Tech Start-Up Lets Sports Fans Buy And Sell Pro Athletes Like Stocks

BOSTON -- A Boston-based tech start-up has created a program that lets hoops fans "invest" in a virtual professional athletes and rack up profits or losses based on other investor interest, the New York Post reported Thursday.

"It's a digital version of sports cards with a market attached," StarStreet co-founder Jeremy Levine said Wednesday. "It's a lot like trading with ETrade except you're trading players you know and love rather than companies you probably don't."

Levine said the website trades in virtual assets, similar to the booming market that has grown around virtual goods in social network games like Zynga's "FarmVille" and "Mafia Wars."

StarStreet sees dollar signs in sports stars, with shares available in select NBA and MLB players while those leagues are in season. The firm, for example, was planning an "IPO," or Initial Player Offering, of Yankee superstar Derek Jeter on Thursday.

There also was a "March Madness" market for basketball, but because the NCAA players are amateurs, it was based on the teams.

An IPO is launched with 100 shares. Investors, who are limited to 20 percent of any player and can only invest up to $200, enter a bid price for the player's shares. The highest bids covering 100 shares are accepted and the IPO is set as a weighted average of the bids.

Subsequent stock prices are determined through buy and sell agreements between shareholders and bidders.

StarStreet takes a four percent cut from the sell side of every transaction and all money is returned to investors when the invest-in-a-player season is over.

Click here for more on this story from The New York Post.