Name: John Diver (pronounced like “river”, not “diver”)
Nickname: “Div”
Job title: Director of Product Development, ESPN Fantasy Games
Full-time in fantasy: 15 years
Age: 40
Education: Washington ‘92 (English)
Family status: Married two kids (Ellie 6, Gavin 4)
Favorite fantasy sport to play: ESPN Fantasy Football
Favorite sport to watch: College Football
Favorite team (any sport): Washington Huskies
All-time favorite athlete: John McEnroe
Years playing fantasy: 20

I got my start in the fantasy industry when: Early in 1996 a friend who was working for a Paul Allen startup (Starwave) over the lake in Bellevue called and said they were looking to build online fantasy games. My interview consisted of showing the rules pages and spreadsheets from the “paper” leagues I’d been running. They explained how live stats, roster locking, standings, etc., could all be automated and managed real-time over the Web. I was hired and started the same day, writing the rules for what would be ESPN’s first fantasy baseball game.

Since then, my fantasy résumé includes: Almost every possible role other than writing software code. In all I’ve contributed to the launch of over 300 fantasy games titles for ESPN and probably won as many leagues. Here are the official job titles I’ve held:

Senior Director, Product Development - Digital Media
Director, Fantasy Games
Production Manager, Fantasy Games & Go Communities
Product Manager, Fantasy Games
Associate Producer, Starwave League Sites
Associate Editor, ESPNet SportsZone

Three questions

1. What were ESPN’s plans for and expectations of the fantasy games unit at the start back in 1996?

From the business side back then it was primarily about subscription revenue. As such our first task was to build a unique player-ownership fantasy game engine that would support the four major sports in a pay-to-play model. Our first year of fantasy baseball (1996) we had just over 7,000 teams join with an average price point of about $20. Fantasy football brought in about 15,000, the next season of baseball matched that and we created a nice little revenue stream for ESPN.

When the games started drawing sponsorship interest, we diversified and built “minigame” engines, i.e. “pick’em,” “challenge” and “bracket.” The first of such games was the salary-based Baseball Challenge 1997, and our strategy was to get users first into the free games then upsell and convert them to play the full-season pay games. Around 1998, the TV producers started to see the upside in creating games to help drive promotion/ratings for their products, and we extended the engines to work for such events as The ESPYs, Summer/Winter XGames and NFL Draft. By 2000 we were releasing over 25 game titles per year.

2. At what point did ESPN decide to get into offering commissioner-based games? What was the logic in making the games free to play?

The initial development for commissioner games started soon after we moved the group back East in 2002. At this time all our fantasy games were “standard,” in that everyone played with a fixed rules set and we played commissioner (ruling on protested trades, etc.). Our two main competitors — SportsLine and Yahoo — both offered users the ability to customize their league settings, so we started development of our own “League Manager” platform. At first we took the SportsLine model of charging on a per-league basis and launched Fantasy Football League Manager in 2003. However, after a couple of (difficult) years with little growth we changed direction and decided our best long-term strategy would be to offer both standard and custom leagues totally free of charge. SportsLine was charging about $120/league and Yahoo was still charging about $10/user for live stats, and we figured by going free with our marketing reach and brand name we would eventually win the never-ending battle for market share. The first year under this free model, our fantasy football unique users increased over 1,200%, and each year since over 25%.

3. What’s different about developing and producing fantasy games today from 1996? What hasn’t changed?

On the product side, the biggest difference is definitely scale. In the mid ’90s, we only had about 100,000 users playing fantasy football. By 2009, that number had increased to more than 3 million. As such we needed to re-configure our data models and hardware to match the load. Another thing that’s changed — especially over the last 3-5 years — is the acceptance of fantasy as a viable subject matter for TV content. Back in the ’90s ESPN never would’ve thought of producing an hour-long TV show on Sunday mornings dedicated exclusively to fantasy football.

On the “what hasn’t changed” side, fantasy football is still king. Fantasy football traffic rolled up is about equal to all our other games combined. Also, to this day, the single most-important factor in any fantasy product’s success is stability — especially when it comes time to do online live drafts and having accurate real-time stats on NFL Sunday’s. We’ve spent countless days/months/years working to ensure the games work to the level of quality users expect from an ESPN product.

Bonus: How long did it take before ESPN allowed fantasy guys to eat in that cafeteria we always see on the Sportscenter commercials?

Well really about 7 years, since the entire fantasy group was based in Seattle until one day in 2001 when we were told our operation was moving east to Bristol, Conn. Since then we’ve been allowed into the café where on any given day you’ll find yourself in the sandwich line with the likes of Hannah Storm, Bob Ley, Karl Ravech, Scott Van Pelt, Jamal Mashburn, Jalen Rose, etc. Every month or so you’ll see the Wieden+Kennedy folks filming a commercial for the This is SportsCenter campaign. And every now and then you’ll even see some random college mascot roaming the halls.

Name: John Zaleski
Nickname: Dr. Z
Job title(s): Owner
Full-time in fantasy? Since 1991
Age: 50
Education: BA in Marketing - Long Beach St.
Family status: Married 26 years with 3 kids, ages 21, 21, 13
Favorite fantasy sport to play: Baseball and Football
Favorite sport to watch: Hockey
Favorite team (any sport): Ducks and Angels
All-time favorite athlete: Teemu Selanne
Years playing fantasy: 26

I got my start in the fantasy industry when: The Original 1984 Rotisserie League Baseball Handbook came out. I started organizing work and fraternity leagues the next day.

Since then, my fantasy résumé includes:
1986 — Started “California Fantasy Sports” organizing So. Cal. leagues.
1988 — Changed name to “Ultimate Fantasy Sports” and went nationwide.
1989 — First of many Owners Conventions in Las Vegas
1990 — Started “Lifetime” Leagues where owners keep all players on their team from year to year.
1998-2000 — Co-Host Of Fantasy Fever Daily Internet Radio Show on Sportsline.com.
1999 — One of 12 founding board members of Fantasy Sports Trade Assocication.
2000 — FSTA Football Broadcast Award Winner
2001 — UFS Baseball Park Tour treated customers to games in 14 cities in 45 days with stops at Hall Of Fame venues in Cooperstown and Toronto.
2001 — Nominated for FSTA Lifetime Achievement Award
2002 — FSTA Executive of the Year Award
2002 — FSTA Small Business of the Year Award
2008 — Fantasy Factor Partners founded.

Three questions

1. You started your fantasy sports business before there was really anything we could call an industry. What made you believe success was possible in this space?

I started “fantasy” games in 1968, creating leagues playing “All-Star” baseball by Cadaco. I also created games in all sports combining a deck of cards with player stats. When I started UFS, I knew there were millions of sports fans with a passion as deep as mine, and I am not surprised at where the industry is today.

2. There aren’t many folks who can speak to the difference between running games before and after the dawn and spread of the Internet. How would you describe it?

Having a Life. Night and Day. Seriously, we started before FAX machines, and I remember leaving weekly reports on an answering machine and rotating the league reports each week. A 16-line, $25K voice-mail machine made the timeliness of lineup submission and league reports much improved until we went to the Net in 1997.

3. What makes your new venture, Fantasy Factor, different from other weekly/daily fantasy models hitting the market these days?

There are more than a dozen features that we feel make us better than the current models.

The “factor” style of game leads to more strategy than a salary-cap game, and it takes a minute to create a team, instead of the 10-15 of a cap game.

We guarantee action/prizes even if a league does not fill.

The website/game app is one of the best to ever hit the industry and was developed by one of the best interactive agencies in the U.S.

The rules of the game are simple, challenging and fun to play.

Bonus: Can you name the first players you ever drafted in each fantasy sport?

No fair!! That was 1984!! Let me go fire up the old AppleIIc. I’ll get back to you …

Name: Michael Levine
Nickname: People call me a lot of names. None of which I’ll share in this forum. I used to play in a heavy metal band in high school, though, and had an alter-ego called Ike McKaslin.
Job title(s): Senior Product Manager, Fantasy Sports
Full-time in fantasy? 10 years
Age: 36
Education: Graduated from a small but great school in Pennsylvania — Moravian College — and also attended Syracuse University for my freshman and sophomore years.
Family status: Married (Jillian - Wife), no kids … yet
Favorite fantasy sport to play: Baseball
Favorite sport to watch: Baseball
Favorite team (any sport): Philadelphia Phillies
All-time favorite athlete: Allen Iverson
Years playing fantasy: 16

I got my start in the fantasy industry when: SportsLine.com hired me for technical support of their Commissioner product shortly after they acquired Commissioner.com.

Since then, my fantasy résumé includes: Producer, Production Manager, Product Manager and now Senior Product Manager.

Three questions

1. You’ve been on the CBS fantasy scene since 2000. How has your job changed in that time?

Quite a bit. As you can see from the jobs listed above, I started in technical support. That was mostly just a way to get my foot in the door for what I thought at the time (and turned out to be right) was a great opportunity with CBS SportsLine. But it really helped me to understand this business from the ground up. My background is in both IT and business management, so I think my unique skill set at the time allowed me to advance rapidly through the system.

The combination of my product knowledge and technical ability allowed me to move into a producer role, which is more or less a technical role that involves getting everything in the fantasy realm up on the site. I then moved into a managerial role with respect to site production. From there I think my understanding of our products from a business perspective helped me move into a product manager role. In that role, we set the product goals and objectives and then develop and implement the strategies and tactics for each individual product on the site. My current job is the senior product manager, where I am working closely with our director of fantasy sports, Danielle MacLean, on both long- and short-term strategies for our fantasy business as a whole.

2. Football is the clear king of American fantasy sports. What percentage of your time and effort would you say is devoted to football-specific tasks? Has that changed in recent years with fantasy’s growth and branching out?

Percentage-wise, yes, football has traditionally dominated my time and effort — especially in terms of site production, where we have a much more comprehensive suite of products in football than in any other sport. We also manage NFL.com’s main suite of products, so between our two businesses there is certainly enough football work to keep us busy for a while. But we’re also constantly assessing our place in the market and evaluating opportunities across all sports that would be beneficial for our business as a whole. That is really taking most of my time right now and only a portion of those opportunities revolve around football exclusively.

3. CBSSports.com has seemed to try to involve users more heavily in the past couple of years, most notably with the user-generated player news updates. Why do you think such user outlets (such as blogs and forums, as well) are so important, and how has your audience responded?

Well, you just need to take a look at the Web as a whole to see why user outlets such as blogs and forums are so important. When you see sites like Facebook, YouTube and Twitter dominating the web traffic, it is clear that users want their voice to be heard. It only makes sense to see that translate to fantasy, where everyone I’ve ever encountered in this business has an opinion about something. We try to make it as easy as possible for our users to have a conversation about fantasy on our site, and our audience response has been tremendously favorable.

Bonus: Listed among your favorite teams are the Sixers, Flyers, Phillies and Penn State, which sure seems to peg you as a Philly boy. How the heck did you escape the grasp of the Eagles?

It’s a long, boring story that basically ties into family allegiances. I’ll spare everyone the long version and just say that I grew up in Allentown, PA, (about an hour north of Philly) which made it easy to follow the Philadelphia teams and adopt them as my own. Pro Football was actually the last sport I picked up, and since I was older, I was able to form my own opinions about which teams I wanted to follow.

Name: Brandon Funston
Nickname: The Gamer — the moniker used for several years at ESPN (online and magazine)
Job title(s): I manage the editorial group of Yahoo! Sports Fantasy
Full-time in fantasy? Full-time in fantasy for 13 years
Age: 39
Education: Attended Western Washington University
Family status: Married (Diana - wife) with 2 children - girl (Genesi — 6 years old) and boy (Jonas — 3 years old)
Favorite fantasy sport to play: Football
Favorite sport to watch: Football
Favorite sport to play: Basketball
Favorite team (any sport): Seattle Mariners
All-time favorite athlete: Gus Williams, Seattle Supersonics
Years playing fantasy: 26 years

I got my start in the fantasy industry when: I was 13 years old when my friend’s priest hired us to co-manage his fantasy baseball team for the sum of $100 apiece. He would come out on the balcony of his church living quarters and float dollar bills down to us so we could run off and buy research materials.

Since then, my fantasy résumé includes: I started my profession on a more permanent basis in 1996 as one of the first few hired on at ESPN Fantasy Games. I worked for ESPN for 9 years, spending several years managing the fantasy sports content group and the final two years playing a more prominent role as an on-air/online analyst. I also contributed a few years as a regular fantasy columnist for ESPN the Magazine.

I made the move to Yahoo! in 2004, again taking on the role of managing the fantasy content group. This is the (ever-expanding) role in which I reside presently.

Three questions

1. What was the demand for and treatment of fantasy content like back when you first joined ESPN? How quickly did you see things start to grow?

I think insatiable has always been the best way to describe the thirst for fantasy content, then and now. There used to be very few places you could look for an “expert” take online, but the industry has grown, as has the means by which opinion can be flaunted by anyone and everyone.

From a professional presentation point of view, I know that fantasy content, at least at places like ESPN and Yahoo!, has evolved to the point where it’s nearing the same level of internal editorial scrutiny as that of its traditional sports media components. As far as growth, it seemed steady for several years after I began in the industry, but it seems to have skyrocketed, in terms of industry breadth, in the past few years.

2. What brought you over to Yahoo! Sports, and how did your role differ from what you did at ESPN?

Frankly, I had a very good thing going at ESPN, but I spent the final couple years of my tenure there in Bristol, Conn. And the reputation of life in that Northeastern town is deserved. Admittedly, I’m a West Coast kind of guy — born and raised in the moderate, albeit rainy, northwest corner of the country. While in Connecticut, we lived in a classically beautiful New England town of West Hartford, but that didn’t overcome my desire to be back on the West Coast — closer to the family, friends and way of life I was accustomed to. It was tough to leave the ego-boost that comes from getting to rub elbows with sports celebrities on a daily basis in the halls of the Bristol campus, but after two years, my vanity had run its course. And Yahoo!, another monolith in the fantasy industry, offered me a great opportunity to get back to “my” side of the country without having to take a professional step down to get there. I made the move with no regrets, and it’s the same six years later.

3. How do you balance the various sports that you cover, and how does user feedback break down among them?

I have a love for the big three: football, baseball and basketball. But because of just the massive audience that football brings to the table, it garners the majority of my focus. So, while I have a passion for fantasy hoops, I have to slight it in terms of my personal content contributions to the site because its season comes midway through the football season, a time at which I have literally no extra time to give. Baseball gets a little more love from me because it begins as basketball ends and football is still in hibernation. But, with all things — be it managing writers, contributing my own content, or managing the relationship of our content partners — it’s just a matter of prioritizing. That said, I work from home, and the gravitational pull of an office only steps away from my bed can have me at my computer at all hours of the day.

As far as the breakdown of feedback goes, I think it’s proportionate to the audience of that sport. In any fantasy sport, I think there is a somewhat similarly sized (percentage-wise) subset of that participation group that is passionate to the point of actively engaging in message boards and other modes of feedback.