The Ridiculous History of Fantasy Sports, Part One

Summary

The Ridiculous History of Fantasy Sports, Part One – Detailed Summary

Published on July 29, 2025, on "Ridiculous History" by iHeartPodcasts.

In the inaugural part of "The Ridiculous History of Fantasy Sports," hosts Ben Bolan and Noel Brown, supported by their super producer Max Williams, embark on an entertaining and informative journey tracing the whimsical yet impactful evolution of fantasy sports. This episode delves deep into the origins, growth, and cultural significance of fantasy sports, particularly focusing on fantasy football and baseball.

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I. Early Beginnings: The Birth of Fantasy Sports

A. Fantasy Golf and the Visionary Wink Winkenbach ([12:53] – [15:08])

The story begins in the late 1950s with Wilfred "Wink" Winkenbach, a minority owner of the Oakland Raiders. Winkenbach pioneered the concept of fantasy sports by creating Fantasy Golf, where participants selected teams of professional golfers. The innovative idea hinged on accumulating the lowest total number of strokes to win tournaments, blending personal engagement with the thrill of the sport.

Ben Bolan remarks, “Modern fantasy sports wouldn’t exist without early visionaries like Wink,” highlighting the foundational role Winkenbach played.

B. Transition to Fantasy Football: The Greater Oakland Professional Pigskin Prognosticators League (GOPEL) ([21:51] – [25:03])

In August 1963, Winkenbach expanded his fantasy sports vision to football, establishing the Greater Oakland Professional Pigskin Prognosticators League (GOPEL). This marked one of the first-ever fantasy football leagues, where participants could draft both AFL and NFL players prior to the merger. The inaugural pick was the legendary quarterback George Blanda.

Noel Brown humorously captures the essence: “We called ourselves the Greater Oakland Professional Pigskin Prognosticators League – GOPEL. Very pro people!” This early league laid the groundwork for what would become a global phenomenon.

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II. Evolution of Fantasy Baseball

A. William A. Gamson and the National Baseball Seminar ([26:04] – [27:18])

Moving to Massachusetts, William A. Gamson, a passionate baseball fan and esteemed sociologist, created the National Baseball Seminar. This simulated game allowed participants to draft major league players and score based on traditional statistics like batting average and runs batted in (RBIs). Gamson's enthusiasm bridged his academic pursuits with his love for baseball, initiating scholarly interest in fantasy sports mechanics.

Ben Bolan notes, “Professor Gamson’s National Baseball Seminar was a precursor to the sophisticated fantasy leagues we see today.”

B. The Rise of Rotisserie League Baseball by Daniel Okrent ([27:18] – [29:49])

Influenced by Gamson’s seminar, Daniel Okrent, inspired by fellow academics like history professor Robert Sklar, developed Rotisserie League Baseball (RLB). Introduced in the 1980s, RLB added complexity by incorporating multiple statistical categories, making team management more strategic and engaging. Okrent's creation became the closest ancestor to today’s billion-dollar fantasy sports industry.

John Lithgow humorously clarifies the term rotisserie: “Rotisserie refers to building a complete team across various categories, unlike simple scoring systems.”

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III. Growth and Technological Influence: The 1990s Inflection Point ([35:29] – [39:08])

A. Emergence of Online Platforms and Commissioner.com ([35:29] – [35:29])

The 1990s marked a pivotal era with the advent of the internet, enabling the proliferation of online fantasy sports platforms. Commissioner.com, founded by Peter Pizarro, Michael Gershman, James Price, and Scott Harger—frat brothers from Carnegie Mellon—became a cornerstone in modern fantasy sports infrastructure. This platform allowed leagues to operate seamlessly online, drastically expanding participation and accessibility.

Noel Brown emphasizes, “Commissioner.com was instrumental in transitioning fantasy sports from niche hobby to mainstream entertainment.”

B. Impact of the Internet and Online Integration ([36:33] – [39:08])

With the rise of the internet, fantasy sports experienced exponential growth. Websites could now handle complex statistical computations, provide real-time updates, and facilitate greater interaction among participants. This technological leap lowered the barrier to entry, attracting a broader audience and transforming fantasy sports into a multibillion-dollar industry.

Ben Bolan reflects, “Before the internet, fantasy sports were laborious. The digital revolution made it accessible and engaging for millions.”

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IV. Fantasy Sports Today and Future Outlook

A. Market Valuation and Growth ([08:15] – [09:14])

By 2023, the fantasy sports industry had burgeoned to a staggering $30.4 billion valuation, with projections estimating growth to $85 billion by 2032. This surge underscores fantasy sports' pervasive influence and enduring popularity.

Noel Brown states, “Fantasy sports are not just games; they’re a massive economic force, transforming how we engage with real sports.”

B. Blurring Lines with Gambling ([09:14] – [11:16])

The integration of gambling elements into fantasy sports is a significant trend, raising both excitement and concerns. Traditional fantasy leagues are increasingly incorporating betting mechanics, paralleling the rise in sports gambling. This convergence presents both new opportunities and ethical dilemmas.

Ben Bolan intriguingly poses, “As fantasy and gambling intertwine, what does this mean for the future of sports fandom?”

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V. Cultural Impact and Ethical Considerations

A. Enhanced Engagement and Revenue for Real Sports ([09:14] – [11:16])

Fantasy sports have revolutionized how fans interact with real-world sports, enhancing engagement and driving substantial revenue streams. Leagues report increased viewership, merchandise sales, and overall interest in the underlying sports, benefiting leagues like the NFL significantly.

John Lithgow humorously illustrates, “Fantasy sports have even made Josh Allen throw a touchdown pass to himself in points – and that’s the kind of absurdity that fuels the industry.” This anecdote highlights the intricate ties between fantasy sports and actual athletic performance.

B. Ethical Questions: Athlete Participation ([11:16] – [12:53])

A pressing ethical debate arises regarding whether athletes should participate in their own fantasy leagues. Concerns revolve around conflicts of interest, insider knowledge, and the integrity of both fantasy and real-world sports.

Noel Brown analogizes, “Should athletes be allowed to play fantasy leagues? It’s akin to lawmakers trading stocks – where does it end?”

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VI. Notable Moments and Quotes

Throughout the episode, hosts pepper the discussion with humorous and insightful quotes that underscore key points:

• Ben Bolan at [07:24]: “Sport has always been a thing in human civilization. It used to be much more violent, much more bloody. But the concept of deepening your relationship to a team by engaging in fantasy sports is very much a real thing.”

• John Lithgow at [09:43]: “Fantasy has made the NFL so much money. That’s one of the funniest moments in fantasy last year.”

• Noel Brown at [16:21]: “Brigsby Bear, if you’re interested. It’s very Michel Gondry-esque.” (Highlighting cultural intersections)

• Ben Bolan at [40:13]: “This Bud’s for you, buckaroo. It’s a team effort.” (Light-hearted banter)

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VII. Conclusion and Teasers for Part Two

As the episode wraps up, the hosts set the stage for Part Two, promising to delve deeper into the technological advancements of the 1990s that propelled fantasy sports into the modern era. They tease discussions on the ethical quandaries and the burgeoning relationship between fantasy sports and gambling, ensuring listeners are primed for the continuation of this fascinating history.

Ben Bolan concludes, “This is going to be a two-part series. Thanks as always to our super producer and research associate Max Williams. Hut. Hut. Hut.”

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Final Thoughts

"The Ridiculous History of Fantasy Sports, Part One" offers a comprehensive and engaging exploration of fantasy sports' origins and early developments. Through witty dialogue and insightful commentary, Ben Bolan and Noel Brown effectively illuminate how a niche pastime evolved into a global industry, influencing both fans and professional sports alike. With notable quotes and a structured narrative, the episode serves as an enlightening primer for newcomers and seasoned enthusiasts alike.

Transcript

[Ben Bolan]

Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to the show, fellow Ridiculous historians. Thank you as always so much for tuning in. There's the man, the myth legend, our super producer, Mr. Max Williams. Yeah, yep, yep. Holding up a champion belt for fantasy football, Noel. That's a little bit of foreshadowing. Yes, that's Noel Brown. I am Ben Bolan, Tis I. This week we are diving into something that's going to be very familiar and very awesome for a lot of us in the crowd. And then very new information for many other folks, including your faithful correspondence.

[Noel Brown]

You talking about sports, Ben? I'm talking about sports, yeah.

[Ben Bolan]

I got a fantasy about it.

[Noel Brown]

Oh yeah, same.

[Max Williams]

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[Ben Bolan]

Hello, I'm John Lithgow.

[Noel Brown]

We choose to go to the moon. I want to tell you about my new fiction podcast.

[Max Williams]

That's One small step for man about.

[Ben Bolan]

Buzz Aldrin, one of the true pioneers of space.

[Noel Brown]

You're a great pilot, Buzz.

[Ben Bolan]

That's the story you think you know.

[John Lithgow]

This is the story you don't.

[Ben Bolan]

Buzz, starring me, John lithgow, on the.

[John Lithgow]

Iheartradio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. OpenAI is a financial abomination, a thing that should not be an aberration, a symbol of rot at the heart of Silicon Valley. And I'm going to tell you why on my show Better Offline, the rudest.

[Noel Brown]

Show in the tech industry where we're.

[John Lithgow]

Breaking down why OpenAI, along with other AI companies, are dead set on lying.

[Noel Brown]

To your boss that they can take your job.

[John Lithgow]

I'm also going to be talking with the greatest minds in the industry about all the other ways the rich and powerful are ruining the computer.

[Ben Bolan]

Listen to Better offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever you happen to get your podcasts.

[Noel Brown]

Sports, as Max puts it in this fantastic brief, because Max is of course, also our research associate on this episode, they are indeed a thing. Not necessarily my thing, but I respect the hustle and I respect the fandom.

[Ben Bolan]

Yeah. You know, one interesting observation I had had, like, here in Atlanta, we're lucky to have sports teams that, that have very deep and complicated relationships with their fans. Shout out to everybody who sat at their local chicken wing spot and. And stoically watched the Falcons fumble once again. Or the Atlanta Hawks. What is it?

[Noel Brown]

Falcons people, people love to hate the Falcons and the Hawks. Isn't that right? Or what's.

[John Lithgow]

The Hawks are just kind of the, like, team that we have. They're kind of like they've, they've been poorly run forever, which is really weird. Like all. And then zeitgeist of sports right now, they've had like one of, if not the best off seasons in basketball, which is really weird.

[Ben Bolan]

Yeah, for sure. It's new. It's a new development, which is good.

[John Lithgow]

Because the one that's normally really good, the Atlanta baseball team, is epically terrible this year. They are just an embarrassing, embarrassing team. And it was like ownership went cheap on the team. And then the Falcons, or the Falcons, as I prefer to call them, or the Flagons, which is the Flagons is what they do when, like when like, you know, the wide receiver, the first one catches a ball, he's like, I'm scoring a touchdown. And there was a play a couple of years ago where the guys is carrying the ball and another player runs up to him, grabs the ball of his hand and rips it out of his hands and runs away. Yeah, the Flackens right there, they just, they, they, they, they, they will be the type of thing where they'll be winning a race by a mile, then like trip on their own feet, face plant, and then somehow pee themselves.

[Noel Brown]

I do remember them doing that at a particular super bowl, if I'm not mistaken. Saw that one in person. Yeah. I mean, not at the game, but on.

[Ben Bolan]

That's what I'm referring to. Yeah, I was, I was sitting at our, our favorite chicken wing spot hanging out there. That, that's the thing. Even if feel that you yourself are an ardent fan or an expert on a particular team or a sport overall, there is, to your point, Noel, about fandom, there is, in my experience, this absolutely electric, galvanizing energy about going to a live game. I dig it all the time. As a matter of fact, as you guys know, this might be the year I finally get to go to a sumo championship.

[Noel Brown]

Ooh, yes. You've been talking about that for lo. These many years, and I do hope that that happens for you. Also, to Max's point, something about the way teams are run, the revolving door of players, all of these different variables can contribute to significant changes across the duration of a franchise. Right. Things that are really important to be keyed into if you want to reliably predict outcomes.

[Ben Bolan]

Yes. Which gets us to. Ooh, that's. This gets us to part of what we're exploring. Right. It is very common in any sport fandom for many people with a deep understanding of their team to watch plays being made or watch strategy being rolled out and to think to themselves, even if just for a moment, hot dog, I could manage this team better. I have a dream what would happen if I could. If I could predict and make these plays and leverage my own understanding in some version of reality. That is where we see the rise of fantasy sports now. Sport has always been a thing in human civilization. It used to be much more violent, much more bloody. But the concept of deepening your relationship to a team by engaging in fantasy sports is very much a real thing. And as we're going to learn, there's a lot of history to this. Max, you had a great example here, and I always love this analogy. We roll it out in stuff they don't want you to know. When we talk about weirdness, like the fact that humans sleep. If aliens came down and you tried to explain fantasy sports to them, they would have no idea what you were talking about. And it would indeed arguably be kind of off putting. But it's a lot of fun. It's a huge market. We're talking something like 30.4 billion billion valuation in 2023. That's per SkyQuest. And by 2032, this industry of fantasy sports overall is going to be somewhere around $85 billion.

[Noel Brown]

Well, and it's interesting too, because we're starting to see the lines blurring between fantasy and reality in terms of gambling and the way that figures in to that kind of portfolio.

[Ben Bolan]

Yeah, 100%. That's one of the big questions we've got to tackle this week. Tackle. Oh my gosh, whatever. Sports accidental. Yes, thank you for the badump. I'm not proud of it.

[John Lithgow]

But also, if I could jump in real quick, there's actually, to Noel's point there, there's. When it actually comes to actual sports, like there are cases of people in like the NFL being like, oh, I don't care about your fantasy team and stuff like that. And the best kind of argument I said is like, well, do you care about your increasing your paycheck you've gotten? Because fantasy has made the NFL so much money. Which is one of the funniest moments in fantasy last year, which is I can say I had Josh Allen on the championship team that got this belt with when I beat my friend Ronnie, Ronnie Phillips, who I'm going to make listen to this part. I beat him in the finals and smoked him and he's the commissioner of the league. I'm just twisting the knife a little. Sorry, I'll get back on topic. But like, this is play where Josh Allen threw a ball to, I think it was Amari Cooper in the red zone. And Josh Allen's known for being this incredible athlete. He's like 6 5, but super fast and athletic. And Amari Cooper is like, turns around, decides he's going to throw it back to Josh Allen. And Josh Allen then catches it and dives into the end zone. So how it scored is Josh Allen threw a touchdown pass to himself. And so when asked in the interview afterwards, because that's in fantasy, that's just throwing a touchdown, four points, catching touchdown, six points. And there's other points that can go along with it as well, but those are just standard stuff. Josh Allen got 10 fantasy points for that. And Josh Allen said, yeah, man, that's going to look great on my fantasy score. Because it turns out he has himself in his own fantasy league and it's that awareness. But it's to nose points that blending of the line where it's like, this is a mega. Like in. Ben, you talked about this. This is a mega, mega industry that sports make a lot of money off of and they don't always want to admit that.

[Ben Bolan]

Right, right. It can be a little bit of a thing that they play to the side. But it also brings us to a question we'll explore later. An ethical question, not necessarily a legal one. I'd say more of an ethical question. Should athletes be able to participate in their own fantasy sports? You know what I mean?

[Noel Brown]

Well, yeah. It's a similar question to like, should lawmakers be able to buy and trade stocks?

[Ben Bolan]

Not bad. Yeah. I'm tempted to agree. There's also. We learn too, given that the pursuit of sports. Right. Physical exercise for now, recreation and amusement, because this pursuit is so old in the human species, we're never going to learn the original inventor. It's kind of like asking who made the first wheel or who figured out how to tame fire. Fantasy sport as an industry or a pursuit is kind of similar. So, Max, you did something really intelligent in setting up our brief here and our exploration by saying it'd be tough. It might be a fool's errand for us to try to declare a single inventor. Instead, for this series of ridiculous history, we wanted to talk about the milestones, the influential steps along the way. We do this by shouting out, of course, one of the best sources in the business here, Fantasy Sports and Gaming association, or fizzga, which is an initialism but not an acronym.

[Noel Brown]

Oh, man. It's fun to say though, that's for sure.

[Ben Bolan]

Fizzga. Yeah, yeah.

[Noel Brown]

Fizzga. The Fantasy Sports and Gaming association, as you said, Ben. So according to Fizzga, which reminds me of Fizzgig from the Dark Crystal, that little furball character who I'm a big fan of, the very first fantasy sports adjacent item, as they put it in their history, dates back to the late 50s and a man by the name of Wilfred, commonly referred to as Wink because his last name is Winkenbach. Winkenbach. Wilfred Wink Winkenbach, or Winkenbach, if you're nasty.

[Ben Bolan]

Yeah, Winkenbach. Wink is a cool nickname. I like it. This is the guy, as you were saying. No. Who devised Fantasy Golf. He dreamed up the idea. And in his original ideation, each player would select a team of professional golfers. And the player, not the professional golfers, but the player who was in this fantasy league would win the game or win the tournament if their team had the lowest total combined number of strokes at the end of this tournament. And Wink had this deep, special connection to the biggest fantasy sector in the western world today, the NFL. Because he was a minority owner in the Oakland Raiders. Apparently this also informed how he dreamed up the idea of fantasy football.

[Noel Brown]

And the Oakland Raiders, aren't they. Didn't they move to Vegas?

[John Lithgow]

They are in Vegas and it's going totally fine. And they have no problems.

[Noel Brown]

You're being sarcastic, Maximus.

[John Lithgow]

I am, I am. I'm not sure how it's going, but they had some issue. They got a really nice stadium, actually. Friend of the program, Dave Kustan, Die Hard. Die Hard. Oakland Raiders, Vegas Raiders fan.

[Ben Bolan]

Yeah, I know, man. It's weird because sometimes when people really love their team, they talk about their team like the way new parents talk about a baby they just had. Everything relates back to the Raiders.

[John Lithgow]

Or they talk about their team like their friend's new baby that they just had, who they hate.

[Ben Bolan]

Right.

[Noel Brown]

My team.

[Ben Bolan]

Shout out to the Falcons.

[Noel Brown]

Also shout out to Kyle Mooney. Yes, Kyle Mooney. Exactly. I love that he does a sketch you can find on YouTube. Just type in Kyle Mooney's sports. And he's got this jacket that just says sports on the sleeves. And he just has all these amorphous comments about his sports and his teams, but, like, it's impossible to tell what sport he's talking about. And it is an absolute delight.

[Ben Bolan]

And I gotta tell you, folks, as the boys and I are saying, Kyle Mooney was such a sleeper hit on snl, I wish he was still in the crew, but he's doing great comedy even after his tenure there. So do check him out. He also seems like a cool hang.

[Noel Brown]

He does, for sure. He's got some cool films. Y2K wasn't great, but it was an interesting swing. I do really enjoy his film Brigsby Bear, if you're interested. It's very Michel Gondry esque. And also he is. He has an album out called the Real Me, and it is absolutely ridiculous and hilarious and heartwarming at times. And he's actually on tour for that now. So if he's coming to your town, do check him out.

[Ben Bolan]

I want to do a fantasy sketch comedy crew just so I can think through it. If we had Tim Heidecker, Bob Odenkirk, Kyle Mooney, Maria Bamford. Oh, man. Okay, this is going to get weird. This is not related to what we're talking about. Let's go back to wink.

[Max Williams]

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[Ben Bolan]

A foot washed up a shoe with some bones in it. They had no idea who it was.

[Max Williams]

Most everything was burned up pretty good.

[Ben Bolan]

From the fire that not a whole lot was salvageable.

[Max Williams]

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[Noel Brown]

He never thought he was going to.

[Ben Bolan]

Get caught, and I just looked at my computer. I was just like, ah, gotcha.

[Max Williams]

On America's Crime Lab, we'll learn about victims and survivors. And you'll meet the team behind the scenes at othram, the Houston lab that takes on the most hopeless cases to finally solve the unsolvable. Listen to America's Crime Lab on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Kelly Harnett spent over a decade in prison for a murder she says she didn't commit.

[Ben Bolan]

I'm 100% innocent. While behind bars, she learned the law from scratch. He goes, oh God.

[John Lithgow]

Harnett jailhouse lawyer and as she fought.

[Max Williams]

For herself, she also became a lifeline for the women locked up alongside her.

[Noel Brown]

You're supposed to have no faith in God, but I had nothing but faith in her.

[Max Williams]

So many of these women had lived the same stories. I said, were you a victim of domestic violence? And she was like, yeah, but maybe Kelly could change the ending.

[Noel Brown]

I said, how many people have gotten.

[Ben Bolan]

Other incarcerated individuals out of here?

[Max Williams]

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[John Lithgow]

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[Max Williams]

The Girlfriends Jailhouse Lawyer listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[John Lithgow]

My Uncle Chris is definitely somebody worth talking about.

[Noel Brown]

He was the kind of guy that lived in a trailer with an ex con and a retired stripper, left loaded machine guns laying around, drank a bottle of whiskey a night, claimed he could kill a man with his bare hands.

[John Lithgow]

Drove a garbage truck for a living.

[Noel Brown]

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[John Lithgow]

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[Noel Brown]

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[Ben Bolan]

Wink dreams up the idea of fantasy football when he's chatting with another employee of the Raiders, as well as a sports reporter from Oakland. And these guys aren't in Oakland when they have this conversation. The Raiders are on a road trip. So these three dudes are at a New York City hotel and they start thinking, what if the same kind of fantasy infrastructure I created for golf could be applied to football? And this was a dream idea. This was a real light bulb moment. And so they started putting together their team and their approach. And this is back in August of 1963. They started with a heck of a name, Noel. They called themselves the Greater Oakland Professional Pigskin Prognosticators League or Go Bull Go People.

[Noel Brown]

We're very pro people. That's hilarious. I gotta say it out loud too, Ben. The Greater Oakland Professional Pigskin Prognosticators League, which was held at Vinckenbach's home, with the first pick being George Blanda, who played for the Raiders. AFL or NFL players could be picked. This was, by the way, before the merger and three and a half years before the very first Super Bowl. And points could be distributed, awarded for touchdowns and field goals. So a little bit simpler because now I believe you can get points for any number of combinations and very gambling style. Like parlays. Right. Things like that. Where you.

[Ben Bolan]

Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up. What is a parlay?

[Noel Brown]

I think maybe Max can help us with that. I believe a parlay is. It's a side bet.

[John Lithgow]

A parlay is a combo bet. So basically.

[Noel Brown]

Right, so you're betting on.

[John Lithgow]

On.

[Noel Brown]

On various circumstances happening in. In concurrently and concurrently, I think.

[John Lithgow]

So, for example, let's just say there, you could place a parlay on this episode that Max will say something about how much Woodrow Wilson sucks. Ben will say something that requires a bad joke drum and no talk about music. You could do a parlay for that. And the reward you'll get is much higher than if you just do all those bets. Singular.

[Noel Brown]

It's got like a multiplier. Right?

[John Lithgow]

All three.

[Ben Bolan]

All three have to occur.

[John Lithgow]

I actually heard one last night for like, if the Falcons and the Hawks. If you put a parlay on a Falcons and Hawks, and I'm not a gambler, I'm not. I'm not really into the stuff, but if you put one on Falcons and Hawks both winning their respective championships, a hundred dollars would return 211k, but they would both have to win it.

[Ben Bolan]

I see. Ooh, people have lost a lot of money. All right. Yeah, we'll get to the gambling part too. I think that's a big area of interest for all of us. Let's stay in the 1960s now. So, like as we were saying, 1963, Wink puts together an Ocean's Eleven style team and they meet at his house to form Gopal. And. And if we fast forward just a little bit still, in the 1960s, a public fantasy league gets established. This is also in Oakland. It's at a bar. People are imbibing, they're vibing, they're hanging out. And they decide to make a few gentlemanly wagers.

[Noel Brown]

Yes, I love a good gentlemanly wager.

[Ben Bolan]

Right. And now we travel from Oakland, California, out to Massachusetts to Cambridge. And this is where we see a pretty big baseball fan named William A. Gamson. He happens to also be the 80. He goes on to become the 85th president of the American Sociological Association. Great job.

[Noel Brown]

Unrelated to fantasy sports.

[Ben Bolan]

Right, right. Great job, Willie.

[Noel Brown]

A sociological based organization.

[Ben Bolan]

Great job, Willie.

[Noel Brown]

Sociology, rather.

[Ben Bolan]

Yeah, yeah, Great job, man. But we're. We're proud of you. We support you, but we're not concerned with your academic bona fides. We're talking about you as a baseball fan now.

[Noel Brown]

Yeah, but he would have been the first one to talk about himself that way, too. Gamson was a huge name in the field of sociology, being the aforementioned president of the ASA and winning many prestigious awards, such as the Distinguished Contributions to teaching Award, the Web DeBose Career of Distinguished Scholarship, the ASA Lifetime Career Achievement Award, and the McCarthy Lifetime Achievement Award from the center for the Study of Social Movements.

[Ben Bolan]

A lot of capital letters.

[Noel Brown]

Indeed, yes. And we could rattle off some more acronyms, we'll spare you that. Bill Gamson was one of the most influential social scientists in the world, according to sociology professor and chair Andrew Jorgensen. He was a great mentor for graduate and undergraduate students, as well as for junior faculty. And his lifetime commitment to social justice was inspiring, said Jorgensen. Just wanted to get all that stuff out of the way before we jump into the kind of, I don't know, his. His side hustle as a sports fan.

[Ben Bolan]

Yeah. Yeah. So, again, great job, Willie. We don't want to dismiss your amazing efforts and service to the field of sociology overall, but for this conversation, you're a baseball guy. So he is super enthusiastic to students, to colleagues, to friends and family alike about baseball. And you can read this great discussion about this from a guy named Richard Sandomir. He is. Sadly, he is writing this as part of the 2021 obituary of Professor Gamson, which was published in the New York Times.

[Noel Brown]

Well, yeah, it just goes to show, though, how recent a development this whole, you know, world is. He only just very recently passed away. This is what Sandomir had to say. Professor Gamson indulged his enthusiasm for baseball and his attachment to games by creating what he called the National Baseball Seminar, a simulated game in which each person in his group, originally three, had a budget to draft major leaguers for a team. The players were measured throughout the season based on batting average, runs batted in, earned run average, and wins.

[Ben Bolan]

Yeah, and this is going to be very familiar to any of us who play fantasy football or fantasy baseball, any kind of fantasy league sport. Professor Gamson was speaking to ESPN about this in 2010, and he said, we felt these statistics that you just mentioned, Noel, reflected productivity. But in truth, I'm going to paraphrase him here. The hard reality was there. There wasn't a deep bench of statistics at the time, nowhere near like the level we're at. Now, so when he moves Gamson to the University of Michigan in 1962, fine, I'll say it. Go blue. He recruits about 25 people to play his reindeer games. And some of these guys that join up are themselves also academics. I'm thinking of folks like Robert Sklar, who's a history professor. Sklar mentions it to one of his students, a guy named Daniel Okrent. And a decade later, inspired by this discourse, Mr. Okrent goes on to invent the Rotisserie league baseball. It's a more complex, more sophisticated system.

[John Lithgow]

And to jump in here real quick, yes, I am wearing a Michigan shirt right now. No.

[Noel Brown]

Go blue.

[John Lithgow]

Hail to the victims.

[Noel Brown]

Valiant, what Max said.

[Ben Bolan]

Yeah, that also reminds me, I love this. I thought it was a stereotype from comedy and sitcoms and films, but the last three times I've been in Philadelphia, I swear, you guys, I've heard someone casually just say, go Birds, like in line at a gas station or something. I love this kind of stuff. I love the nomenclature. I love the team spirit and the way these pursuits bring people together. Mr. Okrent feels the same way. He says, look, this idea of a Rotisserie baseball league or Rotisserie league baseball, it came about because of all the precedent created dozens of years earlier by Professor Bill Gamson and by Professor Bob Sklar. And now we would consider RLB or Rotisserie league baseball, the closest ancestor to the multibillion dollar fantasy sports industry today, for sure.

[Noel Brown]

What is this Rotisserie they're talking about here, guys? There's a quote from the New York Times piece where Okrent wrote, would something like Rotisserie have been otherwise?

[John Lithgow]

So rotisserie is in this. In this matter, not like, you know, a spinning pig with an apple in his mouth commonly refers to one of the more common styles of fantasy baseball. So in football, the most common styles, points were basically a touchdown's worth X, A, your defense getting a sack is worth Y, X, Y, Z. You know, well, in rotisserie, how it is, is it's like, like you have to build a complete team. So you. It's like, how many stolen bases do you have? How many home runs do you have? And there's. And so you have to look in the number of categories so you're motivated that way. And how it works sometimes. So sometimes do these things called weekly category leagues, daily category leagues, which is like new score every year or true, Rotisserie is like for the entire season. So you have to make sure to fix your team if your team's bad in a category you will lose that category on the season Seasons.

[Noel Brown]

I see. So nothing chicken related.

[John Lithgow]

Okay Check making sure no suckling pig.

[Ben Bolan]

Which is a shame because you can always tell when we start asking each other these questions that we're recording right before lunchtime.

[Max Williams]

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[Ben Bolan]

A foot washed up, a shoe with some bones in it. They had no idea who it was.

[Max Williams]

Most everything was burned up pretty good.

[Ben Bolan]

From the fire that not a whole lot was salvageable.

[Max Williams]

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[Noel Brown]

He never thought he was going to get caught.

[Ben Bolan]

And I just looked at my computer screen, I was just like, ah, gotcha.

[Max Williams]

On America's Crime Lab, we'll learn about victims and survivors and you'll meet the team behind the scenes at othram, the Houston lab that takes on the most hopeless cases to finally solve the unsolvable. Listen to America's Crime Lab on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Kelly Harnett spent over a decade in prison for a murder she says she didn't commit.

[Ben Bolan]

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[John Lithgow]

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[Max Williams]

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[Noel Brown]

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[Max Williams]

So many of these women had lived the same stories. I said, were you a victim of domestic violence? And she was like, yeah, but maybe Kelly could change the ending.

[Noel Brown]

I said, how many people have gotten.

[Ben Bolan]

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[Max Williams]

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[John Lithgow]

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[Max Williams]

The Girlfriends Jailhouse Lawyer listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[John Lithgow]

My Uncle Chris is definitely somebody worth talking about.

[Noel Brown]

He was the kind of guy that lived in a trailer with an ex con and a retired stripper, left loaded machine guns laying around, drank a bottle of whiskey a night, claimed he could kill a man with his bare hands.

[John Lithgow]

Drove a garbage truck for a living.

[Noel Brown]

Spoke fluent Spanish with a thick southern accent, and is currently buried in a crypt alongside the founding families of Panama. Listen to the Uncle Chris podcast to.

[John Lithgow]

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[Noel Brown]

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[John Lithgow]

In it in a whole new way.

[Noel Brown]

I can't wait to tell you all about Uncle Chris. Listen now to Uncle Chris on Will Ferrell's Big Money Players Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts. So early days though, guys, right? It was pretty niche and not particularly lucrative, right?

[Ben Bolan]

Exactly. It's more a matter of personal interest. Rotisserie, as Max said, is engaging to fans because it incorporates so many other variables, right. So many other categories and stats and things to include within your calculations. Do check out a great interview between Okrent and Nick Fletter for the Hardball Times. You can find that on a website called fangraphs. But like you're saying, Noel, at this point we have a few people who are very, very into this and while they don't have deep pockets as an industry yet, they do have big dreams. Our real like a real inflection point occurs in the 1990s. This is when you get a platform that begins to resemble modern day fantasy football. Side note, it Bears repeating, like the White Stripes said once upon a time, Fantasy football is by far, in the west, the biggest form of fantasy gaming.

[Noel Brown]

Absolutely. I mean, when I. That's what I have always associated it with. People when they talk about fantasy, they usually are saying fantasy football. That's sort of the bread and butter of the industry, at least for a normie like me. That's what I was always aware of. I don't really hear people talk about fantasy baseball. I know it exists, but to me, it's like the Coca Cola of fantasy sports is fantasy football.

[Ben Bolan]

Yeah. Max and I have been pretty active in early conversations about fantasy curling.

[Noel Brown]

Surely it exists. No, Probably. Here's a question, Max. Are there certain sports that are not conducive to fantasy?

[John Lithgow]

Oh, you could. You could do it. Because if it's. If there's statistics, you could do fantasy.

[Noel Brown]

Got it.

[Ben Bolan]

Right.

[John Lithgow]

That's what it is. And that's why Ben made a brilliant point when he was talking about the rotisserie, where it's like, this is like, for fan stuff. That's why it was kind of early days. It was so, so niche, was it's like you have to really labor on.

[Noel Brown]

The points, really know yourself.

[John Lithgow]

This website, I linked fangraphs, I have a subscription with them because that's what I am like, I like my stats. That's what I love.

[Noel Brown]

But if you were to say, not like, hardcore like that. There are versions of fantasy sports that just involve, like, assembling a fantasy team, and then you don't really have to dig down or drill down into the stats.

[John Lithgow]

And as time goes on, this is actually where we're progressing. The story. It's gotten. The barrier of entry has gotten much, much, much lower where you don't have to. So look, my friend Ronnie, he's a huge NFL fan now. He's a big football fan. But like, 10 years ago, our league actually dates back to when we all worked together in a bar together, and we all were talking sports, and he didn't really watch sports at the time, so he just started playing fantasy with us. And he loves the NFL now. He knows all the stuff now. But at the time, he had to use these tools a lot because he's like. But it made it so he could play with us.

[Noel Brown]

Well, it's sort of like the way if you're playing Baldur's Gate, for example, versus playing D and D, a lot of those calculations and things are done for you.

[John Lithgow]

Right, Exactly.

[Ben Bolan]

It just shows the dice roll. But this is a really important point because back in the 60s, when we're talking about Wink and we're talking about Dr. G earlier, they didn't. I love the point you're making, Max. They didn't have the privilege of the Internet or going to just some convenient website that'll lay out all the stats in the most helpful way. Instead, they were digging into, you know, printed record, right? They, they are studying batting averages and stuff on the back of trading cards. So there you really had to put the work in, right?

[John Lithgow]

And like, you know, just a little bit is it. This is concurrent going on at the same time. But you have stuff like in the 80s arises, like sabermetrics, where you have like people who are working on advanced, better statistics and stuff like that. Because at this point in time, like you gotta remember, like a lot of the stuff is you pick up the newspaper and you manually tabulated these scores. And then, you know, you get an argument with your friends because they're tabulating it wrong. You're saying. But they're saying you're wrong. Like this is like all kind of happening concurrently. And then also got to remember, these people were making a good bit of money professionally, but they ain't making the money they make now, right? These sports were becoming. This is all happening at the same time.

[Ben Bolan]

And yes, it's happening concurrently. It's also encouraging certain personality traits. I can already picture someone saying, you're tabulating this wrong. And then some other guy in the back going, I have a system.

[John Lithgow]

Yeah, I have a system for sure. Your math is wrong. No, you don't know math. Right.

[Ben Bolan]

You don't get my system. Don't. Fine, whatever. Whatever. Yes, I'll have another Bud Light. I don't know.

[Noel Brown]

For you, Bud.

[Ben Bolan]

This Bud's for. This Bud's for you, you math heretic.

[Noel Brown]

Oh, I thought you were going to say this Bud's for you, buckaroo. That was a real missed opportunity.

[Ben Bolan]

That's good. No, you got it.

[John Lithgow]

You got it.

[Ben Bolan]

It's a team effort. This is for you, buckaroo.

[John Lithgow]

Heineken. Heineken. Pabst Blue Ribbon Velvet, Stay Blue, Go Blue.

[Ben Bolan]

An award winning beer, as we often have described it. It's not like Miller Light, which is of course famously the beer. So good you can drink it with your mouth. I can't believe we got away with that. Adenol, if you wish. If you wish so bad. Boofing jokes aside, we're gonna move on. We're gonna get to again, this fulcrum, this real pivotal moments the 1990s. This is where we see the emergence of a platform that can support modern day fantasy football. If you want to learn a lot about this, check out the author, Larry Schechter. He has a book that came out quite recently, just last year, the History of. Of Fantasy Sports. And we're going to lean into some of his work here in a second. I guess we should tell you the full title is the History of Fantasy the Birth and sale of commissioner.com.

[Noel Brown]

Indeed. And this is not a company that I was familiar with at all. So this is all new to me as well. As you can probably guess, this first kind of name in fantasy sports started small and actually helped lay the groundwork for the industry that we know today. Peter Pizarros, Michael Gersh, James Price and Scott Harger were frat brothers who had graduated from Carnegie Mellon, which is, I think, a pretty prestigious university, and then later all moved to Manhattan to the Big Apple and got jobs. One night they were talking through things at their local Chicken Wing Joint 1995, about what they would do if they were mega, mega rich. Like Bill Gates rich.

[Ben Bolan]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And this is back during the halcyon days of Microsoft being the first and final word in public computers. So Bill Gates is kind of like the Elon Musk at this point. He's the richest dude they can think of. And they said, you know what, we're sitting around, we're eating some great chicken wings, we're having some drinks and we're just talking, talking. Why are we talking? We can do this. We can make this happen right now. And hold the phone, folks. We're gonna make an audible. Huh? Am I doing that right? Audible?

[Noel Brown]

Is that, is that, is that a sports rap?

[John Lithgow]

It is, it is. Well audible. Audible can mean many things, but it's used in football. It's when often it's when at the line of scrimmage, the quarterback will look at what the defense is lined up, he'll be like, he was be like, omaha, Omaha. That's the old page.

[Noel Brown]

Blue 32, blue 32.

[John Lithgow]

Pointing out things like that.

[Ben Bolan]

So we are using the phrase correctly, we are calling an audible. This is very much going to be a two part series. Thanks as always to our super producer and research associate for this series, Mr. Max Williams. Thanks to Alex Williams, who composed this banging track.

[Noel Brown]

Indeed. And huge thanks to Christopher Haotes and Eve's Jeff Coats here in spirit, Jonathan Strickland, the quister, AJ Bahamas Jacobs, the puzzler.

[Ben Bolan]

Hut. Hut. Hut.

[Noel Brown]

We'll see you next time, folks, for more podcasts from iHeartRadio. Visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

[Max Williams]

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[Ben Bolan]

Hello, I'm John Lithgow.

[Noel Brown]

We choose to go to the moon. I want to tell you about my.

[Ben Bolan]

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[John Lithgow]

For Man about Buzz Aldrin, one of.

[Ben Bolan]

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[Noel Brown]

You're a great pilot, Buzz.

[Ben Bolan]

That's the story you think you know.

[John Lithgow]

This is the story you don't.

[Ben Bolan]

Buzz Starring me, John Lithgow, on the.

[John Lithgow]

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[Ben Bolan]

You get your podcasts, OpenAI is a.

[John Lithgow]

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[John Lithgow]

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[John Lithgow]

Breaking down why OpenAI, along with other AI companies, are dead set on lying.

[Noel Brown]

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[John Lithgow]

I'm also going to be talking with the greatest minds in the industry about about all the other ways the rich and powerful are ruining the computer.

[Ben Bolan]

Listen to Better offline on the iHeartRadio.

[Noel Brown]

App, Apple Podcasts wherever you happen to get your podcasts.

[Max Williams]

A body, a suspect, and a hundred years of silence. Buried Bones is a podcast about the forgotten crimes history tried to leave behind.

[Ben Bolan]

A common misperception about serial predators is that every single time they commit a crime, fine. They commit it the same way.

[John Lithgow]

The past is a way of talking.

[Max Williams]

If you know what to listen for.

[Ben Bolan]

New episodes every Wednesday on the Exactly Right Network.

[Max Williams]

Listen to Buried bones on the iHeartRadio.

[John Lithgow]

App, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Max Williams]

This is an I Heart podcast.