Equity shares in everything

If the new Internet venture succeeds, it will be a whole new ballgame for the gambling-driven pastime of fantasy sports, which already has up to 20 million players.
    ProTrade, which opened for business yesterday, will treat professional athletes like stocks to be bought and sold, initially in a theoretical currency. Cash prizes will be awarded to the most successful investors.
    The value of a blue-chip quarterback such as Peyton Manning of the Indianapolis Colts will be determined by a community of traders competing to identify players most likely to contribute to the success of their real-life teams.
    In this bottom-line approach to sports, teams are known as investment portfolios and the real-life athletes get their own ticker symbols. Manning's symbol is PMANN...
    ProTrade initially will be confined to trading NFL players, but the San Mateo, Calif., company expects to add the NBA and Major League Baseball after working out licensing agreements.

Is it real money?

At the outset, basically for the first half of the NFL season, no actual money will be exchanged in ProTrade's market; each participant will get a virtual stake of 25,000 coins to invest.
    But capitalism will fuel the market's activity, with weekly prizes awarded to the portfolios with the best investment returns. Later this year, traders will be allowed to create their own competitive leagues and set their own entry fees, with a $5 minimum per entrant.
    ProTrade will hold all the entry fees in escrow and then distribute jackpots, minus a 2 percent to 3 percent commission, to league participants who generate the best investment return. ProTrade hopes to make money from those commissions and advertising on the site.

Here is the story.  Comments are open, in case you know more about this than I do.  I like this part of the story:

Former San Francisco 49ers tight end Brent Jones, a member of ProTrade's advisory board, believes most players will stay away from the site.
    "There are a lot of guys out there who aren't going to want to see what they're really worth," he said.