Name: Greg Kellogg
Nickname: Greg to friends, komments on the web
Job title(s): Solutions Architect (real world), BlogTalkRadio Host (fantasy world)
Full-time in fantasy? Not currently though I have been in my past
Age: 55
Education: Lots of college — no degree
Family status: Married for 34 years
Favorite fantasy sport to play: Football
Favorite sport to watch: Football and college basketball
Favorite team (any sport): Detroit Lions (yeah, I’m a masochist at heart)
All-time favorite athlete: This is tough: In football probably Barry Sanders, but overall I would have to say Jesse Owens for how he represented us at the Berlin Olympics.
Years playing fantasy: 21 (since 1988)

I got my start in the fantasy industry when: I started writing a column titled Kellogg’s Komments in the mid-’90s. I was the first to syndicate my work to multiple fantasy sites, with Komments appearing on more than two dozen sites, including Mr. Football (now Football Guys), The Huddle and Sam Caplan’s Fantasy Insider. Shortly after that I opened my own site, Komments.com, where I provided a forum for up-and-coming writers to be published.

Since then, my fantasy résumé includes:
Producer, FOXSports.com (full-time)
Creator of the Ladies of Football league that promotes the hobby to ladies
Partner, FantasyAsylum.com
Sr. Writer, GridironGrumblings.com (now SportsGrumblings.com)
Guest Writer, SportsIllustrated.com
Partner, FantasySportsGroup.com
Radio Host, FantasySharks.com

I also was awarded with the prestigious Fantasy Sports Writer’s Association (FSWA) Annual Award for the Best Fantasy Football In-Season Article, Feature or Series — an award that my article, penned by another author, received two years later.

Named to the inaugural FSWA Hall of Fame class in 2010.

Before fantasy, I worked in: The Army (military intelligence — Russian Linguist) and Defense Contracting.

Three questions

1. How did the transition from Komments.com to your various fantasy pursuits since then come about? Was it tough to let the old site go?
I was spending about 40 to 60 hours a week on Komments, and it was getting to be too much when I also had a 50-hour-per-week paying job. I sent a notice to my email list stating that I was going to cut back on the work I was doing for Komments to maintain my sanity (and my marriage). A week later, Mike Perlow contacted me to ask if I would be interested in a job with FOXSports.com. It is always tough to let go of a business you have built from nothing (even when the business isn’t making any money). But the opportunity to get paid for a full-time job in the fantasy sports industry was well worth letting Komments go.

2. How did your background in military intelligence and data analysis feed into your fantasy exploits?
Military intelligence trains you to be very cognizant of patterns — to be logical in your analysis and to dig through reams of minutiae to find one small sliver of intelligence. Fantasy sports analysts — at least the good ones — do the same thing. When I first started, news and insight were hard to come by. Hence the 40 to 60 hours of weekly digging. Now information is everywhere, and the difference is in the analysis. We still dig through all the news, but now things like how the pension change is causing assistant coaches to consider changing careers is as important as a Pro Bowl left tackle changing teams.

3. Can you give us the full (OK, maybe abridged) story on the FAD?
Sure. Joe Bryant and I created FanEx from some folks in the old rec.sport.football.fantasy newsgroup. We started doing live drafts at fantasy football conventions early on. These were extremely popular and presented us with large crowds. We found that if we would give a short analysis to go with our picks, the folks watching would maintain interest, so we took the idea back to the league and started a May Draft where we provide our analysis of our picks, hence the name FanEx Analysis Draft — shortened to FAD for everyone now. In some years we have added guest analysis and during our live drafts we would take questions from the audience. This remains a very popular draft to this day.

Bonus: Be honest — would your bumper sticker say “I’d rather be fishing” or “I’d rather be drafting”?
Truthfully, it would be “I’d rather be CATCHING,” but if the fish aren’t biting then how about “I’d rather be Drafting while I am Fishing”?

As we reported nearly three weeks ago, Cecil Lammey and Sigmund Bloom of Footballguys.com will be hosting a 12-hour megashow on BlogTalkRadio’s The Fantasy Sports Channel on Saturday (Aug. 29) to raise money and awareness for cystic fibrosis research.

The Audible’s Drive for Cystic Fibrosis will kick off at noon Eastern on the FSC and run all the way to midnight (for the non-math majors in our audience), with Footballguys.com’s Matt Waldman and Andrew Garda of ThunderingBlurb.com stepping in for 30-minute breaks at 3 p.m., 6:30 p.m. and 10 p.m.

The hosts will be talking football and fantasy football all day with a slew of guests (including me at 4 p.m.). Bloom says the “tentative” schedule of topics looks like this …

12:00-1:30 — Quarterbacks
1:30-4:30 — Running Backs
4:30-7:30 — Wide Receivers
7:30-9:00 — Tight Ends/Kickers/Defenses
9:00-12:00 — Free for all

A donation site has been set up in conjunction with the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation.

A roundup of recent posts on the FSB News page.

– The Cystic Fibrosis Foundation has set up a donation site for The Audible’s Drive for Cystic Fibrosis — the 12-hour Fantasy Sports Channel event that will be hosted by Footballguys.com’s Cecil Lammey and Sigmund Bloom on Saturday, Aug. 29.

– The National Football Post will apparently give a big-screen plasma TV (of yet-undetermined size) to the winner of its league of fantasy football “experts.”

– The cable network best known as the relative Siberia to which the NHL playoffs were once banished will debut a sports business show, The $ports Take, on Aug. 25 at 6:30 p.m.

– Shane Schroeder, last year’s winner of the inaugural million-dollar prize from the Fantasy Football Open Championship, (who is hanging on to his day job for some reason) dishes to The Associated Press on what he expects in the coming football season.

Send all of your news, job postings, stories and profile ideas to FantasySportsBusiness@gmail.com. Follow us on Twitter (FSBcom).

Company: BlogTalkRadio
Launch date: August 2006
Became full-time operation: January 2007
No. of employees: 30

In not yet a year of existence, The Fantasy Sports Channel on BlogTalkRadio has built an impressive roster of shows featuring personalities in various sports from outfits around the industry. Marc Ronick, managing editor and creator of the FSC, took some time out last week to tell FSB.com about the launch, the first year of operation and what lies ahead.

1. First of all, can you explain the BlogTalkRadio business model to anyone who might be unfamiliar?

The network generates revenue via (1) corporate partners like Wal-Mart, Pepsico and Century 21, who lease entire radio stations and sponsor industry events, (2) traditional banner and on-air ads throughout our site and programming, and (3) two tiers of premium services, for individual hosts who want such features as expanded show lengths, call-screening and the ability to edit their shows.

2. In terms that any bum with a phone and a computer can understand, how does one get and operate a show?

For individual hosts, a basic weekly show is free. After signing up and creating their show - at which time they will see a dashboard that includes all the controls for cueing a recorded intro, taking live calls and so on - they simply schedule their debut edition. The system will generate one telephone number that the host calls in to launch the show and another that guests and listeners call into.

3. It seems like pretty much anyone who wants to can create a BTR show, right? So, what does it mean for that show to be on The Fantasy Sports Channel? What’s the difference between a “channel” and a “network”?

With thousands of shows on BTR to sift through, The Fantasy Sports Channel is intended to provide fantasy sports enthusiasts with one place to find exactly what they’re looking for. We go through a “recruiting process” with current and potential BTR hosts to determine if their shows are a good fit for the channel, and vice-versa.

4. What went into the creation and launch of The Fantasy Sports Channel, in terms of additional capital, marketing, partnerships, sales, roster building, etc.?

The costs involved in the creation of the FSC were nominal. BTR knew there was a market for this sort of programming, so a budget was set for higher-priority items. The real investment we made was one of time. A considerable amount of time was spent on recruiting hosts and then working with them (we started with 30 different shows) to put a program schedule together that worked for everyone. Marketing has been handled mainly through test campaigns, heavily focused on social networking. This included utilizing sites like Facebook and Twitter but also working with our hosts to network with their own listener and subscriber bases. With websites like footballguys.com, fantasyfootball.com, fantasypros911.com, thefantasyfootballguys.com, rotoexperts.com, etc., we had a tremendous opportunity to cross-promote our shows and channel.

5. The FSC launched about a year ago (unofficially in July 2008, officially in September). Can you describe the climb from there? How hard was it to convince your BTR cohorts early on that the FSC could work?

I was pleasantly surprised (almost shocked) how excited and cooperative hosts were about the concept. There were very few skeptics. Once they understood the potential and passion we had for the channel, they were on board. Most of our hosts look at the FSC and their shows as an add-on to the different products and services they offer. The channel follows that true spirit of social networking for both our hosts and our listeners. The amazing support and dedication the hosts and listeners have demonstrated has been more than we dreamed it would be. We couldn’t have any of this success without any of them.

6. Was there a specific turning point — an event or series of events that led you to believe (either at the time or looking back) that the FSC had “arrived”? (Whatever that means in the still rather nascent industry of Internet radio.)

That “ah ha” moment was after the first host agreed to join the channel. Craig Davis of fantasyfootball.com spent a lot of late nights on the phone with me learning the ins and outs of how to use BTR and how the FSC was going to work. Once he agreed, we knew that other hosts would see the same potential that Craig did. The other defining moment early on was to see the strong growth - 30 percent - in listenership from July 2008 to September 2008.

7. What do you think the channel does particularly well at this point, and where would you like to see it do better?

We have been able to provide a wide variety of content that keeps our channel interesting and informative. It has naturally evolved into a large niche community of “experts” and “players” all working together for the love of fantasy sports. As for areas of improvement, that’s probably more in the technical realm. I’d love to see a complete revamp of the channel’s homepage as opposed to the generic BTR channel page. We are working on a revamp that will hopefully launch just in time for kickoff in September.

8. There’s a growing view that college football is the next big growth area in fantasy sports. Have you been pursuing more programming in this area? Where else do you see growth potential — either in terms of specific sports or business pursuits?

Fantasy college football has been a growing area, and we are streaming that kind of programming. The first CFF show added to the channel launched early this year and now can be heard every Wednesday night at 7:30pm ET. As for other growth potential, the sky’s the limit. I’m hoping that we can continue to bring in big-name guests AND hosts that will draw in even bigger audiences. Streaming from big-time events like professional championship games, all-star games, rookie drafts, etc., will also give us a unique edge. We’re also working on several reality-style show concepts that get our listeners more involved with the channel.

9. How do you folks make money?

We have a number of partnership opportunities as we move toward our first anniversary of the channel — and the kickoff to the NFL season. We used this past year to establish the channel and our audience. The next step is to start bringing on sponsors and advertisers to generate revenue. The beauty of that is BTR offers a revenue-sharing program so our hosts can also reap the rewards for all of the hard work they’ve put into their shows and the channel.

10. What is the ultimate goal of The Fantasy Sports Channel?

The ultimate goal is to establish the channel as the premiere media source for fantasy sports. The media giants will always be sure to include quality fantasy sports programming here and there, but obviously has a bigger picture to focus on. We want all of the experts and enthusiasts to know there’s one place for everyone to go to give and receive free, quality content that both helps to generate new business for our experts and new perspectives to our listeners to consider as they manage their fantasy teams.