If you are a fantasy football diehard, and you actively use a Twitter account to track news about your squad, you have likely heard of a little thing called The Fish Bowl. Essentially, it is a ProAm for Fantasy Football, created by Scott Fish, that has grown to epic proportions. Industry “analysts” and “experts” are pitted against their audience and readers, and go head to head in ruthless fashion. Scoring wrinkles, hidden prizes for drafting secret players, oh and did I mention, it now houses 720 teams. You read that right … SEVEN HUNDRED AND TWENTY.
When I was launching my first YouTube channel (Nickel Press TV), I was looking for something to generate some attention. It is true that imitation is the greatest form of flattery, so naturally, I decided to rip off my good friend Mr. Fish and launched my own style of ProAm, calling it Drafting With Giants. There was one key difference that protected me from copyright infringement, and that was to make it a Best-Ball format of play. (If you are unfamiliar with Best Ball, keep reading, and I’ll explain more in a little bit.)
I began with very humble ambitions and aimed to have two leagues of 12 teams each, for a total of 24 participants. Of course, Scott had to be included, and counting myself, as well, there were just 22 teams left to go. I sent out emails to all of the big wigs I had in my contacts list, honestly hoping a handful would just reply — just reply, mind you, not even agree to be in this thing. To my surprise, not only did they answer, but they were all answering almost immediately, and they were ALL saying YES! Matt Harmon, who works for the damn NFL itself. Evan Silva, whose RotoWorld work is read by literally everyone who even remotely likes pigskin. Josh Moore, who owns 4for4.com and has been one of the most accurate experts in the past. Sigmund Bloom, whose voice will hypnotize you with its melodic symphony of fantasy (and philosophical) knowledge. Before you knew it, the league was full, and I had only a handful of openings for the “amateurs.” The season was played, things went off without a hitch, and it generated about three new subscribers to the channel.
All in all, it could only be deemed a success. So much so that it was only right to push my luck and see if I could double it in year two. So we did. Not only did we go to four leagues, for a total of 48 teams, and not only did we add more “experts” and “analysts,” but MyFantasyLeague.com (who had been hosting this whole affair) was gracious enough to comp nearly everyone’s $10 entry! It is truly amazing to see how generous people in this industry are. Something I am very proud to be a part of. And so, Season Two also went unabated with successful reviews. And then things just continued to grow.
I started bringing my videos to Fantrax in the spring of this year, when we launched The Baseball Show ⚾️ (which, if you play fantasy baseball, should be a staple to your diet). I was so focused on baseball, I completely forgot about the Drafting With Giants Challenge. It was only after reading countless tweets about MFL10 picks that the light bulb went off, and I asked Tim Wagner (Fantrax co-owner) if he would be interested in me running a third season, only this time on my new home at Fantrax.
Yes, it was a redundant question because, of course, the answer was yes. And so we went. Only this time I wanted to add wrinkles to show off the uniqueness and capabilities of the Fantrax scoring system (not to mention their deep player pools). So points per target, yards after the catch, and return yardage were just a few that have been implemented. I also wanted to take the Best Ball concept, but add a head-to-head element. And so a 12-week season was formed, where we would narrow things down to 16 finalists, who would then play H2H (still Best Ball format) from Week 13 on. (More on that Best Ball: it is a Draft & Hold style format, where you have no roster moves or transactions to make after you draft. You have a required set of ‘Starters’ per week, who will be automatically generated for you based on who performed best from your roster. Example, you have to start 1 Quarterback, but you drafted 4. Whichever one of your 4 QBs scored the most that week, will automatically be placed in your starting lineup).
And that is where we are now. You can click on the #DWG3 Final Leaderboard to see who was in this year’s contest, and how they finished. You can also click on the #DWG3Playoffs link to see an up-to-the-minute account of who is still remaining. If you want to be considered for next year’s challenge, please send me a tweet @PeoplezPen, and I’ll add you to the list. Lastly, I would love to thank Kenny Cashman of RotoWear.com for the amazing logo, the first one we’ve had. If you have any other questions, don’t hesitate to leave them in the comments below. Thanks!