Last week, there were a few big announcements that will have a significant impact on the fantasy sports industry.  At the Web 2.0 Expo, Yahoo’s CTO announced the Yahoo Application Platform which will allow developers to tap into their social graph, build applications around them, and distribute through Yahoo’s properties.  In case you missed it, check out his keynote speech below:

Here’s a little snippet from the Yahoo Developer’s Blog:

So now you have an out-of-the-box social graph, and wicked cool data to mashup. How about some traffic? How about some traffic from Yahoo! Mail, the Yahoo! Front Page, Yahoo! Search, My Yahoo! and the revamped Y! Profile?

The other big announcement was from Mike Levy, the founder of CBS Sportsline, regarding a new venture called Open Sports Network.  As described by Techcrunch,

The company’s website is still being built out but based on their description, it aspires to be a sports-oriented social network featuring betting-enabled fantasy sports games, rich news content, and perhaps most importantly, a game platform with open APIs.

Fantasy sports leagues are incredibly popular but many of them are still locked in archaic walled gardens. If OPEN Sports Network makes good on their promise of open APIs, they may be able to differentiate themselves from other, established, sites.

While it’s hard to make a judgement on the product itself since it’s still in development, you have to admire the vision and have confidence in the founder.  So what is the significance of these announcements? 

1.  The barriers are lowered.
Sports blogs, forums, and startups who want a piece of the fantasy sports pie will now get a chance to.  There are a plethora of existing sports communities that have yet to empower their users with social networking tools and fantasy games.  These platforms will undoubtedly create a lot of new opportunities for sports entrepreneurs.

2.  Innovation will be catalyzed.
When barriers are lowered, innovation is driven.  Once developers get their hands wet with the APIs offered, we’re going to see a lot of new breed fantasy games, applications, and creative ways for sports fans to consume their content. 

3.  Fantasy sports growth and adoption will be accelerated.
With Yahoo’s incredible reach and the power of open source, fantasy sports will grow even faster than it already is - and it is growing pretty damn fast.  The globalization of fantasy sports will also be catalyzed and the world of sports will be flat sooner than we think. 

4.  Pressure on ESPN.
ESPN, the leader in sports media, let Yahoo sneak right in and capture the fantasy sports league market.  If they aren’t working on it already, the announcement of Yahoo’s platform and the Open Sports Network has got to put a bit of pressure on ESPN to come out with their own platform.  An ESPN platform could be the biggest thing to happen in sports, since fantasy sports.  No kidding.