College basketball fan? Fantasy sports junkie? Mobile obsessed? Wellesley-based HuddleHub is sure to be your new favorite startup. The company has built a fantasy sports aggregator, allowing you to manage your fantasy teams from ESPN, CBS Sports, Yahoo! and Fanball all in one interface.
And today the company announced an innovative new twist on your traditional bracket for this years March Madness — the Fantasy Bracket Challenge.
In the Fantasy Bracket Challenge, instead of selecting Division I college teams to earn points in a bracket, you pick twelve players. Players are eliminated just like teams, and advance based on their points, rebounds, assists, steals and blocks.
While cofounder Adan Gutierrez couldn’t confirm the news officially, judging by the logos on te HuddleHub homepage, SiriusXM’s fantasy radio channel appears to be a partner on the Fantasy Bracket Challenge. The competition will kick off on March 13th after the NCAA’s Selection Sunday process that determines which 64 collegiate teams will enter the tournament.
Complementing the bracket is a nationwide college fan competition to determine which fans have the best fantasy bracket players. You can sign up to be in your favorite college team’s league here, competing against other colleges on total users in the league, total points scored for the league and points scored per fantasy player.
“HuddleHub is bringing a new twist to the bracket game by merging fantasy sports and traditional brackets” says HuddleHub co-founder Patrick Hereford. “We are delivering a one of a kind fantasy sports game where users select 12 college basketball players and accrue points for every point, rebound, steal, block and assist. This game type creates a more fun and challenging game than traditional brackets.”
HuddleHub will be traveling to SXSW trade show in Austin, Texas the week after the bracket kicks off to run promotions during March Madness and get more word out about their product.
“To increase the competitiveness of the game we will be giving away iPad 2’s at SXSW,” shared Gutierrez. “Four will be given away for the following achievements: 1) The person who invites the most users who join the game, 2) Top performing team overall, 3) Top performing team in the South By Southwest (SXSW) league and 4) The top performing player in all college leagues.”
On top of their web interface, HuddleHub offers mobile apps that allow you to control and manage all your fantasy teams in one place: you can add and drop players, bench or start players, and see live scores right from the app. HuddleHub’s apps have become quickly popular considering the ESPN Fantasy Football app, for example, costs $5 and HuddleHub’s are free. The company launched a football app last fall, and says a fantasy baseball app should hit app stores the end of this month.
