Portis 26
Madden Freak
Just reading a fascinating article (Fantasy Football Pro Forecast from 2003) detailing the origins of fantasy football.
It suggests that it was created by a group of Oakland Raiders guys (the PR guy, a partner, a radio announcer, various other connected guys) on a 16-day East Coast road trip in 1962, culminating in a fateful rainy night at the Milford Plaza Hotel in New York City in 1962.
That was when the rules were established for the first fantasy league, with the commissioner being one Wilfred "Bill" Winkenbach.
It was named the Greater Oakland Professional Pigskin Prognosticators League or GOPPPL.
They drafted serpentine style. George Blanda was the first guy picked.
Their weekly starting lineup was two offensive ends, two halfbacks, a fullback, and a quarterback.
Their guide was Street and Smith's. Because they had no other means of finding out about players, one owner once drafted a dead guy.
Asked by a reporter in 1965 how he was able to be both commissioner and a team owner, Winkenbach replied "If I can't own a team, they can't hold the draft meeting at my home."
Winkenbach published weekly stats that arrived at every owner's door every Tuesday.
His address on his letterhead was "The Utmost Sporting House in Northern California".
They held a banquet every year for owners and wives. The worst team got a special dunce trophy.
His invention spread to the Kings X bar in San Francisco, the so-called home of fantasy football, and thence to the world.
Ron Wolf was one of the original members
The original founders bitterly resented not copyrighting it.
The GOPPPPL is still in business, though!
It suggests that it was created by a group of Oakland Raiders guys (the PR guy, a partner, a radio announcer, various other connected guys) on a 16-day East Coast road trip in 1962, culminating in a fateful rainy night at the Milford Plaza Hotel in New York City in 1962.
That was when the rules were established for the first fantasy league, with the commissioner being one Wilfred "Bill" Winkenbach.
It was named the Greater Oakland Professional Pigskin Prognosticators League or GOPPPL.
They drafted serpentine style. George Blanda was the first guy picked.
Their weekly starting lineup was two offensive ends, two halfbacks, a fullback, and a quarterback.
Their guide was Street and Smith's. Because they had no other means of finding out about players, one owner once drafted a dead guy.
Asked by a reporter in 1965 how he was able to be both commissioner and a team owner, Winkenbach replied "If I can't own a team, they can't hold the draft meeting at my home."
Winkenbach published weekly stats that arrived at every owner's door every Tuesday.
His address on his letterhead was "The Utmost Sporting House in Northern California".
They held a banquet every year for owners and wives. The worst team got a special dunce trophy.
His invention spread to the Kings X bar in San Francisco, the so-called home of fantasy football, and thence to the world.
Ron Wolf was one of the original members
The original founders bitterly resented not copyrighting it.
The GOPPPPL is still in business, though!
