ESPN.com Launches Free ESPN Fantasy Stock Car Racing

- League Manager-Style Game Joins ESPN Stock Car Challenge
- 2007 Best Year Ever for ESPN Fantasy Sports

January 30, 2008 -- With the start of the 2008 NASCAR season just weeks away, ESPN.com today launched a new, free, league manager style Fantasy Racing game, ESPN Fantasy Stock Car Racing. The new game gives fans fully-customizable control over rules, drafts, rosters, scoring and more. ESPN Fantasy Stock Car Racing is the first league-manager style fantasy racing game offered by the leading sports site, and will be joined by ESPN Stockcar Challenge to bring racing fans a full lineup of fantasy racing games and content. ESPN Stock Car Challenge concluded its 8th season in 2007, and saw more than 25 percent growth.

“Much like with other sports, fans are increasingly turning to fantasy sports to deepen their connection to the sport and its personalities, and share their passion for racing and competition with friends and family,” said Raphael Poplock, vice president, games, ESPN Digital Media. “We believe that fantasy racing has very strong growth potential and this new game will prove to be incredibly popular among fans, and the marketers that want to connect with them.”

ESPN Fantasy Stock Car Racing lets players create leagues ranging in size from 2-10 people, with each team having a roster of drivers from the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series. Leagues can feature season-long scoring or weekly head-to-head matchups, and points are awarded in multiple scoring categories to players based on how their selected drivers perform, for example wins, finishing position, laps led and more. League Managers can customize the rules and scoring, and players have multiple driver draft options (including Live Online Draft, Automated Online Draft and Offline Draft, with results uploaded to ESPN.com). Players can also play in prize eligible leagues for an additional charge.

ESPN Fantasy Stock Car Racing players will have help throughout the season from ESPN.com’s Christopher Harris – two time FSWA Racing Writer of the Year, as well as a complete ESPN Fantasy Stock Car Racing draft kit that will include driver and track previews, along with season projections for roughly 60 drivers.

Record Year for ESPN Fantasy Sports

The new game launches as ESPN.com has seen its best year ever for fantasy sports, led by the growth of ESPN Fantasy Football (+30% vs. 2006), ESPN Fantasy Baseball (+900% growth in first season available for free) and Stock Car Challenge. Overall, ESPN Fantasy Sports registered nearly 170 percent growth in visits and logged more than 4 billion page views (+70% vs. 2006). Other specific successes include record participation for the ESPN Tournament Challenge bracket games (3.3 million entries), Baseball Challenge (+63% vs. 2006), College Bowl Mania (+47%), pro football Eliminator Challenge (+45%) and Gridiron Challenge (+27%). ESPN also saw a more than 77 percent increase in fantasy sports sponsorship compared to 2006.

Source: ESPN

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