... the man has a point. (Or had, briefly, until his frantic row-back a couple days later.) Yahoo has built a brand out of catching young athletes with their hand out, something that always makes for compelling reading but now seems more than a little misguided. If you find yourself writing story after story about NCAA rule after NCAA rule being broken, shouldn't there come a point where you question the wisdom and validity of those rules in the first place?

Yahoo came close a couple months ago, with an excellent story about Kevin Love and AAU coach Pat Barrett. But it wound up being more a standard indictment of greasebag agents and less an exploration of how screwy incentives — created by impossibly high-minded amateurism rules, not to mention the NBA's minimum-age rule (to which Yahoo at least alludes, to its credit) — have created a black market in which greasebag agents can thrive.

Yahoo's Dan Wetzel wrote to Whitlock after his initial column, which stupidly likened the "gotcha" recruiting stories to "1800s newspapers running pictures of and stories about runaway slaves." Wetzel took issue: "We do it to show that the problem is everywhere. That no one is immune. That the NCAA is doing nothing, and that the media are lazy by characterizing it any other way." I suppose Yahoo's reformer spirit is commendable, but this really does get the issue exactly wrong. The "problem" isn't everywhere. It's in one place. The NCAA charter. Where's that series?

As if they don't own enough already.

If Microsoft's proposed takeover bid fails, according to a February 4 article in the New York Times, Yahoo Inc. might then consider selling its company in piecemeal, with Yahoo Sports "sold to a company like ESPN." This possibility would produce far less antitrust concern in advertising markets. However, it might still lead to competitive problems in the rapidly expanding markets for fantasy gaming.

Based on a down-and-dirty review of the fantasy sports marketplace, if either ESPN or CBS Sports were to attempt to purchase Yahoo Sports, the number of traditional websites that host fantasy sports games would fall from three to two—a general red flag in terms of competition law. In addition, if the market's low price provider, Yahoo, were gobbled up by a website more likely to charge customer fees, another red flag would be triggered.

We'd like to note: Yahoo! Sports often has more hits than ESPN.com. This seems like a story worth following. Gulp.

Sports And The Law: Could Yahoo Sale Kill Free Fantasy Sports? [Above The Law]

Our mailbox has been flooded all morning with complaint emails from Yahoo fantasy players who drafted last night only to receive the following message this morning:

Unfortunately, due to server problems, your draft was not able to be run as scheduled. Since we know how important participating in a live draft can be, and how many users can only do that on a specific day at a specific time, we felt it important to try and accommodate those preferences. So, rather than having your league Autopicked, we left it undrafted and set up a new live draft for Sep 5 18:30.

Well, jeez, thanks for not autopicking it, Yahoo! Considering the season starts tomorrow, it's a mistake of the highest order to screw up a draft right now. So if you drafted in a Yahoo league last night, we hope you remember who you drafted. Otherwise, you're up shit creek.

Disenfranchised fantasy baseball players can register at Yahoo! Sports and still play a complete fantasy baseball season. Yahoo! Sports Fantasy Baseball '07 offers rotisserie or point-style games that give players access to scoring data starting on April 1 (opening day).

"Being locked out of your fantasy league is like having a day at the ball park rained out," said Greg DeForest, Yahoo! Sports fantasy executive producer. "All disenfranchised players are welcome at Yahoo! Sports where they won't experience a lockout-shortened season because our retroactive tool ensures fantasy league scoring will include all the action from opening day."

Again, we've never understood why anyone would have used ESPN's fantasy game in the first place — John Kruk in leather pants aside — but honestly, if we'd lost the first week of fantasy stats, we'd be pissed enough to go somewhere, anywhere else as well.

Yahoo! Sports Welcomes Disenfranchised Fantasy Players [Yahoo Sports Blog]
ESPN Pushes The Self Destruct Fantasy Button [Deadspin]

(By the way, that is our team. We're pleased. It's also awesome to have Clinton Portis on the roster.)

Fantasy Football [Yahoo]

(From a reader: I checked mine, and it says it is on Week 41. One of my players, Matt Jones (yes, I have him), had a stat line, though:
Matt (Jac - WR) Bye 0 0 0 2 5 30 1 177 0 2 15 32 1 54 0 1642.50

That's 177 rushing touchdowns.)

The breakdown:
Top Sites By Unique Audience For Week Ending September 25, 2005
• Yahoo! Sports, 7.1 million
• ESPN.com, 6.8 million
• FOX Sports, 5.2 million
• NFL Internet Network, 4.8 million
• MLB.com, 4.1 million
• Sportsline.com, 3.6 million
• SI.com, 2.6 million
• CSTV, 2.5 million
• eBay Sports, 2.3 million
• AOL Sports, 2.1 million

We're sure this is just because ESPN's Page 3 hasn't updated this week.

PREVIOUSLY: ESPN Still The Leader, But Barely [Deadspin]

• ESPN people think Yahoo relies too much on fantasy numbers and isn't really as close as the numbers say.
• Yahoo people say they beat ESPN more often than people think and that it drives ESPN people crazy when that happens. And that they're charging fast.
• Everybody thinks FoxSports.com sucks and barely warrants mentioning.
• Maybe WWE shouldn't be included in sports Web site visit rankings.

We've been forwarded some numbers, but honestly, we need some Baseball Prospectus or Football Outsiders people to help us figure them out. Is there, like, an expert in this kind of stuff? Or (gulp) does it have to be us?

ESPN Still The Leader, But Barely [Deadspin]