Entrepreneurial

Nic Sulsky hopes this weekend’s anticipated record Super Bowl television audience helps boost traffic to his online sports gaming startup.

InGamer Sports, the Toronto, Canada-based company he co-founded in 2008, lets users choose a team of players from live games and awards points based on how they actually perform on the field.

Sulsky said it fuses the three dominant screens in our lives: television, computer and mobile.

“So we want to own the phone and we want to own the computer during the Super Bowl,” he said, adding InGamer has licensing deals with two prominent Canadian broadcasters and is looking to expand into the much larger U.S. market. “We have the only game that people can play during the Super Bowl in realtime live against everyone.”

During the Super Bowl users, who have signed up online, can select up to six players – from both the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Green Bay Packers – and track them throughout the game. If a player is not doing well, the user can trade them for another player at the end of the quarter, so their choices aren’t locked like a traditional fantasy sports contest.

So how's the market for sports and concert tickets holding up, given the economic turmoil that has dominated the public imagination since last year? Better than you'd think, according to Mike Janes, the founder and CEO of FanSnap, a live-event ticket search engine that launched in March.

"People's appetite for the shared experience of a game or show hasn't changed. Their bank accounts may have changed, but not the desire," Janes said.

The difficult economy has had the effect of bringing many ticket prices down, he said, meaning there are plenty of bargains out there. While there will always be insatiable demand for big-name performers or games (Springsteen; Yankees vs. Red Sox) keeping those ticket prices high, Janes said tix for your average major league baseball game can be had for below face value in some cases, as folks looking to resell tickets flood the market with supply. It's a bit too early to see about NFL games, he said.