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The Ridiculous History of Fantasy Sports, Part Two · Ridiculous History

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  Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: the show, fellow Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: much for tuning in. This is a mid game announcement.
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  Speaker 1: We are part way through a series on the inspiring
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: ridiculous history of fantasy sports.
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  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, why don't we just go ahead and join
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  Speaker 2: ourselves already in progress.
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  Speaker 1: So they embarked upon making their dream manifest, making their
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  Speaker 1: fantasy reality. They had a few ideas that didn't quite
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: take off, like a restaurant guide, a billing system based
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  Speaker 1: on Java architecture. Along the way, they added a new
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  Speaker 1: guide to the band, a guy named Matt fort Now,
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  Speaker 1: and they started saying, look, we can build websites for you.
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  Speaker 1: If you were someone who wants to have an online presence,
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  Speaker 1: come to us. They were originally thinking about fantasy baseball
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  Speaker 1: at all. It took a fantasy baseball player to contact them,
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  Speaker 1: and this guy said to them, could you build me
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  Speaker 1: a website that makes it easier for me to share
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  Speaker 1: stuff with my fellow fantasy football league? Can you help me?
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  Speaker 1: Can you help me present this information in a more
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  Speaker 1: approachable way? And don't worry, I don't need you. Guys
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  Speaker 1: to do the math. I have a system. I will
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  Speaker 1: calculate the results myself.
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  Speaker 2: Real quick, y'all. Is commissioner Is that like sort of
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  Speaker 2: the dungeon master of the whole the whole deal.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, they're They're the person who runs the league. So
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  Speaker 3: it's very much more of an administrative position than anything
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  Speaker 3: where it's just like you know, so like in our league,
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  Speaker 3: like I tell my buddy Ronnie, like you're you're in charge,
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  Speaker 3: but he kind of runs stuff a lot by a
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  Speaker 3: lot of us was to kind of do it. But look,
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  Speaker 3: you know, at the end of the day, because obviously
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  Speaker 3: the online stuff does all the calculations. Now you don't
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  Speaker 3: do that yourself, right, But.
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  Speaker 2: Well, yeah, and that's the whole deal. This is this
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  Speaker 2: product or this platform that they were working on was
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  Speaker 2: ultimately dubbed commissioner because it was a way of doing
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  Speaker 2: the work of that individual and making everybody a little
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  Speaker 2: more freed up to have fun with it.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, And that was the result of an ongoing evolution. Now,
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  Speaker 1: our guy we mentioned earlier, Bizarres, he had already had
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  Speaker 1: some experience. He played one year of fantasy football, and
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  Speaker 1: he went to the commissioner, the admin in charge of
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  Speaker 1: his league and said, hey, man, you know, just between us,
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  Speaker 1: how long do you spend setting everything up for us
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  Speaker 1: to play this game? And the commissioner takes a second,
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  Speaker 1: choose it over and says, I'm looking at it, about
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  Speaker 1: eight hours per week on this and then this is
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  Speaker 1: what leads to that evolution you're mentioning there. Bizaris and
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  Speaker 1: his buddy say, wait, what if we can do all
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  Speaker 1: that work for the commissioner. You can set up your
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  Speaker 1: own lineups instead of having to call this guy and
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  Speaker 1: waste eight hours of his week. We can calculate the stats,
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  Speaker 1: we can put the standings up there. We can do
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  Speaker 1: all of this online.
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  Speaker 2: And this would be a big deal. This would be
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  Speaker 2: an incredibly powerful tool to offer fantasy players. So at
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  Speaker 2: the time, there were already some fantasy stats services, but
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  Speaker 2: they were expensive because of how niche it was. They
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  Speaker 2: charged about three hundred bucks a season. The partners put
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  Speaker 2: their heads together inside it, they would also match that price,
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  Speaker 2: but they would give a lot more bang for those bucks.
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  Speaker 2: They would make it a much better service that was
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  Speaker 2: currently available, and it would be the first entirely online
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  Speaker 2: version of this.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's it's a fantastic idea. It's phenomenal.
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  Speaker 2: Well, it's the perfect example of being on the ground
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  Speaker 2: floor of something where you see a need and you
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  Speaker 2: recognize it because it's something that you're into and you
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  Speaker 2: know it would be something that you would like to have.
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  Speaker 2: It's just the perfect example of like a AHA moment
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  Speaker 2: in business.
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  Speaker 1: Right, it's a light bulb moment. However, asterisk, it's a
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  Speaker 1: great idea that they have not actually created just yet.
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  Speaker 2: No, no, this is cocktail napkin stuff for sure, chicken
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  Speaker 2: chicken wing napkin stuff.
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  Speaker 1: Right, everybody's two beers deep and the vibe is great.
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  Speaker 1: Will this carry through tomorrow?
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  Speaker 2: They have you said?
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  Speaker 3: You said chip chicken wing naptin. We have to discuss this.
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  Speaker 3: I'm sorry. The table, what sauce is on there? Or
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  Speaker 3: what sauce is there's probably multiple sauces.
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  Speaker 2: In New York City. It would probably be just like
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  Speaker 2: a good bustle buffalo wing. Yeah, yeah, probably buffalo.
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  Speaker 3: There would be like a spicy barbicue you as well,
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  Speaker 3: because or I hope, yeah, okay, it's mostly it's ficy
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  Speaker 3: hot sauce and it's like is it kind of like
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  Speaker 3: just like soaked in it, Like it's dried out afterwards.
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  Speaker 3: But it's the entire things that kind of reddish nap.
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  Speaker 2: I don't know what what What kind of wing did
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  Speaker 2: Cuba Gooding Junior force us to eat?
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  Speaker 1: Oh god, he was so specific about that. No, we'll
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  Speaker 1: keep it in. This is.
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  Speaker 2: For another day.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think we've talked about that on the show.
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  Speaker 1: They were talking about was very kind to us, quite
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  Speaker 1: kind of kindness, let's say, mercurial perhaps, but everybody goes
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  Speaker 1: through things. Uh, it was. I believe it was a
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  Speaker 1: wet barbecue.
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  Speaker 2: Actually, I think you're right. It was definitely. I want
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  Speaker 2: to say though it was a regular old buffalo, but
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  Speaker 2: it was wet for sure.
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  Speaker 1: It was.
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  Speaker 2: I can't I can't truly speak with authority there, but
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  Speaker 2: I remember it being a wet wing. It had a
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  Speaker 2: kick to it, Yeah, did right, little kick, so as
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  Speaker 2: did Kuba. Cuba was kicked up a couple of notches himself.
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  Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, I remember it being a wet wing. That
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  Speaker 3: is the tagline for the episodes.
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  Speaker 1: Waitne yes, So these guys are having a great time
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  Speaker 1: with their chicken wigs. God, we're gonna close the lunch
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  Speaker 1: and they said, Okay, the baseball season's coming up. Let's
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  Speaker 1: assume we have a few months to prepare. But then
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  Speaker 1: two days later, after they have this light bulb moment,
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  Speaker 1: this epiphany, they say, holy crap, guys, did you know
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  Speaker 1: that we can buy ad space in the back page
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  Speaker 1: of the largest fantasy magazine, fantasy sports magazine itself. And
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  Speaker 1: this is to that earlier comparison about getting in on
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  Speaker 1: the ground floor. This would be like if our fearless
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  Speaker 1: leader Conall Brn had a meeting with us about maybe
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  Speaker 1: starting podcast and then went to the New York Times
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  Speaker 1: the next Thursday and took out a full page ad
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  Speaker 1: same podcast We're happening.
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  Speaker 2: Mm hmm, yeah, spoke called putting the car before the horse.
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  Speaker 1: For sure, they had they had the idea, they were
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  Speaker 1: doing the legwork. They saw, as you said, the market opportunity.
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  Speaker 1: But they had not written a single line of code.
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  Speaker 1: They were just so committed. They had such faith in
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  Speaker 1: their idea that they went ahead and pulled the advertisement.
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  Speaker 2: Well, this is classic fake it till you make it
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  Speaker 2: type stuff. So they indeed had twenty four hours to
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  Speaker 2: submit the thing. They had not made a company name yet,
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  Speaker 2: they had no artwork, all that good stuff. They designed
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  Speaker 2: the ad saying that they would update the stats daily,
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  Speaker 2: they would extend American Express, Visa and MasterCard, and they
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  Speaker 2: also promised a whole bunch of other bells and whistles
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  Speaker 2: that they had no implementation of whatsoever.
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  Speaker 1: Right, I love improv man. They were just yes through
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  Speaker 1: the whole thing. If you had dropped by that meeting
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  Speaker 1: when they were having their frantic brain trust to make
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  Speaker 1: this ad, you could have said almost anything and they
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  Speaker 1: probably would have been like, yeah, put it in. That's
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  Speaker 1: a great point. Anyway, they do succeed. They launched commissioner
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  Speaker 1: dot com right around New Year's Eve. The ball drops
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  Speaker 1: in Times Square ringing in nineteen ninety seven, just one
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  Speaker 1: hectic month. This is the moment in our film adaptation
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  Speaker 1: where we get the montage right. This is where we
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  Speaker 1: see just snippets of their frenetic process. Bizarre Is still
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  Speaker 1: has a day job. He's working at Banker's Trust, and
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  Speaker 1: per his own later reports, he say that during this
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  Speaker 1: month he slept it best in average of an.
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  Speaker 2: Hour a night.
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  Speaker 1: I don't know, I don't know.
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  Speaker 2: If that's physically possible. Yeah, it seems like a bit
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  Speaker 2: of lore, a little bit of myth making. But I
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  Speaker 2: think it's safe to say that in order to get
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  Speaker 2: something like this off the ground and the ridiculously tight
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  Speaker 2: timeline that they set for themselves, sleep would certainly be secondary.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, agreed, right, priorities, and he has responded to this.
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  Speaker 1: Bizarres later said, this sounds like hyperbole, but it isn't.
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  Speaker 1: I worked all day every day, about twenty three hours.
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  Speaker 1: Once we launched, I gave myself three hours of sleep
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  Speaker 1: a night because we had to get ready for the
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  Speaker 1: baseball season.
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  Speaker 2: I think sure that could work. In the article, Scheckter
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  Speaker 2: talks about a moment when Bizarres took a twenty minute
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  Speaker 2: nap in a bathroom stall. This does not necessarily bode
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  Speaker 2: well in terms of the efficacy of these micronap Let's
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  Speaker 2: just say only to notice that he had rested his
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  Speaker 2: head against the toilet paper dispenser because his forehead now
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  Speaker 2: read if role is empty slide cover to write one
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  Speaker 2: of the molded plastic jobs, right.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, And that happens at his day job at Banker's Trust.
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  Speaker 1: By this point, the fantasy football idea that they're working
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  Speaker 1: on has started to turn a profit. Not a big profit,
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  Speaker 1: but it started to make a little money. And this
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  Speaker 1: inspires Bizarres and co. He is confident that he can
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  Speaker 1: leave his job at Banker's Trust and focus all of
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  Speaker 1: his energy on commissioner dot com. He's the software developer.
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  Speaker 2: Every time I hear commissioner, I just think Commissioner Gordon
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  Speaker 2: right inescapable. So back to that piece, Bizarres was the
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  Speaker 2: software developer, while Gersh was the business guy. He handled
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  Speaker 2: vendors and all of the marketing efforts. They had an
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  Speaker 2: office in a building that was not up to spec,
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  Speaker 2: say the The writer says that it should have been condemned.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, and this is the kind of warst story that
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  Speaker 1: you'll hear later in tales of Silicon Valley startups.
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  Speaker 2: Classic startup lore.
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  Speaker 1: Of course, no heat, no hot water. We're sleeping next
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  Speaker 1: to our computers to stay warm, peeing in jugs. Mice
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  Speaker 1: are there, you know what I mean. We're probably we're
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  Speaker 1: probably splitting a pizza as a celebration this first baseball.
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  Speaker 1: Lots of lots of robin noodles, maybe nag if you're fancy.
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  Speaker 1: By the way, keynote, just a little pro tip for
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  Speaker 1: our fellow Ramin fans. A dash of sesame oil not
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  Speaker 1: too much.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, and the egg, no question, crack it right, in there.
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  Speaker 1: I think we're accidentally played here, we're doing it again,
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  Speaker 1: because we clearly had a very heavy, heavily reliant Romen
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  Speaker 1: based period of our own lives.
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  Speaker 2: Well, so it's that up against lunch situation that you mentioned.
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  Speaker 1: Oh gosh, yeah, rotisserie Romin chichicken wings. Okay, so you're
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  Speaker 1: absolutely right, their first time out, their first time around
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  Speaker 1: the block. This initial baseball season, they snagged two hundred
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  Speaker 1: paid customers, each paying three hundred dollars, as you mentioned,
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  Speaker 1: per season, and then they had separately one hundred subscribers
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  Speaker 1: for football at the same price.
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  Speaker 2: Interesting, Okay, so at this point it was secondary football.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, at this point it was at this point there
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  Speaker 1: were more baseball customers for Commissioner dot com.
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  Speaker 2: So they were still kind of testing the waters to
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  Speaker 2: see what was going to be their most popular offering.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, and they met with results. The next baseball season,
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  Speaker 1: they have eight hundred separate leagues. That's enormous growth, and
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  Speaker 1: part of that is because these guys were so nimble
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  Speaker 1: and so responsive. Anytime a customer came to them with
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  Speaker 1: the request that was not absolute wing nuts stuff, they
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  Speaker 1: made it happen. They made it so shout out to Picard.
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  Speaker 2: Indeed this Max approves.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's for you, Max. So this puts them streets
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  Speaker 1: ahead of other people in the space like ESPN and
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  Speaker 1: sports Line. At this time, they're trying to do their
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  Speaker 1: own kind of fantasy thing and they only have one
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  Speaker 1: set of rules that people can play. So because these
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  Speaker 1: guys are so adaptable, with Commissioner dot Com, they're able
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  Speaker 1: to relocate to a newer office that's not quite as terrible.
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  Speaker 1: It's not great, it's just their fewer mice.
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  Speaker 2: And this was just the beginning. I mean, it's nineteen
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  Speaker 2: ninety eight. Commissioner not Gordon, and CBS would eventually partner
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  Speaker 2: up to create CBS sports Line Commissioner dot com in
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  Speaker 2: all caps. As Max points out, this is early dot
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  Speaker 2: com days. So in its very first year, the fee
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  Speaker 2: was dropped from three hundred bucks to only one hundred
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  Speaker 2: because ad revenue was supplementing that. So they were able
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  Speaker 2: to decrease the subscription fee, which of course was a
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  Speaker 2: value add and helped up their numbers, but the ad
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  Speaker 2: revenue ended up being way more than they bargained for
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  Speaker 2: in like a really good way.
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  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, man, this is the kind of story that
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  Speaker 1: becomes folklore. If you've ever started your own business, you
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  Speaker 1: know how difficult it is to succeed in the first place, right,
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  Speaker 1: you know how unimaginably amazing it is to meet this
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  Speaker 1: level of success. So soon, this fee approach that they
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  Speaker 1: have is really speaking to the market. They have ten
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  Speaker 1: thousand football leagues. Very soon after it becomes the dominant
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  Speaker 1: business for cbssportsline dot com. One month they got a
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  Speaker 1: check for five hundred thousand dollars, and this clock's to
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  Speaker 1: the big guys, the fatcats, and the established sports industry.
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  Speaker 1: Sports Line comes to them and says, we want to
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  Speaker 1: buy you out.
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  Speaker 2: If you can't beat them, buy them. On December seventh,
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  Speaker 2: nineteen ninety nine, Cbssportsline dot Com Boughtcommissioner dot Com for
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  Speaker 2: forty six million dollars. And it was a massive sea
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  Speaker 2: change in the lives of our heroes.
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  Speaker 1: And shout out to Bizarres, who later says, when I
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  Speaker 1: checked my bank ballot that day, I half expected to
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  Speaker 1: see twelve dollars or whatever in my checking account, but
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  Speaker 1: there were a lot of zeros. It was the most surreal.
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  Speaker 2: Thing, big moment. So with Commissioner dot com launching the
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  Speaker 2: first modern ish fantasy platform. Sorry I'm screaming the commons
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  Speaker 2: in all caps is still test to me.
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  Speaker 1: It's on purpose all caps, it is, yeah, but it
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  Speaker 1: just makes you feel like you're supposed to yell at.
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  Speaker 2: The fantasy industry was off to a great start, and
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: it began to exponentially increase in popularity, as Keithan Baboo
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: writes for The Miami Student, who stays they are the
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: oldest college newspaper west of the Alleghanies. I love anything
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: that claims to be something the best of something west
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: of the Alleghanies. This is very fun. Flex is my
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: points out.
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: I love those big claims for the Mason Dixon Line.
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: As long as they have a caveat, It's always the
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: caveat for me.
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: Dude.
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: It's like I am the world champion bingo player in
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: the southeastern North Ohio Cincinnati.
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: Area, the largest hot dog sculpture in the Chicago Land area.
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: Exactly right, especially when it's really specific geography, like this
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: is the world's fourth largest frying pad in this part
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: of Missouri.
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: Largest Adirondack chair in the Rockies. Exactly Also, I'm a
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: big fan of the Tri State area. Anything that refers
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: to the Tri State area.
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  Speaker 1: Oh, I love it. I'm a sucker for that, man.
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: That's why I love to take road trips, avoiding interstates.
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: That's where you see a lot of.
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: The cool stuff. That's what you should all do, all
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: those fun roadside attractions. See rock City if you can.
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, oh man, rock City. So anyway, as Babu was reporting,
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: fantasy sports has a culture that you can trace throughout
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: the late twentieth century, but it isn't until the advent
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: of the Internet that it becomes wide scale popular. If
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  Speaker 1: you look at our friends from a fixa from Fantasy
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: Sports and Gaming Association, you'll see that from nineteen ninety
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  Speaker 1: one to nineteen ninety four, something between one and three
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  Speaker 1: million people somehow participated in fantasy sports, but by two
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: thousand and three that number had more than trebled. The
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  Speaker 1: figure rose to fifteen point two million people, and.
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  Speaker 2: As recently as twenty twenty two, the number has ballooned
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  Speaker 2: to more than the sixty two million people sixty two
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  Speaker 2: point five to be I don't know.
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  Speaker 1: Man, we might need to hop on the train here,
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: because otherwise what happens when we're some of the last
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  Speaker 1: people who are not actively playing these games.
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  Speaker 2: It's not for me, but I do because I just
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  Speaker 2: don't have the I just don't have the knowledge to
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  Speaker 2: really enjoy it. And I've just never been a sports guy.
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  Speaker 2: I do, like you said, been enjoy the electric energy
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  Speaker 2: at like live sporting events, and I really do appreciate
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  Speaker 2: the folks that drill down into this kind of stuff.
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  Speaker 2: But for me, I'm more into stats around like video games,
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: you know, like leveling up characters and doing character builds
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  Speaker 2: and all of that, and also like music trivia and
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  Speaker 2: movie trivia, So I do use similar parts of my brain,
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  Speaker 2: do I think the parts of the brain that are
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  Speaker 2: used in this kind of stuff. But it's just not
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  Speaker 2: for me. But I really dig the history of it,
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: the bootstrappiness of it, all the scrappiness of this company,
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  Speaker 2: and you know, love people with passion about anything.
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: Did I tell you, because I think I've mentioned this
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: off air a little bit earlier, But I won a
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: World Cup fantasy football league no way, Yeah, totally by
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: accident too, because like you, I am, by no means
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: a stat wizard in the world of sports. But when
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: Argentina took the Cup recently, I accidentally made some enemies
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: in this league that they invited me to because everybody
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: knew that I was just guessing and woefully uninformed. So
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: shout out to that.
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: That is really interesting that you point that out, because
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: we're going to get to a question that we sort
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: of raised at the top, where does this intersect with gambling?
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: And a big difference or differentiator in this from the
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: perspective of the fantasy sports industry is that this is
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: entirely considered to be a game of skill. Yes, yeah,
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: absolutely arguably though right because you can certainly still be
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: successful at it wildly, so to your point, Ben, just
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: by rolling the dice.
• 19:32
  Speaker 3: And to be and to jump in real quick. So
• 19:34
  Speaker 3: nol they actually for many many years has changed now.
• 19:38
  Speaker 3: But like the thing that stuff like FanDuel and DraftKings
• 19:42
  Speaker 3: were using was a special exemption in the law that
• 19:45
  Speaker 3: deemed that fantasy sports were not gambling. So for example,
• 19:48
  Speaker 3: my fantasy football league, we have like two hundred fifty
• 19:50
  Speaker 3: dollars problem and it's pretty big for a fantasy league. Yeah,
• 19:53
  Speaker 3: but it's seventeen weeks plus like the three weeks beforehand
• 19:56
  Speaker 3: and whatnot.
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: So it's like you do get paid you buy it's
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: so it is still kind of gam I mean.
• 20:03
  Speaker 3: Game, but it's considered a game of skill because it's
• 20:05
  Speaker 3: a lot of it's not lucky because it's just like
• 20:07
  Speaker 3: really hard to win, like especially a highly competitive league
• 20:09
  Speaker 3: without that. But it's also the buy in. Reason why
• 20:12
  Speaker 3: you do it buy in the league is a like
• 20:13
  Speaker 3: we don't we joke like it's nice to get the money.
• 20:17
  Speaker 3: I bought a new monitor and stuff like that with
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: the winnings last year. But the reason why you do
• 20:20
  Speaker 3: it buy in most leagues is because if you do
• 20:22
  Speaker 3: for free, people just stop playing.
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: It's a barrier to entry.
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: You don't want like any any old jabroni off the
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: street to jack up your league.
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: And they give up four weeks in, right. That's because
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: really this is a social activity between friends, you know, and.
• 20:38
  Speaker 3: Nothing's worse than like you play a team in a
• 20:40
  Speaker 3: league that's like really good in week one and they
• 20:42
  Speaker 3: smoke you, and then they stop playing in week four
• 20:44
  Speaker 3: and then everyone else beats up on them. Well I
• 20:46
  Speaker 3: had to play them in week one and they they
• 20:49
  Speaker 3: and then they quit afterwards.
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: Quick question, are there ways if you don't have a
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: group of friends, Are there like open public leagues that
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: you can be a part of the probably quite large? Yeah, Okay,
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: got it.
• 21:01
  Speaker 3: Well, the standard league size viusually around like ten or twelve.
• 21:04
  Speaker 3: In football, there's just there's just not there's just not
• 21:06
  Speaker 3: that many players.
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: So there's matchmaking basically, is what I'm saying. Exact way, it's.
• 21:10
  Speaker 3: Match making exactly.
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: No.
• 21:12
  Speaker 3: Then one last thing, I want to just drop on
• 21:14
  Speaker 3: this because you hit it on this perfectly. It's like
• 21:16
  Speaker 3: fantasy is sports is way more in nerdom than people
• 21:20
  Speaker 3: want to admit that it is. It's a pretty nerdy thing.
• 21:23
  Speaker 3: I would say, that's find of way. I think I've
• 21:24
  Speaker 3: always gravitated towards it because I am a nerdy person.
• 21:27
  Speaker 3: I love stats and stuff like that. And you said
• 21:29
  Speaker 3: matchmaking right there, I'm like, yeah, it's it's it's it's
• 21:32
  Speaker 3: just like that Madden is like the nerdiest game of
• 21:34
  Speaker 3: all times.
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: All of my parallels are video game and like nerdy
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: board game related. And it's a really good point, Max.
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: It does seem like there's a lot more intersections between
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: those communities than your average you know, roughneck sports fan
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: might admit, right, it's.
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: Numbers versus numbers. Really it's quantitative analysis, and this is
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: this is where we see again. I love that point, Max.
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: This is where we see something that gives lie to
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: the stereotype of maybe sports fans being meat heeadsh or dunderheads.
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: Next right, these guys are in the world of sport
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: them Overall, these fantasy sports players are often seen as niche,
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: nerdy people, and this starts to change in more recent decades.
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: In two thousand and six, a guy named Matthew Berry
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: starts two shows on ESPN, Fantasy Insider and Fantasy Football.
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: Now these give people fantasy football analytics every Sunday morning,
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: and this normalizes fantasy league pursuits. It also shows that
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: there's a demand for televised fantasy content. It makes me
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: think of so to continue the video game comparison, Remember
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: when e sports became a big thing. It was because
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: they were televised and they were streams, and it became
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: normalized to be For.
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: The longest time, I thought esports had to be sports
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: based video games, but esports refers to the entire genre
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: of competitive gaming, whatever the type of game might be.
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: Exactly right, like watching people, I love watching games like
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: Mortal Kombat or All StarCraft Smash Pros Smash Pros, and
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: I love hearing the excited announcers who are like, oh,
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: that's a block. Oh he's doing a puttish.
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: Well, if you're ever in Atlanta, and I'm sure there
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: are other versions of this that are very similar. Momo
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: Con is as one of my favorite nerddom fandom conferences
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: around here, and it incorporates esports in a very big way.
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: It's a huge part of what it's about. And you
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: can spectate and it is that had never done that
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: before and I was fascinated. So it is its own
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: type of sport.
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: Absolutely, yeah, I think we're all we're all big fans
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: of this, even if we're not experts in the respective fields. Now,
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: we wanted to end our series with one of the
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: big questions, and we teased at the top and kind
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: of throughout this gambling all right, So recent years, folks
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: were recording this in twenty twenty five. Recent years, changes
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: in US federal and state laws have kind of opened
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: up sports gambling. They've paved the way for sports gambling.
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: One of the most notable examples of this is something
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: called daily Fantasy.
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: Which is funny because it's using that fantasy term. I
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: don't know, some of this stuff feels a little predatory
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: to me.
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: I agree, I agree we've had because it's a bit
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: bit of like a that intersection, it can be dangerous
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: for some people.
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: And you could argue, some could that if people have
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: that gambling bug or that you know, that addictive gene,
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: fantasy sports could very well be a gateway drug into
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: the kind of online gambling that can wreck people. And
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: I think with some of these recent changes in the
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: law that's more true now than ever.
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because we're talking about look to Max's point about
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: the length of time commitment for a lot of fantasy leagues,
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: things like daily fantasy are arguably hacking people's neurochemical processes
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: because now you've got instant gratification, you've got that instant
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: opportunity for dopamine. Instead of playing a season long term
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: or committing to seventeen weeks, you can draft a team
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: for a week or just a day, or just make
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: something and make a prediction on a single game and
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: you can win money. So how is that not gambling?
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: It's a philosophical question, isn't it. That's a certain point,
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: But also it is, you know it is.
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: I mean, that's the thing, right, We're being so diplomatic here.
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: Sports betting is not a there are definitely legal ways
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: to do it, and there are gray market ways to
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: do it. But sports betting in this daily fantasy kind
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: of perspective, it's not the same thing as the season
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: long fantasy leagues. They're very different. Some experts have said
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: they believe people are doing daily fantasy because they couldn't
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: quite yet legally gamble. All right, is fantasy sport?
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: Uh?
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: Is it gambling? Is it a game of skill? Shout
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: out to everybody who checked checked in on our ongoing
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: conversation about gambling in shady gas stations on stuff they
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: don't want you to know.
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: So is it gambling? Is it sport?
• 26:43
  Speaker 3: The answer is yes, it's both. But it's like it's
• 26:47
  Speaker 3: you know, it's it's a minutia. It's like, you know,
• 26:49
  Speaker 3: in like what proportion of it? And I mean, I'm
• 26:52
  Speaker 3: not a daily fantasy player. I'm not a fan of
• 26:54
  Speaker 3: it is too much of the gambling spectrum. I like
• 26:56
  Speaker 3: the skill. I like building my team out for the
• 26:59
  Speaker 3: years long. But I will make an argument for daily
• 27:01
  Speaker 3: sports right here, which is my very very very dear
• 27:04
  Speaker 3: friend Kevin Cool, who I don't think you guys have
• 27:06
  Speaker 3: met him, but you guys have heard me talk about
• 27:08
  Speaker 3: He's my friend I just saw on in Portland for
• 27:09
  Speaker 3: a while. Him and I worked together for a number
• 27:13
  Speaker 3: for about a year in a bar in Atlanta on
• 27:15
  Speaker 3: we'd work Wednesday nights together and Wednesdays were so stupid
• 27:18
  Speaker 3: slow and the NBA slate like always sucked, and so
• 27:22
  Speaker 3: we had to find a way to get through it,
• 27:23
  Speaker 3: and so we played a lot of daily fantasy about
• 27:26
  Speaker 3: like you know, it was like the Utah Jazz versus
• 27:28
  Speaker 3: the Minnesota timber Wolves. Do we care about either of
• 27:30
  Speaker 3: those teams? No, no one does. Okay, there are some
• 27:33
  Speaker 3: people out there here are fans of these teams, but no,
• 27:35
  Speaker 3: there's no one does. Portland Trailblazers might be a better example,
• 27:38
  Speaker 3: and he's from Portland, so he can say that now.
• 27:40
  Speaker 3: But it was something to make this game interesting and
• 27:43
  Speaker 3: it was fun, and it's a way I became much
• 27:45
  Speaker 3: closer friends with this guy. That's kind of what fantasy is.
• 27:48
  Speaker 3: It's a lot of times about finding a community a
• 27:50
  Speaker 3: friendship at people with similar interests. It's same as nerding
• 27:53
  Speaker 3: nerding on gaming and talking about Star Trek and Chicken Wings.
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: Yes, podcasts podcast right, Oh, I can't believe we're still
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: doing this low these many years, managers do have to
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: not just roll the dice. Right, The story that I
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: shared about the World Cup is very much a cartoonish outlier.
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: Everybody else who has playing this stuff is doing deep research,
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: not just facts and statistics, but game theory, a little
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: bit of psychological analysis or as you said, little tea
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: leaf reading.
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: And that's the thing though about this philosophical quandary around gambling,
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: because there are a lot of gambling games that there
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: are people that are better at it than others. Surely,
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: I mean, poker involves some chance, but it also involves
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: reading the room, reading people's tells, like so many little minute,
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: you know, micro gestures and things that go into being
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: a good poker player, not to mention, like adherence to
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: certain patterns and having certain types of strategy or whatever. Right, Like,
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: it's not all chance, but it's also not all skill.
• 29:06
  Speaker 3: Yeah, And they jump in here to talk about like
• 29:08
  Speaker 3: that dopamine rushia you were talking about as well, which
• 29:10
  Speaker 3: is like taking I one of my biggest I consider
• 29:14
  Speaker 3: myself blessed that I don't have that itch. Gambling doesn't
• 29:16
  Speaker 3: scratch thatn inche for me, And but I have a
• 29:19
  Speaker 3: lot of people in my life who do have that itch,
• 29:20
  Speaker 3: and I've seen them, and a lot of them. I
• 29:23
  Speaker 3: know a lot of people who don't gamble for that reason,
• 29:25
  Speaker 3: and I know a lot of people who are in
• 29:26
  Speaker 3: a lot of physics have caused a lot of physical
• 29:28
  Speaker 3: harm to themselves and the people around them because of
• 29:30
  Speaker 3: that itch. And that The thing about it is when
• 29:34
  Speaker 3: you're playing in a fantasy league, there are people who
• 29:36
  Speaker 3: play fantasy who do have that itch. And you'll hear
• 29:38
  Speaker 3: like you'll I've been in the leagues before where it's
• 29:40
  Speaker 3: like five hundred dollars buy in and like monthly things,
• 29:44
  Speaker 3: and then like they're talking after the season, we should
• 29:46
  Speaker 3: over like a thousand now, and it's like, well, okay, maybe,
• 29:48
  Speaker 3: and they're talking about like the prize winnings and stuff.
• 29:51
  Speaker 3: But the truth is you're playing in like a standard league.
• 29:53
  Speaker 3: The return is so long and it takes so little
• 29:57
  Speaker 3: relative that it just doesn't really appeal to people.
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: That makes sense.
• 30:00
  Speaker 3: But like twenty dollars, there's like twelve hundred dollars lineups
• 30:04
  Speaker 3: you can play and like DraftKings execondly, I think you
• 30:06
  Speaker 3: play DraftKings Atlanta right now.
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: But yep, no big pass. But let's also not forget that,
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: you know, there's certain arguments to be made that playing
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: the stock market in a certain way is absolutely gambling.
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: And it all depends on your strategy and your long
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: game and how you know whether you're a day trader,
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: whether you're trying to like do mean stocks and all
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: of that kind of thing. I mean, people lose their
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: shirt on the stock market all the time, and it
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: can scratch that itch in the same way.
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: What's your loss tolerance, what's your risk a version? We
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: do want to shout out to study from the Massachusetts
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: Institute of Technology back in twenty eighteen. They looked at
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: the win loss records of thousands of fantasy players over
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: multiple seasons, and they concluded, based on the math, that
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: the game of fantasy football is inherently a contest that
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: rewards skill. If you're looking at these United States, you'll
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: see that the definition or differentiation between a game of
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: skill or a game of chance has gone down to
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: the state level. So in forty five states right now,
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: more or less the determination between gambling and a game
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: of skill is whether there is, as we said, more
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: skill than luck in a contest. The waters have been
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: pretty muddied with things like Draft Kings and fan Duel
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: and full disclosure folks on several shows in the past.
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: I believe we have done ads for at least DraftKings,
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: if not Fan Duel.
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I do remember doing Draft Kings, and every time
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: you run one of those, every time you hear them,
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: you're gonna hear that fine print about God of gambling
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: to the addiction, you know, call this hotline. So there's
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: parts of the law that do require that sort of disclosure.
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: I will go on record again apologizing to all my
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: friends in the real world old who heard those trojan
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: ads I had to do. That was that was awkward
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: for a lot of people. But you know, protection is important. Okay,
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: So we've already talked about the appeal of playing fantasy sports.
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: We've talked about the history, which is both inspiring and
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: arguably ridiculous. We wanted to end by noting that there
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: are other fantasy sports than golf and baseball and foot curling.
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: Max said us, what about curly? What else we got?
• 32:35
  Speaker 3: It's like it's a compiler. I don't know if you
• 32:37
  Speaker 3: actually join curling leagues there, but there is a list
• 32:39
  Speaker 3: of curling leagues out there.
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: You got to be the change. Right, We'll start our
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: own curly league. We've got NASCAR and f one. We've
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: got oh, like we said, e sports, there's a League
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: of Legends, fantasy league, a Fantasy League of Legends league.
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: It's a fantasy game and a fantasy league. Got PGA Tour,
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: which makes sense. Max admits to have had his time
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: in the past playing fantasy golf and request that we
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: insert a joke about how the PGA is a flock
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: of cowards who are now in bed with the Saudi theocracy.
• 33:11
  Speaker 3: Haven't research that in a very long time, but.
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: That one there they.
• 33:17
  Speaker 3: Separated from Live Golf, which Lived Golf Saudi, then they
• 33:20
  Speaker 3: remerged back in.
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: We do check out our episode on sports swashing on
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: stuff they don't want.
• 33:25
  Speaker 3: You to do, and that seems like much more in
• 33:27
  Speaker 3: y'all spectrum than it is in mine on for sure.
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: Check that one out, and do also check out the
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: episode I think been mentioned that at one point earlier
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: about weird sketchy stuff that goes on at gas stations,
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: because we do talk about in Georgia in particular, that
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: line between what makes a machine a gambling machine or
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: a skill based machine.
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: Ed also if you're listening and you are not part
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: of this crazy thing we call the United States. You're
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: already well aware that cricket is much more popular globally
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: than baseball, so it should come as to a surprise
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: that there are fantasy leagues for cricket. There are also
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: fantasy leagues for rugby, and as we learned right as
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: we were going into this episode, there are also some
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: fantasy leagues for sumo wrestling.
• 34:13
  Speaker 2: Amazing. Yeah, I really I'm excited for you and your
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: sumo adventures to come. Ben.
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: We'll see, man, I can't wait. I say this every
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: time these things come up, but I can't wait for
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: the three of us to get on a road trip
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: together and take a ridiculous history abroad. One day. Soon
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: we got a dream big, just like those guys at
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: that bar who said they were going to start a
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: fantasy league.
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they did a good job, they did, agree.
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: And speaking of great jobs, big thanks to our super producer,
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: mister Max Williams, our research associate for this series, Max Williams,
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: as well as Alex Williams, who composed this bang in track.
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: That's right. Thanks to Christopher Hasiotis and need Jeff codes
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: here and Spara, Jonathan Stricklin, The Quiztor, Aj Bahamas, Jacobs,
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: The Pustling.
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: And I think that's our show. Oh my gosh, I'm
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: so excited for lunch Man.
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: We'll see you next time, folks. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: to your favorite shows.