August 9th, 2009

Footballguys.com Duo to Hit the Air to Fight Cystic Fibrosis

Sunday, August 9th, 2009

If you were to start with ESPN’s NFL Countdown on Sunday and watch to the end of the final game, you’d probably hit about 12 hours of football in a day. Now imagine talking fantasy throughout that span.

The Audible’s Cecil Lammey and Sigmund Bloom will hit the air on BlogTalkRadio’s The Fantasy Sports Channel on Aug. 29 for just that length of time to raise money and awareness for cystic fibrosis.

The Footballguys.com duo will hit the air at noon Eastern that Saturday and go straight through until midnight with just 30-minute breaks every three hours. (For each of those intermissions, Andrew Garda of The Thundering Blurb will step in.)

The event is designed to draw attention to the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, and listeners will be able to make donations throughout the broadcast.

“We hope to raise awareness for CF, and we hope to raise quite a bit of money for this great charity,” Lammey told FSB.com. “There isn’t a better time of year than now to bring the fantasy football community together to support something as serious as Cystic Fibrosis.”

The Audible is among the most popular shows on The Fantasy Sports Channel and ranks among the top 90 audio podcasts on iTunes. In addition to fantasy talk from Lammey and Bloom, Lammey says the broadcast will include guest appearances by former Broncos guard and current ESPN analyst Mark Schlereth, ESPN.com NFL reporter Adam Schefter, Yahoo! Sports’ Jason Cole and Scout.com’s Adam Caplan, as well as other Footballguys.com staffers and some others.

The FSC put on a similar event to benefit the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation back on March 7, with Paul Greco and Lenny Melnick of FantasyPros911.com leading a 24-hour baseball-themed show.

FSB.com will pass along more info on the event, including the URL for donations, as it becomes available.

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Personal Profile: Bob Harris

Sunday, August 9th, 2009

Name: Bob Harris
Job title(s): Senior Editor at Fantasy Sports Publications Inc.
Full-time in fantasy? Yes
Age: 47
Education: Just enough to be dangerous
Family status: Single (who would have me?)
Favorite fantasy sport to play: Football
Favorite sport to watch: MMA
Favorite team (any sport): None
All-time favorite athlete: None
Years playing fantasy: 23
I got my start in the fantasy industry when: I got tired of turning on the television Sunday mornings only to find players listed as probable in the paper on Thursday and Friday weren’t able to play.

Since then, my fantasy résumé includes: I started the TFL Report, in 1993, serving as editor and webmaster. I joined Fantasy Sports Publications, Inc. in 1997. My work has been prominently displayed in all four FSP Fantasy annuals — Fantasy Football Pro Forecast, Fantasy Football Diehards, Fantasy Football Cheatsheets and the Fantasy Football DraftBook — since.

I wrote a weekly column for SI.com from 2001-07; FOXSports.com also ran weekly content I created in 2007.

In 2005, I was named the first-ever Fantasy Football Writer of the Year by the Fantasy Sports Writers Association.

Three questions

1) If you’ve been making your living in fantasy sports since 1993, what did you do before that? How did you go about generating sustainable income from the TFL Report right from the start?

I was a graphic designer working on retainer for a single customer - leaving plenty of free time while more than covering expenses. I used the free time (and money earned) to create, publish and market the TFL Report. The publication itself came very close to breaking even (thanks to considerable sweat equity and swapping out of design work, etc.).

Looking back, it’s safe to say sustainable income is different now than it was then. Some would argue it wasn’t sustainable then. But I was so convinced this whole “fantasy thing” would take off at some point, I didn’t pay much attention to the initial income.

2) I’ve been told that you’ve helped some others make their way into and up through the fantasy sports industry. Through your work as an editor and experienced writer, as well as your role in creating the Fantasy Sports Writers Association, do you see yourself as a mentor to younger entrants into the industry? If so, what do you try to impart to those just starting out?

I went to great lengths early on to help others in the field because I believed the better we looked as a group the more viable we became as an industry.

Now that we’ve established that viability, I focus on reminding newcomers who the “experts” are. I have always worked under the assumption my readers are the “experts” and that my job is helping them achieve the desired level of expertise. In other words, I’m not the expert. I’d prefer “professional.”

I know it’s more difficult to get recognized and make a name for yourself these days, but I firmly believe my approach is the reason I’m still doing this - and making a reasonable living at it - 17 years in.

So, bring it strong; be flamboyant; get noticed. … But remember: You’re not going to fool this audience. It’s not about you. It’s about them.

3) How have the expansion of the fantasy sports landscape and the proliferation of available content changed your job? Has increased competition made it any harder to draw in and retain readers?

Being established before the “explosion” has helped. I had a chance to earn the trust of readers well in advance of the boom. That audience is loyal.

Is it harder to bring in new readers? Oh yes. Hey, there are a lot of very talented people in this business now. It’s a battle to prove your ability to deliver the goods and retain the credibility necessary to stand out. That fight is something I love getting up and doing every single day.

Bonus: What did/does TFL stand for? Also — related or not — your e-mail handle is “unstable.” Should we be worried?

TFL is “The Fantasy League” — as in The Fantasy League Report. The “unstable” thing was a better fit back in the ’90s. I settled down a bit since.

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