Fantasy Football Insurance? Why Not?

In a movement sure to incite the furor of many people who concern themselves too much with the activities of others, you can now insure your fantasy football team. Seriously.

I guess it was only a matter of time. As many estimate, fantasy sports as one blanket entity is a multi-million dollar industry, with fantasy football being far and away the most popular branch of the hobby. Fantasy Sports Insurance now offers disability insurance for fantasy teams in baseball, football, basketball, hockey, soccer, Nascar and golf. Their key selling point, though, is the season-ending injury suffered by Tom Brady last season.

They point to an article of CNBC's Darren Rovell from last season where he estimated the Brady injury shifted $150 million in fantasy winnings. When the money at stake is that high, of course people are trying to find more ways to get a piece of the pie. People already make money giving advice (pats self on back), selling draft boards, selling internet live scoring templates (check out Fleaflicker!), selling T-shirts for fantasy teams and much more. As long as the industry continues to thrive, there's no reason to resist ideas such as insuring fantasy teams.

The insurers decided that you can purchase insurance on either one player or a group of three players, with the premium being around 10 percent of your entry fee. If the player(s) named on the policy misses more than 2/3 of his team's games, you'll get your full entry fee back.

Of course, there are players too injury-prone to be insured, but owners know they are drafting a risky guy when taking players on that list anyway (Torry Holt, Fred Taylor, etc.). This is insurance 101. You don't allow a place with faulty wiring to buy fire coverage.

According to Rovell, the brokerage has sold around 400 policies thus far with the expectation of a spike in business over the course of the next week or two.

Personally, I think this is a fine idea. Yeah, I know ... the judgmental, cooler-than-you people are sure to come out of the woodwork complaining about this. They'll call people losers, tell them they need to get a life, etc. All that played out nonsense. For the billionth time, I'll ask what is wrong with a hobby involving sports, gambling and trash talk with your friends. Sounds like quite the typical male hobby to me.

As an avid fantasy football player, though, I tend to be against this. True insurance against a season-marring injury to one of your best players is by filling your team with good players. There are always good bargains to be had in the last few rounds, as Steve Slaton owners from last season can attest.

The response of the insurance company is that injury issues can affect the entire fantasy league, because teams who lose someone like Brady in Week 1 tend to just give up. Thus, the competitive edge is lost. Therefore, they (shockingly) think every league should require every owner to have insurance.

Allow me to offer a simple solution that won't cost you any extra money: Only include people in your fantasy league that want to be as serious as you want to. If someone in your big money league would honestly give up after one injury, you either need to quit the league or kick that owner out -- depending upon your level of power in the league. If you and your friends want to play in a hands-off, casual league for very little money, you won't mind if someone throws in the proverbial towel early. All that means is an easy win when they square off against your team.

The bottom line is that, while I'm not against the idea, I think it's an unnecessary purchase for fantasy owners. By the same token, it's also a good idea to try and capitalize on a monster of an industry by the insurance company. It really seems like easy money for them, assuming the top 20 preseason fantasy players don't go down with season-ending maladies. In this economy, we should commend people creative and smart enough to take on a venture like this. It's refreshing to see, as opposing to all the woe-is-me whining splashed across the internet message boards.