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Interested In The World Cup? Play StarStreet Sports
The TechStars Boston 2010 program finished up the other day. I was at investor day and it was awesome to see how far the ten companies came over the last 90 days, especially since I was there on the first day of the program and really had a baseline perspective.
If you follow my twitter feed, you’ll notice that I’ve been posting a bunch of “Mar.gy links” from a company called Marginize. This is one of the companies that I was a mentor for this year and I love what they are doing and what their vision is. But they weren’t recently on CNN – and StarStreet Sports was. If you are into The World Cup, you’ll love this one.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Brad Feld, prblogs and Mark Loranger, Nicolo Giorgi. Nicolo Giorgi said: RT @bfeld: Interested In The World Cup? Play StarStreet Sports http://goo.gl/fb/fsBsc [...]
I am not sure about this concept. Two major failures that tried a very similar thing were
OneSeason.com and ProTrade.com (Started by Jeff Ma who sold Citizen Sports to yahoo).
The problem is there is no major drive for people to buy players.
Plus the scheme is like a ponzi scheme. You get money from one user to pay other user. And if every body buys the same player, then the money has to come out of investors pocket.
Maybe i am too early to call this a failure but unless they are very different from the earlier versions of same game, its a very risky bet for investors.
Hey SJain – StarStreet's founder here:
Want to point out: our pricing mechanism is very different from OneSeason's (and ProTrade – which was play-money based on fantasy points). OneSeason was based purely on supply and demand, whereas ours is a zero-sum pricing mechanism. There is more explained here: http://www.starstreetsports.com/help and feel free to ask any questions if you have them.
But you still need an IPO, so how do the shares of any team hold value except for supply and demand? And don't you have a serious legal challenge from the Feds coming? The skill element is one thing. Trading is a skill. Sports betting is arguably a skill, too, but its still illegal. You can't dress up sports betting as trading and think you'll pull the blankets over the eyes of US attorneys. Does your business have any value if the feds think your business is illegal?
When an IPO happens the money from the winning bids is placed into the market. Every dollar that is put into the market through an IPO is eventually paid out through a retirement.
It is not sports betting as it is not depended on any single end outcome or result.
JerLevine, I am not sure about the exact reasons of failure for OneSeaon and ProTrade. But if you are convinced about the idea and think yours should work then thats the most important part. I was skeptical because the concept looks very similar to two companies that died relatively soon.
Certainly am! thanks SJain.
Have you received any questions/concerns from lawyers wanting to know how you are different (in a legal point of view)?
BTW I dont think that you will ever receive a C/D letter due to the fact that major sports commissioners (such as David Stern of the NBA) has publicly come out to say that he could be in favor of making sports betting legal for his sport. Also, there have been some states that have introduced legislation to actually make this a reality, and there are free sites like CentSports floating around out there. I am mainly wondering if you have actually been pestered with lawyers, and what their major claims against any illegality could possibly be?
Have you received any questions/concerns from lawyers wanting to know how you are different (in a legal point of view)?
BTW I dont think that you will ever receive a C/D letter due to the fact that major sports commissioners (such as David Stern of the NBA) has publicly come out to say that he could be in favor of making sports betting legal for his sport. Also, there have been some states that have introduced legislation to actually make this a reality, and there are free sites like CentSports floating around out there. I am mainly wondering if you have actually been pestered with lawyers, and what their major claims against any illegality could possibly be?
Jeff (& Dresses), we've certainly have had many convo's with the legal minds, and they've told us that we're fully kosher!