The NFL season hasn’t started yet, but if you’re itching to get in the game Mountain View, Calif.-based [Watercooler ](http://www.watercooler-inc.com/index.html)might do the trick. The company just launched FanSection Fantasy Football 2009, a fantasy sports league with unique social network features.
FanSection says it’s already lined up Coors Light as its official sponsor for the season; a nice fit since Coors Light is also the ‘official beer of the NFL’ in case you were wondering.
If you haven’t heard of FanSection, they’re the big sports Kahuna on Facebook. FanSection says it’s the number one sports property on Facebook with more than 600 applications and more than 25 million registered users.
“Traditionally, fantasy football has been very siloed among 8 to 10 people,” Bryan Bennett, FanSection’s general manager, told me. “We’re going to extend to a user’s social graph on Facebook. Spectators play a huge role in the game and we think we can bring in more participation by allowing users to extend their social graph. Our key vision is creating a social fantasy sports game.”
Players can leverage that extended social graph in several ways. You can celebrate wins posting game scores to your profile or taunt friends and opponents by posting game scores to their profile or, the old standby, simply talk smack to other teams.
You can also take polls or invite friends to join trivia and player/team discussions.
FanSection also says it’s fleshed out the content available via partnership with CBSSports.com. The latter is providing a draft kit and fantasy news and video content as well as player information and updates. Basic commissioner game play and scoring is free. There’s a fee for premium features that include live scoring, up-to-the-minute game stats and custom reports and content.
“In the past we’ve been primarily advertiser driven,” said Bennett. “Now it’s completely free to play the game. There’s an upsell to see the stats, $4.95 for the season. We anticipate an uptake of 15 to 20 percent of the users will pay, but the game can be played without it.
“The real-time scores adds the social element. I’ve been playing with the same group for eight or nine years and the ability to rip your friends … it never gets old.”
