CBSSports.com opens fantasy sports platform to developers
Third-party developers will be able to create and sell league-specific apps that can be integrated with players' teams, helping to streamline the decision-making process.
CBSSports.com announced today it is opening its fantasy sports platform to third-party developers, allowing them to create free and premium league-specific apps.
Among the first half-dozen partners in the "Fantasy Platform" are MLB.com and Bloomberg Sports, CBS said in an announcement today at the 2012 Fantasy Sports Trade Association Winter Business Conference in Las Vegas. (CBSSports.com is part of CBS Interactive, which also operates CNET.) Advanced Sports Media, Rotowire, StatSheet, and Ziguana will also be partners in the platform.
Jason Kint, senior vice president of CBSSports.com, said the Fantasy Platform is designed to offer fantasy team managers the chance to integrate other companies' products and services directly into their fantasy sports teams, helping to streamline the decision-making process.
"The way people play fantasy sports has dramatically changed over the last ten years with players using a ton more tools and products produced by a growing number of businesses," Kint said in a statement. "Providing outside developers access to our proprietary service will benefit the entire fantasy industry ecosystem, creating additional value for companies, developers and advertisers while consolidating and enhancing the experience for fantasy players."
The apps built on the newly opened platform will be available on CBSSports.com App Central when CBS' Fantasy Baseball product launches on January 31. A developer web site for the platform offers APIs developers interested in creating apps for the platform.