Football widows have a league of their own

Stylish on-line game becomes a profitable marketing ploy.
KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
PHILADELPHIA -- Erica Salmon invented the Fantasy Fashion League and launched it this fall to be a stylish solution to the plight of the football widow.
A mother of two who lives in Pitman, Pa., Salmon launched the online game two months ago. And already, thousands of women have formed leagues and started to play. The site, www.fantasyfashionleague.com, averages 2 million hits -- some from as far away as Turkey -- a month. It's a fact not lost on the fashion world, which immediately realized the marketing potential and turned Salmon into the latest "Mrs. It."
"We believe there is a chance that this could take off like a craze," said Amy Ford Keohane, vice president of development for InStyle magazine, who is developing a promotional partnership with the Fantasy Fashion League.
Essentially, Fantasy Fashion League is a girly version of fantasy football, which has been around for more than a decade.
Each player has a roster of designers and celebrities that make up the player's team. There are six teams in a league. Players log points for celebrity and designer sightings in three categories: red-carpet events (such as the Oscars); daily trade publications (basically Women's Wear Daily and InStyle.com); and 15 monthly fashion magazines.
Each person pays $18 to play. You can let the computer draft your team, or if your league meets in person, you can haggle over who gets whom.
The game began with the Emmys, which aired on Sept. 18, and runs till the season finale of the Academy Awards on March 5.
You can form a league at any time, since everyone competes within their own league.
Also, if players don't like the way their selections are performing, they can drop and add team members on Fridays.
Hot or not
The strategy is to choose people who are hot, so it helps to know who has a movie coming out, which celebrity is launching a clothing line, or who the prime-time darlings are.
Celebrities and models with major endorsements are golden, too. That's why when Kate Moss got dropped from H & amp;M and Burberry, FFL players erased her from their teams. Celebrities most likely to be on the cover of magazines are hot commodities, too. That explains the wars over Oprah.
InStyle.com is planning to offer a free trial to potential players in January, and AOL Time Warner will promote it on its Web site.
League winners will compete for a shopping spree at Zappos, an online shoe store. And Maryland-based life fitness trainer Melanie KefrenRae will work with Grail Springs Spa in Ontario to send a league on a weeklong, all-expense-paid trip to the spa valued at $35,000.
California-based shoe designer Taryn Rose will sponsor a party at her West Coast boutique on the Friday before the Oscars for a chosen league. The following night, Rose will take the league as her guests to an exclusive pre-Oscar event.
Pay-back time
It's hard to believe that all of this came from Salmon's need to get back at her husband, Neil, a staunch fantasy football player who developed the skill of tuning her out for hours on end on Sundays during football season.
"We comanaged a team called the Bulldawgs and he fired me because I made him draft Eddie George (all-time leading rusher for the Tennessee Titans) as running back," said Salmon, dressed in an oversized T-shirt and shorts as she nursed a cup of decaffeinated coffee.
"He (George) was really cute and he'd just gotten married. I reasoned that he was in love and he'd have a great season. But it was his worst season ever. So, my husband fired me."
"I guess I have to take credit for having the obsession that started the idea," husband Neil said, chuckling. "But she was picking players based on emotion. ... Something had to be done."
Salmon developed FFL in the spring, testing it on a network of friends and family. At first Neil rigged up an Excel spreadsheet to help her chart the points. But that got out of hand, so Neil researched fantasy football sites online and found a program written by a Valley Forge-area company, RotoLeague. The Salmons licensed the software and hired Visual Solutions, a Web development company in Merion, to "pink it up."
Out to launch
To launch the game, Salmon hosted a party at Tony, with flashing cameras and red carpet.
FFL was featured on the "Today" show in September, and snippets about it have appeared in Women's Wear Daily and Sports Illustrated. Nearly a dozen newspapers, including the Detroit News, the Washington Post and the Chicago Tribune, have carried mentions as well.