

Ask HN: anyone doing an interesting fantasy football startup? - dhess

I'd be willing to pay for a fantasy football service with an emphasis on analytics, especially if it has an API. I know about myfantasyleague.com and their API, and it's a start, but it appears to be focused mainly on managing leagues hosted on their service (drops, adds, standings, etc.). I don't need real-time feeds; I'm mainly interested in using historical player data to create a draft strategy, and to make my own weekly player projections.<p>Basically, what I'd like is a service that gives me an API to access the player data that ESPN, Yahoo, CBS, etc. use to make their predictions, so that I can make my own.<p>Is STATS the only source for this kind of information?
======
wrath
I'd love the same thing. An API would be sweet! I think the problem with
offering the data is the licensing fees. If I'm nit mistaken the nfl/pa has
ownership of the data and any distribution has to be licensed by them? Anyone
know if that's actual true?

~~~
dhess
Recent U.S. court rulings against the MLB say that MLB statistics, at least,
are public domain and can't be copyrighted:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_League_Baseball_Advanced_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_League_Baseball_Advanced_Media#MLBAM_vs._CDM_Legal_Case)

Note that soon after the MLB's ultimate appeal to the Supreme Court was not
taken up by the Court, effectively ending that case, ESPN opted out of their
multi-year deal with the MLB for the rights. Presumably ESPN still pays STATS
for the compilation services, rather than compiling their own.

------
zoudini
I'm actually working on something to address what I think are the major
weaknesses of fantasy football as it's currently played. In the process of
setting up a good scraper with an API. E-mail me if interested.

