Guelph company goes deep with fantasy sports

Guelph’s InGamer has a new wrinkle on fantasy sports. Instead of the fantasy gaming ending when the real game starts, InGamer keeps the action going throughout the event by allowing trades and player moves throughout the contest.

As this video demonstrates, InGamer brings users deeper into the game by giving them more stats to play with, more moves to make and more ways to get involved. It ties together the big three screens in television, mobile and the computer to keep users connected and keep the fantasy fun going.

Hockey, basketball and American football are all sports that you can game with, and the variety of stats is probably the most diverse I’ve ever seen. For example, in hockey, you count the big stats, like goals, assists, goalie wins, etc., but also shots, takeaways, giveaways, and you even get bonus points if your player was selected as one of the three stars.

Perhaps, with this huge selection of stats, it’s a little surprising that InGamer CEO Nic Sulsky is targeting the casual sports fan. He’s looking to grow the fantasy sports market by targeting the 100 million North Americans who love sports but don’t play fantasy, as he tells Reuters’ Jon Cook:

Sulsky contends fantasy sports as an industry has “plateaued” over the last few years, despite support from the 30 million people in North America who regularly participate in fantasy leagues and contests. Sulsky said InGamer is not targeting those fans so much as the 100 million “avid” sports fans that don’t play fantasy games.

He believes the interactive nature of InGamer’s technology, which incorporates social media elements such as instant messaging and rankings, makes it a far more compelling offering to users and potential clients than running a fantasy contest.

“At the end of the day we’re trying to change the whole paradigm about how people are selling live sports,” said Sulsky, who noted the average InGamer visitor spends a whopping 76 minutes on site and close to 40 percent of those who come to the site register to play the game. “We’re the only game that actually adds value to broadcasts, because it’s all about stickiness.”

Sulsky and InGamer have already started to generate some buzz with their product. IDC named InGamer as one of the 10 Canadian Digital Media Companies to Watch in 2011. And, as Yonge Street reports, InGamer has signed off on three major deals to give the company a greatly expanded profile. CBC and Rogers are two of those deals, which involves the broadcasters promoting InGamer in exchange for InGamer getting viewers more involved with their televised content. The third is with IMG, a sports marketing company, and this deal is designed to tie broadcast advertisers to InGmaer’s offerings to keep viewers’ attention during breaks in televised action.

For more info on InGamer, click here.