BBC unveils sporting stock exchange

Sports fans can now own a bit of David Beckham or share some of Anna Kournikova’s assets with a new virtual stock exchange launched by BBC Radio Five Live.

Sportdaq lets supporters buy and sell imaginary stocks in competitors from a range of sports including football, athletics and tennis.

Shares rise and fall based on back page newspaper coverage, mentions on Five Live and on leading UK-based sports websites.

To become a sporting stockbroker you need to register at www.bbc.co.uk/sportdaq, which has profiles of all the sportsmen and women available to trade as well as a look at the latest tips, market movements and sports news.

The service is co-produced by Five Live and Bafta award winners Interactive Drama and Entertainment, the team behind the ever-popular Celebdaq, where traders buy and sell shares in celebrities.

At the end of this season, the BBC is scrapping its online Fantasy Football game because it was deemed too commercial in the recent Graf report. Luckily, Sportdaq and Celebdaq are considered educational tools.

Michael Hill, the radio station’s interactive editor said: “Sportdaq combines Five Lives’s sporting expertise and ID&E’s experience of running Celebdaq to create an innovative product that is not only fun to play, but also educational in the way it increases the users understanding of market economics.”