Do Yahoo Fantasy Leaguers Have Russian Bride Fantasies?

Yahoo’s fantasy baseball service and player stats pages provide a ton of ad inventory, and I can’t help but wonder whether the company sells any of it direct to advertisers. It seems to be a great way to reach those ever-elusive young males, right? You’d expect to see ads for Axe deodorant or some new 8-blade razor or something, right?

Not exactly. The manager of the fantasy team “The Sleazy Uncles” told me he’s been seeing ads for some strange stuff lately when researching players. Yeah, he’s getting ads from typical remnant inventory advertisers like Vonage. But he’s also seeing a lot of ads for Indian marriage and Russian mail-order bride services.

Really.

The more I think about it, though, the more it makes sense — sort of. Whether or not Bharat Matrimony is targeting men only is questionable, but mail-order bride service Anastasia International clearly aims to reach men. And to be more specific, it needs to reach men who are, well, to put it bluntly, desperate. I’m not trying to insinuate that all fantasy league players are socially awkward men who can’t meet girls (hey, Alyssa Milano does it), but they may be onto something….!