Interactive sports system

Abstract

A system for interactive sports. The system is comprised of participants and two or more real-life athletes organized individually or in teams. Participants direct operational decisions for a real-life athlete or team of athletes who must follow the directions of participants. Participants compete against other participants controlling other athletes and teams, based on the performance of the athletes or teams that they control. Participants vote by numerous communications media and their preferences are collected and processed by an information system. Participants also communicate with real-life athletes and players and other participants. Athletes and teams compete and winners receive compensation. Participants who control winning teams are also eligible for compensation.

Description

[0001] Not applicable[0002] Not applicableBACKGROUND--FIELD OF INVENTION[0003] This invention relates to all varieties of sports.BACKGROUND--DESCRIPTION OF PRIOR ART[0004] The concept of fantasy sports is well known and popular. Fantasy sports allow participants to select active real-life athletes from existing sports teams to form virtual teams which the participants control. Virtual teams are evaluated based on different statistical criteria related to the "real-life" performances of the players that constitute the virtual teams. Fantasy sports usually involve leagues of participants who compete against each other for the best performing virtual team. Participants may alter their virtual teams by engaging in transactions such as purchasing players or trading players with other virtual teams.[0005] The concept of fantasy sports is limited in that it is virtual in character, as implied in the name of the concept itself--"fantasy" sports. Participants create virtual teams that are di...

AI Technical Summary

Problems solved by technology

Nor can they affect the decisions the real-life teams make that affect their virtual teams.

While the interactivity level of the Finnish team was greater than ordinary fantasy sports, viewer-participants were limited to voting on a limited range of questions.

Participants also could not provide feedback to the real-life players.

The Finnish variation also did not involve more than one team and did not provide a competitive dimension to the experience of the participant.

Both fantasy sports and its variation in the case of the Finnish team suffer from the serious limitation that participants are limited in the decisions they can make.

For example, in both systems participants can not control whether players are traded, whether the coach should be replaced or what salaries the players should receive.

Participants also can not provide communicate directly with players.

Furthermore, no system provides both the real-life voting of the Finnish soccer team with the competition between participants of fantasy sports leagues.

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