Why did protrade close?

Answer 1

In one of the greatest tragedies ever to occur in the history of sport, the sports stock marketweb site protrade.com shut down late September/early October. The reasons for its termination are unclear. The mark it has left on America is indelible. Based on the ingenious idea of trading athletes and teams as trade-able stock, turning sports into a large Stock Market, protrade took the fantasy sports world by storm. The idea in and of itself was a stroke of genius in the vein of Newton and Galileo; yet in practice, this theory was made even greater, turning Tiger Woods into a Berkshire Hathaway of sorts, and likening Darvin Ham to KMart. Alas, this genius was ahead of its time. Sports fans are not businessmen, and definitely not stock investors, and this was reflected in the size of protrade's small but intensely devoted fan base. Those of us who were wise enough to recognize and join this rewarding online community, however impressed we were at the practice of trading athletes as stock, were also detracting from participating by a stagnancy that permeated the site, and a terribly frustrating, if not difficult, user interface. But regardless of the UI, or the stagnancy, or the new facebook app that made the protrade creators shift their focus, the fact remains: protrade was, is, and will continue to be, the most ingenious fantasy sports concept ever thought up.