Back in August, FLW Outdoors made fantasy history by delivering the first million-dollar grand prize. Even those fantasy providers who can’t afford seven-figure purses, though, should be able to take something away from the contest’s success.

When any new fantasy venture seeks to pay out enormous prizes, the common worry has to be how it will come up with the funding and how long it will take for such a game to turn a profit — helping to ensure its existence. No such worry was necessary in this case, though.

“We don’t expect to make money on the fantasy fishing game,” FLW Outdoors founder Irwin Jacobs tells FSB.com.

Jacobs came up with the concept as a way to generate interest in the Wal-Mart FLW Tour bass-fishing tournaments as well as an entry point to Genmar, reportedly the world’s largest producer of boats for recreational use (such as fishing), which Jacobs also owns. Drawing consumers to the fishing tournaments also leads them to the tour’s many sponsors. Those fans who latch own can show the kind of brand loyalty commonly seen among NASCAR fans.

“More so than NASCAR fans,” Jacobs says. “The power of this group is enormous. If a mother has a husband and children who love fishing, she’s been very supportive of the products.”

And Jacobs says that the fantasy competition succeeding in drawing new fans to the Tour.

“Most of the winners had never had a rod and reel in their hands,” he says.

Good for them, you might be saying to yourself, but I don’t have a million dollars to hand out and fantasy is my business. I’m not looking to sell something else.

Other companies are looking to sell, though, and the fantasy industry can deliver relatively affluent, attentive consumers and a growing market. As we’ve reported here before, the field of fantasy sports players is growing at a rate of about 23 percent per year, and those players spend four to six hours a week tending to their teams online.

The big purse was the main draw to the FLW Fantasy Fishing game, and although most fantasy sites can’t support such large sums, top brands looking for new ways to reach consumers could. Gillette, Coors Light and Coke Zero are among those that have already sought out new paths to fantasy players.

A roundup of recent posts on the FSB News page.

– Montreal-based iPerceptions found in a study that text advertisements still fare the best among online consumers and that less-affluent Web surfers are more likely to click through.

– Fantasy site owners could find a lesson or two in how to market via social networks or how to sell such a setup to potential advertisers by reading about how some top global brands are leveraging the hottest new medium.

– “FSTA Frontline” is a new newsletter from the Fantasy Sports Trade Association.

– In an interview with Men’s Fitness, Yahoo Sports’ Ashley Russell says women in her fantasy football league fought fiercely on their first draft night a year ago.

– Is the NHL dooming itself to a future of relative obscurity, or should it just embrace its market and cater to it better? Two Hartford Courant reporters square off with the opening of the new season.

– Skyrocketing travel costs for college sports teams could threaten some programs and alter the schedules for announcing championship playoff brackets.

Who: Mickey Charles
What: Founder, president and CEO, The Sports Network

To tell the full story of Mickey Charles would take pages, volumes probably. The limitless space of the Internet might be insufficient … especially if you look to quote him much.

Charles is a talker, and that quality has served him well in his professional life, even if he didn’t stick with the profession his father suggested.

“You’ve got a big mouth,” the elder Mr. Charles told a college-age son. “Become a lawyer.”

So Charles did get his law degree, finishing it at age 22. His first job, however, was as a stockbroker in what he says was a “very hot market” in 1960. Although it was “easy money,” the markets were never destined to be a permanent occupation. The law work didn’t suffice either. As a divorce lawyer, he tended to hurt his own business.

“I would make them stay together, and they would not pay me,” Charles tells FSB.com. “Today, I would try to be Alan Dershowitz, ‘Just get it ready for me and I’ll take it into court.’”

This kid from The Bronx, though, who hailed from the same neighborhood as actors Tony Curtis (born Bernie Schwartz), Vic Morrow (”Blackboard Jungle”) and Burt Lancaster (who shares a birthday with Charles), was going to be a star. He even got his shot when someone saw him speak on the East Coast, noted he was going to be addressing a conference in San Francisco a few months later and suggested that he give standup comedy a try.

The recommendation went to The Hungry i in San Francisco, a home for comics in the 1960s. That club’s owner, Enrico Banducci, gave Charles an audition in front of himself and comedian Mort Sahl, and some rather simple instructions: “We heard you’re very funny. Make us laugh.”

“I was sweating like you would not believe,” Charles recalls. It didn’t help that all the jokes he had written in preparation were kindly deemed “not funny” by his wife, Roz.

As she had warned, Charles got off to a rough start with his prepared lines and didn’t turn things around until he left that track and began picking apart Banducci, Sahl and the German shepherd they had brought with them, working completely off the cuff. The act improved so much from that point, that Banducci told Charles he could be the white Bill Cosby and offered him a 12-week stint opening for singer Vikki Carr. Charles quickly got another offer that he couldn’t refuse, though.

“Twelve weeks with Vikki Carr or the rest of your life with me,” his wife said. Charles has never had a single regret about his decision: “We just celebrated our 48th anniversary and I have had my ‘fifteen minutes’ about 120 times so far and am still going strong.”

Although the comedy gig didn’t actually lead to stardom, it did serve to outline the factors that would shape much of Charles’ career: a gift for speaking in front of large groups and entertaining them, and a focus on his family.

It was his entertainment chops — along with his connections as a college professor at St. Joseph’s in Philadelphia and a sports odds columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer — that helped him land a seven-hour weekend radio show — four hours on Saturday evenings, three on Sunday nights — on the Philly CBS affiliate. The show quickly grew in popularity and was sponsored by Caesar’s Palace in Atlantic City after one appearance on the show by then-president and COO, J. Terrence (Terry) Lanni, who moved it from the CBS studios in Philadelphia to Atlantic City and turned it into a variety show.

After two years on the radio, the whole operation was moved to Las Vegas and onto television (ESPN). Although he enjoyed the work, Charles says that hosting the TV show was enormously time-consuming and taxing on his family, particularly the weekly commutes from Philadelphia for tapings. After a little less than a year on television, he had to leave it.

“You have to walk away from the ego. The hardest part was walking away from that,” Charles says, adding that it took him “about five minutes” to get over it. “A good wife can overcome that in a heartbeat, and I’ve got one of the best.”

It was after that point when Charles and his wife started the entity for which he is best known today, The Sports Network, which he has grown and continues to run today (and a business that we recently profiled on FSB.com). The company began as a call-in service for phone companies such as AT&T and Bell of Pennsylvania that would provide scores and game information in 60-second segments and has grown into a global provider of expansive sports statistics and information.

Through moves to three different office buildings, however, the business that started in the Charles kitchen has never moved more than a mile away from the founder’s home. And in an era of mergers and consolidation, doing business with TSN still means doing business with Charles.

“When I give my word, you can take it to the bank and make a deposit,” he says. “Once I give you my word, it’s a done deal.”

The rise of TSN has also fed into another area that has gained Charles national and international prominence, the same role that once nearly turned him into a comedian. He is a frequent speaker at conventions and conferences, having appeared at gatherings in Japan, Europe and the Caribbean, as well as here in the States. What’s his secret to speaking success? A lesson that was reinforced back at the comedy club.

“You just go up,” he says, eschewing completely prepared presentations. “You’ve got to relate to your audience, not talk down to them. That’s why people like John Madden.”

That’s why people like Mickey Charles as well, and that includes people who sat in for the panel discussion he moderated at the July Fantasy Sports Trade Association conference in Chicago.

At one point, when Charles briefly paused his train of thought to pose a question to panelist Pete Vlastelica, founder of Yardbarker, Vlastelica replied, “I’m just enjoying listening to you.”

Company: Fanball
Launched: 1993
Site: www.fanball.com

Back in 1993, there wasn’t a whole lot in the way of fantasy advice on the market. Paul Charchian and Rob Phythian set out to change that.

“There was no information of any kind available once the season started,” Charchian told FSB.com. “We wanted to get something out there.”

Something was Fantasy Football Weekly, which hit Minneapolis newsstands and promptly outsold Sports Illustrated locally. The instant success quickly led an expansion of the business and in 1998, Fanball hit the Internet.

Unfortunately, the growth might have come a bit too quickly, as Fanball ran into serious trouble at the end of the decade and was forced to file for bankruptcy protection in 2000.

“We spent our money too fast, flamed out and filed Chapter 11 like others caught in the dot-com boom,” Phythian told the Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune back in 2004. “Fortunately, we were saved by some angel investors.”

The group of investors included the original co-founders, and the group scaled down the plan a little bit and brought the company back around.

“There’s a real business here, albeit smaller than everyone else had been hoping for,” then-CEO John Ehlert told the Fantasy Sports Informant in 2002, “and with some resources and dedication to business basics we can grow it steadily rather than astronomically.”

The altered path worked out, and today Fanball.com is a comprehensive fantasy sports site — operating as part of FUN Technologies Inc. — that offers a variety of games and original content in six sports, namely baseball, football, basketball, hockey, golf and NASCAR.

“We feel we offer everything possible for both the casual and advanced fantasy consumer,” says Ryan Houston, Fanball’s senior vice president for business development and publisher. “We like to say ‘Play it all at Fanball,’ and that statement is completely accurate.”

Houston touts more than 50 games in the Fanball library, including league commissioner and draft-and-play offerings in each of the four traditional major sports, as well as “challenge games” in each of the six sports mentioned above. That area of the site was enhanced by the 2006 purchase of CDM Sports, which has been running games such as salary-cap contests since 1992, and its integration with Fanball under the umbrella of Fun Technologies.

“We are quite pleased with how quickly CDM was able to consolidate all the Fanball products into one property,” Houston tells FSB. “The strength of CDM was in-game play and development, and that continues today.”

The melding of Fanball and CDM created a single operation in St. Louis with about 50 staffers handling the game applications and churning out the fantasy content. Among the recent developments have been the platform for the Olympics quick-pick game presented by NBC Sports for the Games in August, a fantasy football application for the iPhone that launched at the beginning of the season and an expansion of Owner’s Edge (Fanball’s proprietary service that offers fantasy news, information and advice). The company’s holdings also include TQ Stats, Roto Times and FantasyCup.com, and Houston says that there is interest in adding to the portfolio.

“The recent launch of our first iPhone application and fantasy video segment gives you a glimmer of what our technology group is capable of producing, and we look forward to the challenges, innovation and growth that are ahead,” he says.