Interview With: Marc Edelman

How many founders does Sports Judge have and what are there names?

I am the sole founder of SportsJudge.com. However, a lot of other people contribute to the site including: Matt Cohen (senior deputy justice); Brett Smiley (deputy justice); Ed Gefen (deputy justice emeritus); John O’Malley (senior columnist & director of marketing) Jeremy Mittler (strategy & statistical expert); Michael Miranda (baseball columnist); Joe Romano (hockey columnist); Dave Horowitz (hockey columnist); Parker Gold (basketball columnist); Kent Malmros (logo designer); and Bruce Feinberg (website designer).

What is your background and qualifications?

I am a professor of sports law at New York Law School, Seton Hall University, and Manhattanville College. I also do some consulting in the sports industry. Before entering academia, I practiced sports and antitrust law in New York, NY. I earned my degrees from Michigan Law School and the Wharton School.

What does your website do?

SportsJudge.com is an online fantasy sports arbitration service that uses legal principles to resolve fantasy-sports disputes. Fantasy team owners submit their disputes by email, and within 48 hours they receive a formal, written decision.

When did you launch?

I have been resolving fantasy sports disputes via email since September 2000; however, I had no Internet presence until recently. In January 2005, SportsJudge.net launched as a bare bones dispute-resolution site providing a link to my personal email address. Then, in January 2007, I launched the more comprehensive SportsJudge.com, equipped with some bells and whistles, including a daily-updated blog on fantasy sports strategies.

What is the story behind starting Sports Judge?

In addition to having a traditional legal career, I have been a closet fantasy sports fanatic since 1989. In that year, my father and I co-managed our first fantasy baseball team to the J&J Fantasy Sports Championship. That was back in the days when roster transactions were made through the mail, and trades were made by phone.

Because of my dual expertise—law and fantasy sports—beginning around the year 2000, I began to receive requests from friends to resolve their fantasy sports disputes. Somehow, a cult following ensued. Within a few years, I was receiving unsolicited requests to resolve disputes from fantasy sports contestants throughout the country.

After operating for many years exclusively through word-of-mouth, family and friends began to encourage me to launch a formal website. By this point, I had already developed much case law and was using precedent to decide most cases.

What other websites do you have partnerships with?

SportsJudge.com has two formal partnerships. We serve as the Official Fantasy Dispute Resolution Service for iRoto.com members, and as the Official Fantasy Football League Arbitrator for Fantasy Football Whiz.

We also provide free content to Write on Sports LLC and participate in a public fantasy baseball contest hosted by the New York Daily News’s Jesse Spector.

How many dispute resolutions are you doing on a monthly basis?

It varies significantly from month-to-month. In September 2007, we resolved about 30 disputes from new customers alone. September, however, was an especially busy month.

Do you have any revenue streams besides advertisement? Who is your ad provider?

We charge $15 to resolve traditional disputes. Nobody is going to get rich from that kind of cash. However, these fees cover some of our website expenses, as well as dissuade people from sending us spam requests.

We charge substantially more money to perform other services such as drafting league constitutions and hosting live drafts. These other services, however, are only a small part of our overall business.

Google is our ad provider.

Funding: Self funded, Angel Investment, or Venture Capital?

We are entirely self funded.

Are you looking for more funding?

Funding is always nice; however, we are not willing to sacrifice our core values just for fast cash. Even if we were to accept outside funding, we would want to maintain day-to-day control over the website. We also want to keep the site family friendly.

What is your favorite feature on your site?

Definitely, the five sample opinions. We initially posted these opinions so that potential customers would understand the intricacies of our analysis.

What is the plan for Sports Judge in the future?

The SportsJudge.com launch has enabled me to venture into three new areas. First, I am now working with major corporations to structure fantasy sports contests on their websites. Also, I am beginning to arbitrate real-world disputes between fantasy sports service providers and their customers. Finally, I have accepted the role of outside commissioner to various real-life recreational sports leagues.

As far as the SportsJudge.com itself, our blog content has expanded in content over the months, and we now offer daily columns on fantasy-sports strategy. In January 2008, a group of four medical doctors will join our staff and provide free advice on fantasy sports injuries. That should take the blog to a whole new level.

Any bold predictions for sports and technology in the future?

A new professional football league called to UFL is planning to launch in 2008. The UFL was founded by financial expert Bill Hambrecht, and Google North America’s President of Advertising and Commerce Tim Armstrong. The league is also supported by Mark Cuban. If the UFL is able to survive its inaugural season, I predict this league will emerge at the forefront in developing new Internet technologies.

STN’s Take:

This is exactly why we created Sports Tech Now. If we just came across Sports Judge in passing we would generally think nothing of it. After interviewing Marc on the phone though, we found out that he is actually doing a ton of dispute resolutions on a monthly basis. We also noticed his amazing passion for fantasy sports and Sports Judge. There is no doubt in my mind that Sports Judge will succeed. They just need a deal with one large sports site to put them over the top along with upping their prices a bit because right now $15 is a steal especially for a high stakes league.

Our only suggestion would be a redesign of his website and to work his blog content into his site.  We know Marc is very professional but at this point don’t think his website is.