ESPN.com snuck this beauty into their Bill Simmons RSS feed: "Free Fantasy Football Drafts from Work or Home! Sign up!". The more I think about it, RSS has become the TiVo of the Internet, allowing you to effectively "skip the commercials" and go directly to the content you want.

So ESPN is now striking back by forcing aggregators to pick up a post which is nothing more than an advertisement for their Fantasy Football service, which by the way, choked pretty hard during last Sunday's opening weekend. While it's a savvy move by the self-proclaimed Worldwide Leader in Sports, I'm not to sure how I feel about it. I subscribe to ESPN.com's Bill Simmons feed so I'll know when he posts a new article. I don't want -- or need, for that matter -- a reminder to set up a Fantasy Football team.

Then again, at least the ad was ESPN related. How long before we see them selling a spot in the Simmons feed to outside advertisers? Given his wild popularity and the gaining traction of RSS aggregators, I think it'll be sooner rather than later.

Meanwhile, local site Boston.com just added RSS feeds to their news section, and we're waiting patiently for their (hopefully) forthcoming sports page RSS feed.

Labels: advertising, RSS