Mondo Sports

1
Mondo Sports

• Bringing it all Back Home
• Baseball Cards, Sports Games, Fantasy Leagues,
  and Sport Culture

2
Mondo Sports

• This discussion covers the role of several
  unusual media in bringing sports culture into
  American homes. You have the right to be a
  little weirded out by all this.

3
Early Sports Collectibles

• Sports collectibles first allowed fans to take
  images of favorite players home with them.
  Later, they would allow fans to take home actual
  game used memorabilia. Sports collectibles and
  games have always been about giving fans the
  sense that they took part in the game, that they
  were part of the game. As such, they continue to
  bring a unique identification with sports culture
  and values directly into the lives of some fans.
  At times, this identification can border on the
  obsessive.

4
Early Sports Collectibles

• 1890s Old Judge Cigarettes places pictures of
  National League ballplayers in their cigarette
  packs to promote sales.

5
Early Sports Collectibles

• 1900-1950 Various companies put images of sports
  figures on cards (cigarette and cigar companies
  in particular) and on their products (e.g.
  Wheaties). Advertisers find that sports
  celebrities sell produce.

6
Sports Cards A Brief History

• 1949-1951 Bowman Company produces baseball cards
  of popular players.
  
• 1951-Topps Company produces baseball cards to
  promote their bubble gum. Topps will develop an
  exclusive agreement with Major League Baseball to
  produce baseball cards.

7
Sports Cards A Brief History

• 1960s-Becket starts publishing the Becket
  Baseball Card Monthly, a journal that rates (and
  creates) the value of various baseball cards
  (later to expand to all sports cards).

8
Sports Cards A Brief History

• 1981 Leaf Company and Fleer Corporation challenge
  Topps exclusive contract. They win a court
  battle by demonstrating that they are selling
  card packs that do not include bubble gum (thus,
  are distinct from Topps).

9
Sports Cards A Brief History

• 1987-1993 The great baseball card boom. Baseball
  cards become valuable collectibles and heirlooms
  (for a few years, anyway).
  
• New companies form (e.g. Upper Deck) and cards
  that once had been pinned between bicycle tire
  spokes were now treated like rare postage stamps.
  People pay thousands of dollars for cards with
  no intrinsic value.

10
Sports Cards A Brief History

• 1994-2000 The great baseball card bust. Card
  values drop precipitously.
  
• 2000-2004 Cards and collectibles. Card companies
  consistently place swatches of game used clothes,
  bats, and other items in card packs to sell
  something with intrinsic value.

11
Sports Games A Brief History

• Sports games allowed people to bring the game
  home. Sports games followed the strategy of the
  sport with varying degrees of accuracy. Some
  modeled play on the actual performances of
  players (typically using crude statistical
  analyses).
• Note Computer sports games and simulations and
  fantasy leagues all grew out of these initial
  attempts to bring the game home statistically.

12
Sports Games A Brief History

• 1931-Clifford Van Beek produces National Pastime,
  the first game to create play directly from
  actual player statistics.
  
• 1930s-1990s Ethan Allans Game of Professional
  Baseball is produced by various companies. It
  uses incredibly crude pie charts and spinners to
  create accurate baseball.

13
Sports Games A Brief History

• 1951-Richard Seitz develops Van Beeks National
  Pastime into APBA Baseball, the first successful
  sports simulation game and the mother of all
  fantasy sports.

14
Sports Games A Brief History

• 1958-Seitz creates a football version of the APBA
  game. The Big League Company develops two games
  (Big League and Negamco) using statistics to
  simulate baseball, football, and basketball.

15
Sports Games A Brief History

• 1961-Strat-o-matic comes on the market, the
  greatest challenge to APBA as top sports
  simulation game.

16
Sports Games A Brief History

• 1960s-1980s Sports simulation games develop
  cult-like followings. They spawn their own
  leagues, histories, records, and journals. At
  least one major novel is written about a
  simulation player who completely loses touch with
  reality, his board game becoming his real
  world.

17
Sports Games A Brief History

• 1981-The first computer baseball simulation is
  created. Key baseball computer games Micro
  League Baseball, Earl Weaver Baseball, Tony
  LaRussa Baseball, Hardball.

18
Sports Games A Brief History

• 1990s-Fantasy Leagues develop.

19
Sports Games A Brief History

• 1990s-With the growth of computer baseball and
  fantasy leagues, simulation board games die. Of
  the hundreds of games produced, the only
  remaining games-APBA (barely surviving),
  Strat-o-matic (relatively stable), Dynasty League
  Baseball (struggling).