jdoggydogg
Footballguy
This is a column by San Francisco Chronicle NFL writer Nancy Gay. The bolded part includes research on the first fantasy foootball league:
Fantasy lives becoming more real than ever
Nancy Gay
Sunday, August 20, 2006
The back room at the Dutch Goose bar in Menlo Park started getting filled by 5 p.m. Thursday, an hour before the 27th annual Extravaganza Football League fantasy draft was set to begin. The 20-foot-wide draft board, with large-print names of the eight protected players for each franchise in this 18-team "keeper league" was being carefully assembled.
Someone had the foresight to ensure there was a cold pitcher of beer at each table.
Two expansion clubs joined the fray for 2006. Longtime team owners, many of them father-son combos, along with a returning owner and a newcomer, paid their $350 entry fee. Several of the boys -- and we use the term loosely -- came cross-country for the draft.
Guys such as Jim Alessandri, 50, co-owner of the Connecticut Jammers, co-founder of the EFL and an executive with Bank of America, came from New York.
His son Jason Alessandri, 24, a law student at American University and owner of a team in Washington, D.C., caught a plane from the nation's capital.
Jason broke ranks from the old man a few years ago to run his own franchise. "It was time to go it alone," he says. The family, however, remains intact.
At stake: in excess of $1,500 in winnings for various playoff titles, individual player awards and bonuses. Plus, the sweet justice of knowing your guy out-rushed Clinton Portis this week.
This is fantasy-football time, folks. If your draft hasn't already happened, it will soon. Don't be ashamed to admit it: You're in a league. Next week, you'll be at your cubicle at work and you surreptitiously will click on a fantasy page online, check preseason stats and pray that Sinorice Moss is your ticket to riches.
The Fantasy Sports Trade Association says at least 15 million to 18 million Americans play fantasy sports, with football comprising about 85 percent of the participation online.
It's a multimillion dollar business. Yahoo, CBS, Sporting News, Fox and Disney/ESPN all are cashing in, hosting massive fantasy sites, some of them premium subscriber services, to keep the devotees apprised of every groin pull or depth-chart change.
And we wonder why the NFL has secured about $25 billion in multimedia contracts? Fantasy leagues no longer are the domain of dorks and geeks, but an engine that helps drive the NFL's financial success.
A perusal of the magazine rack at a Borders bookstore showed 13 publications devoted solely to fantasy-football stats and minutiae. This week, Sports Illustrated announced it's diving into the fantasy mosh pit, dedicating a special edition aimed mostly at the age 18-35 demographic that is obsessed with stats and lineups.
Is that really an accurate picture of who plays fantasy football?
Marketing research indicates the average player is an advertiser's dream: mostly high-income married men who are Internet savvy and -- sweet mother of capitalism -- make purchases online.
The boys from the EFL, for example, are textbook examples. Most are in their early 50s. They're highly successful. They've known each other for decades, watched their kids grow up, their parents pass on. Some now live several times zones away, but the EFL'ers migrate back to Menlo Park every year for draft day.
They concede that on NFL game days, they have no life.
EFL Commissioner Lyle "Z" Frohman, 45, a general contractor from San Jose who runs the group's detailed Web site and settles disputes along with a board of directors, no longer participates.
"I ran a team for two years and I couldn't handle the stress," Frohman says. "It almost ruined Sundays for me."
John Pagano, 55, a retired Alameda County employee from Hayward, was an EFL owner/general manager for years, then took a three-year break to escape the strain.
When the group came together last year for the funeral of a member's father, Pagano got the bug again. He paid for an expansion franchise. Was it heartbreaking to leave? "Not really. I was losing a lot of money, actually," Pagano concedes.
#### Unsinn, 54, of Burlingame, works for Anheuser-Busch and is often seen at 49ers games keeping the Bud Girls in line. His team, the Burlingame 49ers, has not won the huge EFL trophy, with its two-tier walnut base, full-size bronze football on top and engraved plaques of league champs encircling the perimeter.
"Years ago, before all this stuff was on the Internet, you almost forgot who you had on your team every year," says Unsinn, armed with a 6-inch-thick binder filled with stats. "Now that all this information is available, you really have no excuse if you screw up."
Across America, there are guys who credit themselves with inventing fantasy football. Extensive Chronicle research years ago conducted by former columnist Glenn Dickey revealed the true origin of the fantasy concept -- the Greater Oakland Professional Pigskin Prognosticators League -- took place during a rainy night in a Manhattan hotel room in 1962, the brainchild of Raiders limited partner Bill Winkenbach, Oakland Tribune beat writer Scotty Stirling and Raiders public-relations man Bill Tunnell.
The fellas were on an extended American Football League road swing back east and well, needed something to do besides drink.
The GOPPPL draft, usually conducted in someone's basement in the early days, was pretty simple then: Teams selected four receivers, four halfbacks, two fullbacks, two quarterbacks, two kick returners, two placekickers, two defensive backs or linebackers and two defensive linemen.
Another early team owner, Andy Mousalimas, opened the Kings X sports bar in Oakland in 1968 and the draft moved there. Sadly, the mighty Kings X -- where you could play dice for hours -- is now a tiki bar. The GOPPPL, improbably, survives.
In Menlo Park, so does the EFL, which has moved its draft since its inception in 1979, from the Oasis back to the Dutch Goose. Everybody seems to like the stuffed eggs at the Goose.
In 1962, the GOPPPL made quarterback George Blanda its No. 1 draft pick.
In 2006, the EFL selected running back Reggie Bush No. 1.
"Damn! I wanted him!" someone hollers when Bush's name is chosen.
Any day now, Oprah will devote an entire show to the impact of fantasy football on the fabric of America. That figures to be the only football program the boys of the EFL won't watch, unless someone puts a few pitchers of Lagunitas ale on the coffee table.
