Three American buddies, two Canadian brothers and a couple of Mexican entrepreneurs walk into a fantasy sports trade show…
Fantasy sports bring out peoples’ passion. Roughly half of the people I met in Nashville, at the Fantasy Sports Trade Association (FSTA) winter conference, started their business because they love playing fantasy sports.
Ballers
I met The Footballers, three longtime friends who podcast about fantasy football all year long. There’s no offseason for them. Because they love fantasy football.
I shared a breakfast table with two guys from Mexico who built a daily fantasy service to satisfy Latin Americans’ passion for football — American football and soccer.
I pitched an idea for an eBook dedicated to sucking at fantasy football. My pitch was funny.

The two Canadian brothers who won the pitch contest were funny too, plus they have cool technology that curates all of your fantasy news. Dang those Canadian overachievers.
What do you do when you’re a doctor who’s passionate about fantasy sports? You create a company that projects injury risk for every NFL and NBA player. Here’s Tom Brady’s recent prognosis:
Another pitch showed how big data is improving the fantasy experience with customized, SportsCenter-like highlights reels. Check out this version for NASCAR fantasy:
No love for kickers
Speaking of SportsCenter, an ESPN writer provided my favorite stat of the conference: Over 70% of fantasy players think that kickers should be…kicked out of fantasy scoring.
I agree. (Nothing against kickers).
There was free pizza during the conference. And hot dogs. And bottomless bags of my favorite food, popcorn.
I’m passionate about fantasy sports and about writing, so pitching a book idea at the FSTA conference was a golden opportunity. Throw in a fantasy buffet of endless ballpark food and, well, that definitely does not suck.