[Cool Papa Bell]

I brought this up years ago, but you cannot survive or grow your market share if all you do is release the new version each year. In my humble and unscientific opinion, but based on 40 years of playing simulation baseball games, mostly Strat-O-Matic...you need other products. At some point, a gamer is going to say, hey you know I don't really need version CXIV, I'm good with what I have. What are those other products are the key...official releases of season sets maybe...specialty sets, oh greatest franchise historical rosters, Negro League rosters, Deadball rosters, Civil War era players, who knows, the sky is the limit. Letting everyone modify what they have is all well and good, but how efficient is it that there are 25 different all-time roster sets running around, all based on the creators parameters.

Anyway, that is how Strat and many other companies have at least gotten a bite of a bigger slice of the pie so to speak. But the big one I think for SOM in particular is their affiliation with The Sporting News for on-line leagues and tournaments. Get OOTP as the official game engine and people pony up to win real cash money...that is how you will get the fantasy players...because those are really the gamblers who happen to be sports fans. On TSN, SOM has the ability to let leagues draft, trade, set lineups, etc just like their game, and it is somehow simmed on the site and results are posted like a real on-line league. The leagues are full season, but happen quickly...not sure but weeks I think...so you can have multiple leagues per season. Get a fantasy gamer hooked competing against 29 other guys in an OOTP on-line fantasy league on ESPN.com and he'll pony up money to do it, you can bet on that...metaphorically speaking... Again, just my 2 cents, but a little research on TSN site might go a long way. Pick up the phone...call ESPN or TSN or FOX, who knows. The only problem you may have is that darn MLB licensing...dang them...dang them all! :-)