CBS Sports to churn even more profits from fantasy sports platform

CBS Sports is opening its fantasy sports platform to third-party developers, allowing them to sell league-specific apps that will likely make this year’s games a lot more competitive for millions of players and—developers hope—the $800 million per year fantasy sports industry even more lucrative. The deal is expected to be announced today at an industry meeting in Las Vegas. It will allow developers to create and sell just about any fantasy sports-related apps they can think of to users of CBSSports.com, one of the world’s three largest fantasy sports websites. For the roughly 34 million people in the United States and Canada who participate in fantasy sports each year, the deal means easy access to tools to help with everything from draft advice to lineup analysis will be available right on the site, customizable for each fantasy league—for a price, of course. The move by CBS Sports to embrace those tools is a play to attract users of other top fantasy sites, including free sites run by Yahoo and ESPN. CBS Sports’ site is different from the others in that most of its players pay fees to use the site to run their leagues. The site’s platform will open to developers Jan. 31, with six partners and about eight apps available initially, says Jason Kint, senior vice president and general manager of CBSSports.com, who adds the site will get 30% of all app sales. Get the full story from The Associated Press here.