Fantasy Football Stocks for the 2010 Season

BALTIMORE (Stockpickr) -- The 2010 National Football League regular season kicks off tomorrow night at 8:30 p.m. with a face-off between the Minnesota Vikings and the defending Super Bowl XLIV Champions, the New Orleans Saints. But this year, forget about fantasy football. With a handful of football-affiliated stocks, you could parlay the NFL's big money into big gains for your portfolio.

Here's a glimpse at four stocks primed to do just that.

While the connection between the NFL and investing might sound like a stretch, it's not. With an average team value of $960 million, the NFL is the most valuable sports league in American sports, and savvy investors have been looking for ways to profit from that for decades. From dubious stock predictors such as the Super Bowl Indicator, which predicts whether the market will have a bullish or bearish year based on which team wins the Super Bowl, to Ari Gold-esque attempts at investing in NFL teams, everyone's vying for a piece of the action.

Unfortunately for retail investors, it's not particularly easy to invest in an NFL team. With the exception of the Green Bay Packers, who have issued 4.8 million nontransferable shares since 1923 (the team is a non-profit, so shareholders have only voting rights -- no dividends or appreciation of shares), team ownership is predicated on billionaire status and league approval.

But there are lucrative NFL deals available to individual investors.

The most accessible path to football profits can be found by investing in some of the publicly traded companies that have already inked lucrative deals with the league. These four stocks could see their top-line numbers swell this season as football fever catches on.

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