The Fantasy Sports Writers Association has determined the finalists for its 18 award categories, and FSB.com will be sharing the names with you over the next couple of days.

Up first is the hotly contested honor for the year’s best fantasy football writer, which went to Rotoworld’s Gregg Rosenthal last year. This time, the final three is completely different.

Andy Behrens of Yahoo!, Jay Clemons of SportsIllustrated.com and Jeff Pasquino of Footballguys.com will each be waiting to see if his name is called when the FSWA hands out its awards at the upcoming Fantasy Sports Trade Association winter business conference. The event is set for next Tuesday and Wednesday, Jan. 27 and 28.

Organization: Fantasy Sports Writers Association
Launch date: 2004

The close of the NFL season ends the busiest portion of the calendar for many around the fantasy sports industry, but it opens the most hectic stretch for the FSWA. Board members are working feverishly to process entries for the association’s fifth annual writer awards, which will be given out later this month. Even so, President Mike Beacom — who succeeds Ryan Houston and Kirk Bouyelas in that position — managed to find time to sit down and answer some questions for FSB.com.

1) What was the motivation for the formation of the FSWA?
Ryan Houston and Kirk Bouyelas — both of Fantasy Asylum at the time — started the effort with Emil Kadlec and Bob Harris of Fantasy Sports Publications. The group felt that there was nothing that recognized writing in the industry. There are so many writers, and there wasn’t anybody to represent them. It’s been our mission to recognize excellence in fantasy writing ever since.

2) How did you enter the picture?
I stumbled upon the site in the early days in 2004 and noticed that there was no chairman, so I offered to serve in that capacity. We had several meetings, got things organized and before long we had a major sponsorship in place (a Ford fantasy contest).

3) Why is it important to represent fantasy writers?
Writers are the little guys in the industry. They don’t do it to make money. They do it because they love fantasy, and because most of them love to write. We’re a community, and we try to give a little bit extra to the writers. We’re trying to build a place for them to come together.

4) How did the FSWA go about building its membership?
It’s a grassroots organization. Unlike the [Fantasy Sports Trade Association] and most other trade organizations, we’re writers more than businesspeople. We had to put out the product, and, slowly but surely, people came to us. Companies such as Rotowire and Talented Mr. Roto really pushed the importance of the organization with their staff and encouraged their writers to join.

5) How strong is membership today?
Close to 100 new members have joined this past year alone. We’re thrilled with that number. We’ve pushed FSWA membership harder, but I don’t know if I could attribute the growth to any one thing. There’s growth in the industry, and now we’re more established. We had a long list of things we wanted to offer from the beginning, and more of that is coming to fruition.

6) How important is the board of directors?
Our board is really important and is a huge part of who we are. The members care about their staff and about strong writing in the industry. Peter Schoenke (Rotowire), Matthew Berry (ESPN), Gregg Rosenthal (Rotoworld) — those are people that have been on the board for a long time. This year we added Michael Fabiano (NFL.com) and Brandon Funston (Yahoo), both of whom we’re thrilled to have. It’s been important to us to not only have names but people who support writers in this industry.

7) What has the FSWA accomplished so far?
Like the FSTA, one thing that we’ve done is to help create discussion among people from different sites. It’s one place that a discussion can occur among sites of different sizes.

8) What was the impetus for the creation of the annual FSWA awards?
It was a no-brainer. There were no awards for individual writing categories. There were people contributing an incredible volume of content, but there was nothing to recognize it. We’re very happy to have a strong relationship with the FSTA (at whose winter business conference the award winners are announced), and we do what we can to give back to that relationship.

9) How integral have they become to the FSWA’s image and mission?
It’s one of the things we do. It’s probably recognized as the biggest thing we do as far as the members go. Certainly in the future we want to do more and more, but it’s our big show. It gets a lot of recognition inside and outside of the industry, and that’s good for us. By recognizing those in the industry, I think we have gotten people excited. I don’t think that people write to win awards, but it’s nice to get recognized for your work.

10) Please describe what goes into deciding the recipients.
First of all, [FSWA technical director] George Kerwood plays an important role in posting all of the entries to the site. He burns the candle at both ends to get everything set up for the judges. Same is true of the rest of the executive committee. This year we had more than 800 articles submitted, easily a record number. Last year, we had a record, and it was a little more than 500. After everything is in place and categorized it becomes a two-step judging process. Our board reviews all of the nominations, and the finalists are reviewed by an independent panel of judges (two college journalism professors and a longtime sports columnist at a major market newspaper).

We go to large measures to keep it anonymous, which is very difficult when you have a community like ours where many people are familiar with each other and their writing. But we do everything we can to keep this awards process honest. No names on the articles, no titles, and we scan through each article to identify and remove any site references. It’s a lot of work, but the contest continues to grow each year so it means it’s worth all of the effort.

(Note: Beacom also serves as the publisher of SportsBuff.com, part of the same company that owns this site.)

Company: Allstar Stats / Rotoworld.com / Sandbox.com (NBC Sports Fantasy Division)
Launch date: January 1, 1989 (Internet March 1995)
Became full-time operation: 1989
No. of employees: 10

This week we debut a new format for the business profiles, where one or more representatives of the company tell you about the operation via a Q&A format. This first edition draws together several businesses under the NBC Sports fantasy umbrella, with answers provided by Rick Wolf, director of business development for NBC Sports.

1) What was the impetus for the creation of Allstar Stats? What did it offer in its earliest stages?

Rich Pike and Mike Oliveto were high school friends and coworkers at Friendly’s restaurant in Thornwood, N.Y. In 1988, Oliveto worked as a developer at the Power Authority and Pike worked in marketing for online services CBS/IBM/Sears joint venture Prodigy. They played in a fantasy league and hated the reports. Oliveto took the data from the reports and generated better ones. The next year, they decided to run the business out of their parents’ house. Oliveto would do technology and Pike would focus on marketing. They bought a stats feed, bought ads in magazines and started running leagues.

The leagues came in very fast, so they bought hardware and worked long hours to make sure that their customers had the highest level of service and the best reports in the biz.

• In 1992, they added an IVR (interactive voice response) system so people could do transactions by phone.
• In 1995, they went on the Internet with an automated transaction system called the Evaluator.
• In 2002, they brought on Rick Wolf and his Full Moon Sports consulting company.
• In 2003, they hired Gregg Rosenthal as lead NFL writer.
• In 2004, they hired Rick Cordella, who wrote as a stringer to program Rotoworld.com. Cordella quickly became part of the management team and has carried the vision for Rotoworld.com from 2005 to today.

2) How did Rotoworld.com come about, and what has driven it to its current position in the industry?

Rotoworld.com was created as a news source for Allstar Stats leagues in 1998. Matthew Pouliot and Troy Beech approached the Allstar Stats owners with the idea of working for advertising money. Those four initially split all revenues for Rotoworld.com. In 2002, it became a destination site when Allstar spent money at a new design and Pike and Wolf developed our first online draft guides and Assistant GM products (now called Season Pass).

3) What kind of startup costs did each incur, and how did you come up with any necessary capital?

Pike and Oliveto started Allstar as a side job in 1989 and they quit their day jobs in 1990. They spent $10-15k on print ads the first year that they got back in signups in 1989.

4) Was there a big break, a specific occurrence, move or chain of actions that vaulted Rotoworld.com to its status as a leader in fantasy content?

Two moments: The first major moment is when Fox decides (in August 2003) to buy fantasy content instead of hiring writers. They pay us MUCH less than what they would pay a staff, but it allows us to invest EVERY dollar back into the site/personnel. It allows us to keep all our best people and extend technologically and content to achieve our leadership position, especially in content premiums.

The second major moment happens when Rotoworld.com takes a risk on an idea from Rick Cordella on how to maximize advertising on the site. In August 2004, Rotoworld.com begins to use ad networks to fill inventory that is not sold. An innovative method of using five to six ad networks at the same time results in triple the ad revenue for Rotoworld.com. Again, Pike and Oliveto are smart enough to pump it ALL back into Rotoworld.com and rebuild infrastructure of Sandbox/Allstar Stats, automating most of the two legacy sites.

5) How much of the revenue is connected to Rotoworld’s various deals to feed player updates? How many partners does the company have on that front?

Rotoworld.com has only a small number of clients (about a dozen). The content is also distributed to the 235 affiliates of NBC Sports.

6) How did the arrivals of Rick Wolf and Rick Cordella alter plans for or directions of the businesses?

Rick Wolf would never have played fantasy sports if it wasn’t for Rich Pike. In 1989, Pike, who played softball with Wolf, convince an owner in the Prodigy Rotisserie league to add Wolf as his partner since Wolf was on the development team for Baseball Manager, the first online fantasy baseball game. Wolf returned the favor in late 2001, by creating a set of suggestions for how to grow the Allstar Stats business, including private label games for media companies, Rotoworld.com as a destination site and content premiums. In January 2002, Wolf’s Full Moon company contracted with Allstar Stats in a heavily performance-based deal to raise top-line revenues.

Lost in the Allstar Stats success story is the impact of Rick Cordella. His advertising system innovation that tripled Rotoworld.com’s revenues starting in 2004 turns out to be the critical Allstar Stats/Rotoworld.com innovation since it drove high-margin revenue and set the stage for NBC’s involvement.

Most important is Cordella’s daily focus to quality, coupled with his ability to find, sign and most importantly retain great fantasy sports writers and understand what great sports content is. This is what makes Rotoworld.com continue to lead in fantasy news and premium content products.

7) How did the relationship with NBC generate?

NBC bought the rights for NFL football and wanted some contests and fantasy content for their soon-to-launch NBCSports.com. They called their old friend Brett Vandermark, who worked for the Arena Football League. Sandbox.com did the official Arena Football League games using an Allstar Stats engine and content from Rotoworld.com. VanderMark recommended Allstar Stats and Wolf, then acting chairman of Sandbox.com.

Allstar Stats execs worked with NBC Sports veteran Kevin Monaghan to create a partnership deal to produce games/content. At that time, NBC Universal became interested in owning it all to jumpstart its new NBCSports.com initiative. NBCU purchased Allstar Stats, Rotoworld.com and Sandbox.com on August 18, 2006.

8) What have been the biggest benefits of NBC’s acquisition of Allstar? If you could go back, is there anything you would do differently?

NBC brings a level of expertise, passion and economies of scale that taught us how to be better at what we do. They have shown a keen interest in the Rotoworld.com property as a breaking sports news property and continue to be very supportive of the premium content business. It really is a family.

As for what I would do differently, I believe you should never go back. Look ahead and the future is bright!

David Bowie said: “Things that happened in the past only happened in your mind. Forget your mind and you’ll be free.”

9) What examples can you point to of NBC’s commitment to the fantasy platform?

We had 30-second spots on preseason games. We have had integrated information in all telecasts and in every Football Night in America. We have been promoted in every type of NBC Sports telecast.

Most importantly, they include fantasy in EVERY discussion. NBC Sports simply gets it on all levels.

10) What can we expect to see from you guys going forward?

We will continue to innovate whether in content premiums, fantasy content and/or content strategies. We will continue to dedicate ourselves to speed of delivery and depth of coverage. We will continue to expand fantasy sports news to be thought of as sports news.

The Fantasy Sports Writers Association is accepting nominations through the end of the year for its fifth annual writing awards.

The awards encompass football, baseball, basketball, hockey, auto racing, golf and now college sports. The FSWA selects a writer of the year in each of those sports and also presents several awards for top articles and running features in the premier fantasy fields of football and baseball.

This is the first year that the FSWA has included college sports in the list. According to FSWA president Mike Beacom, the recent growth of fantasy college sports helped to spur increased interest in the FSWA that was already evident last year at awards time.

“The 2007 FSWA Awards witnessed a record number of nominations and we are confident this year we will top that mark,” Beacom wrote in the association’s November newsletter, which announced the nomination period. “The FSWA welcomed close to 100 new members during the course of the past year.”

Writers must be enrolled in the FSWA to nominate candidates or win an award. Author names and affiliations are removed for the judging process, and winners are ultimately determined by independent college journalism professors, according to the FSWA. Those interesting in submitting nominations can use the online form any time before the end of the year. Anyone submitting for Magazine of the Year in baseball or football should mail three copies of the publication to the following address:

FSWA
c/o Mike Beacom
P,O, Box 296
Amherst, WI 54406

Awards will be presented at the 2009 Fantasy Sports Trade Association winter business conference in Florida on Jan. 27-28. Last year’s winners included Rotoworld’s Gregg Rosenthal for top football writer, Rotowire’s Jeff Erickson for top baseball writer, Rotowire’s Andre’ Snellings for basketball, Rotowire’s Janet Eagleson for hockey, ESPN’s Christopher Harris for auto racing and CBS Sports’ Ross Davenport for golf.