, golf and auto racing, as well as international games for cricket and soccer.

Today, that lineup looks much the same on CBSSports.com, but it isn’t the breadth of sports coverage that those in charge like to focus on or even the number of amenities a particular game might present. Rather, it’s game play that appears to be the focus. That seems to be working, judging by the FSTA awards and reports such as that by The Wall Street Journal’s Nando Di Fino, which found a 100 percent approval rating within online mentions of CBS’ fantasy hockey product.

“I think that as the product matures, users have come to expect flawless performance,” Fernandez says. “In the early days, you would have expected serious issues during the first week or two of each season. Now users are not putting up with that. In fact, game play is fairly standardized right now. Users want things to work rather than more features. They want a better experience and ease of use.

“Fantasy sports appeals to a lot of users who are not very tech savvy and don’t have time or interest to figure things out.”

Fantasy sports also appeal to a very important section of American sports fans.

“Fantasy sports attract the cream of the crop,” says Jason Kint, general manager of CBSSports.com. “It’s the most engaged, the most loyal sports fan there is.”

CBS’ fantasy audience even trends toward the top of that class. In the earliest days, following the deal with SportsLine and then the purchase of commissioner.com, CBS offered its fantasy hosting services on a subscription basis. As online ad sales grew, the company decided to switch to free games in 2001. Within a year, however, the internet bubble was bursting, and the 2002 baseball season saw CBS head back to the world of subscription-only.

Although CBSSports.com does offer some free contests within its fantasy realm and could probably afford to go free with services such as its centerpiece fantasy football commissioner applications (in which a league costs $149 per season), there are no plans to return to that route. A big part of that decision is the caliber of fantasy player CBS draws as a result.

Kint says that the average player in CBS’ games is more involved, spends more time on the site and sticks around throughout the season. Fantasy owners will tend to have a little more incentive to keep up with their teams when money is involved. By the same token, it tends to be the more serious fantasy player — and more involved sports fan and more valuable consumer — who puts up money to play in the first place.

“Our users are more engaged, spend more time on the site per month, spend more on products. A lot of that comes from our pay service,” Kint says. “Advertisers know that is the core consumer.”

Of course, merely charging for your service isn’t necessarily going to keep users engaged. As part of enhancing the experience, CBS Sports has added significantly to its fantasy content this football season. This year kicked off a section of user-generated player updates, which Kint says has drawn a good response.

“It’s been very positive,” he says. “That’s a way to get the user more involved. We do that within the construct of having a more-engaged consumer.”

The site has also reached out to the involved fantasy football owner by adding a live Sunday morning Web show, Fantasy Football Today, which runs from 11 a.m. Eastern right up until the 1 p.m. kickoffs.

The biggest news this year, though, has been generated by CBS Sports’ decision to add player names to its fantasy college football game that is in its fourth season. The move has drawn a backlash from NCAA officials but has helped spur growth in the free CBS game, which Kint sees as an important fantasy player going forward.

“I believe it can compete with baseball one day,” he says of college football. “It has all of the elements to what makes pro fantasy football so engaging and fast-growing — once a week roster moves, almost all games on the same day, smaller roster — and it’s football. Why not give up your Saturday, too?”