There’s a week left in Cactus and Grapefruit League play … which can only mean one thing: you are preparing for your fantasy baseball draft.
While most of the country is focused on March Madness and their busted brackets (thankyouverymuch Michigan State), you are studying up on each big leaguer’s spring training stats, checking depth charts and getting your cheat sheet ready for your league’s draft day. But the smack talk started when pitchers and catchers reported.
RT @AliciaStice: Fantasy baseball draft is tomorrow. Current mood: pic.twitter.com/Yiuz32EKmq
— SidePrize (@SidePrize) March 23, 2016
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And that’s where SidePrize wants to seize an opportunity; to make those smack talkers put their money where their mouth is.
The idea came about when entrepreneur Adam Wexler, half joking, lamented that the most thankless job in the world is being a fantasy sports commissioner. But someone has to step up and collect the money. While trying to figure out how to make league collections easier for the commissioner, Wexler realized there was untapped potential in the action taking place during the season on the side via text and venmo or paypal. ‘We pivoted to focus our energy on in-season action because it was something that had never been tackled,’ Wexler told me. So they decided to develop a mobile-friendly web app to house those transactions.
Last August, SidePrize was selected to participate in the Los Angeles Dodgers Accelerator Program and after a successful first year, they won Rookie of the Year at the 2015 Fantasy Sports Trade Association conference, in addition to two other FSTA awards.
This year SidePrize is introducing handling pre-season league collections leading off with fantasy baseball, truly taking the burden off the commissioner. Now, instead of that money sitting in the commissioner’s venmo account all season – or rather, being spent – SidePrize will keep those dollars safe throughout the season and pay them out to the rightful winner at the end of the season.
No more hassling your friends to collect payment and no more worrying about whether the money will still be in your buddy’s account at the end of the season. SidePrize handles all of that and then some. They provide a dashboard to monitor who has paid and have a Fantasy Assistant to help with collecting dues and managing payouts. For season-long leagues, they’ll even add money to the pot. That’s all in addition to formalizing the side competition that take place among fantasy competitors. 
Capitalizing on those side competitions, SidePrize is the in-between for season-long and daily fantasy players. Even if your fantasy team is in last place with no hope of making the playoffs, you can still win by challenging anyone in your league on the side. Make up the challenge or take on one suggested by SidePrize including their newly minted weekly challenges.
Fantasy sports has changed the dynamic for sports fans, giving them a reason to care about every game for more reasons than just how it affects their beloved team’s standings. Some fantasy enthusiasts will even cheer for their favorite team to lose if it means their fantasy team stays in first place. For others, it keeps them engaged when their team is out of the playoffs before the All-Star break.
However you slice it, though, fantasy sports is a growing business and SidePrize is pioneering a new category in fantasy sports – the notion of handling peer-to-peer interaction. It keeps players engaged throughout the season and takes a load off “the most thankless job in the world.”
SidePrize integrates with fantasy providers including Head2Head, Rotowire, Yahoo!, and ESPN. Users just need to sign into SidePrize using fantasy league credentials and they are on their way to dominating friends in weekly challenges.
Let the smack talk begin.
Note: SportTechie readers should tell SidePrize’s Fantasy Assistant they came fro ‘SportTechie’ for an extra $150 value.