This invention relates to fantasy sports contests and, more particularly, this invention relates to systems and methods for providing multi-level fantasy sports contests in fantasy sports contest applications.
Athletic endeavors have long supported a broad range of secondary contests, which include wagering on the outcome of particular games and wagering on the performance of a particular player.
In known fantasy sports contests, a user selects a roster, a team, a particular individual, or a group of individuals in an athletic contest. The user is given the ability to take on the role of a fictional general manager with powers which may include the ability to draft, trade, dismiss and otherwise manage the player or players on the user's fantasy sports team.
Conventionally, either a fantasy sports contest provider or a league commissioner sets the rules under which a group of fantasy sports users compete against each other in a fantasy sports contest. For example, for every goal scored in real-life by a member of the user's fantasy soccer team, the user may be awarded five points in the fantasy sports contest.
The fantasy sports contest provider may also provide additional services, which may include providing statistical information on real-life games and players, tracking users' scores in the fantasy sports contest, and enabling transactions and other interactions among the users.
The real-life athletic events upon which a fantasy sports contest may be based are varied, and typically involve selecting players from real-life team sports (e.g., football, baseball, basketball, hockey, soccer, rugby, etc.), selecting players from real-life individual sports (e.g., golf, tennis, automotive racing, etc.), or selecting participants from contests involving animals (e.g., horse and dog racing). A user's selections are typically stored in the user's fantasy sports contest roster. The performance of these selections in real-life contests collectively determines the user's performance in the fantasy sports contest.
In known fantasy sports contests, a user may choose between participating in private leagues or public leagues. To participate in a private league, the user may either start the league himself or join a private league created by another user. The user who starts a private league (e.g., as the league commissioner) bears the responsibility of maintaining the league (e.g., setting rules, settling disputes, etc.) as well as the responsibility of attracting or inviting users to join the league. The user who joins a private league created by another user must participate in the private league according to the rules set by the league commissioner.
Initially, new users tend to participate more frequently in private leagues started by their friends. The familiarity of users in these private leagues generally foster friendlier competition. More experienced users, who often participate in more than one league, may find the varying rules from one private league to another frustrating.
Alternatively, the user may participate in public leagues. In response to the user choosing to participate in public leagues, a fantasy sports contest provider may randomly assign the user to a public league consisting of other users who have expressed similar preferences in fantasy sports contests. Public leagues are also often season long, which gives the user very infrequent windows of opportunity to join.
Many sponsors and advertisers of fantasy sports contests also find the limited choices between public and private leagues frustrating. For example, an advertiser for a service located on the east coast of United States may find it difficult to target its advertisements to the east coast users because public and private leagues are not organized by geographical locations. Thus, advertisers and sponsors who are not interested in a national or international customer base are deterred from advertising or sponsoring fantasy sports contests.
Accordingly, it is desirable to present improved ways for allowing the user to participate in multiple leagues having uniform rules whenever the user desires and for allowing the advertisers and sponsors to target fantasy sports users that are within their customer base.