About 300 media buyers attended the NFL’s sixth annual fantasy football contest upfront Thursday night in Manhattan, designed to get the ad market enthused about the fourth quarter buying season for NFL media assets. With the NBA lockout likely to stretch into the NFL season, sources at the event said talk was about finding places to put those now available ad dollars. “We have 300 of the most influential people in sports here, they control media buying in sports,” said NFL VP/Media Sales David Pattillo. He declined to say how much inventory the NFL had to sell across NFL Network and NFL.com. NFL Network's Scott Hanson emceed the event, featuring 16 media buyers picking fantasy football teams. The winner at the end of the year gets to play a flag football game against an NFL squad featuring NFL execs and retired players. Giants RB Brandon Jacobs and WR Hakeem Nicks, as well as retired Jets DE Joe Klecko, said a few words to the audience. NFL Senior VP/Media & Sponsorships Keith Turner, Pattillo’s boss, also attended. When the event started six years ago, there were eight ad agency teams participating (Daniel Kaplan, SportsBusiness Journal).
FANTASY FANATICS: In Boston, Chad Finn notes while fantasy sports “have achieved mass appeal, they still remain a relatively underplayed topic in some media, particularly relative to how many people are into them.” When WEEI’s “Mut and Merloni" midday show had ESPN fantasy sports expert Matthew Berry "appear for an engaging and informative segment Wednesday, it almost felt like a eureka moment in recognizing that there is a listenership for fantasy sports talk.” WEEI’s Mike Mutnansky said, “The response was awesome. Between the calls, texts, and tweets, it felt like a home run." Finn writes, “More quality fantasy sports talk, even for a segment or two a week, could be something that gives a fledgling program like ‘Mut and Merloni’ a real identity” (BOSTON GLOBE, 8/26).
