Thanks everyone. I posted this on the NFBC boards and hope you don't mind if I repeat it again. I am running around trying to finalize everything with the NFBC and NFFC and thus not on the boards as much as I'd like, but it's all good news folks and this honor will give me another reason to celebrate life over the next few days!! Like I really need an excuse, right?
Thanks all for the kind words and congratulatory posts. Thanks to Tom for letting you folks know!! Here I thought I could make a quiet exit out of freezing cold Iola, fly to Las Vegas, pick up my nice plaque and then sneak back quietly without anyone knowing about this. Damn, that plan has been shot down!!
I guess what this honor means is that I'm OLD!! And that I've been around a long, long time.
They usually give you these honors when you're ready to retire or die and I'm not planning on either right now!!
But it's definitely a great honor.
Seriously, it's great that so many of you can share in the joy of this honor. I really am very honored to be recognized for this award and for being part of the inaugural Hall of Fame class for the FSWA. It's a great group of guys who are being inducted on Tuesday night and I think we all have the same passion for this industry and we all have in some way progressed the awareness and growth of the fantasy sports industry. As I plan on saying in my speech, Content Is King in this industry and through our content we've all helped improve the fun of fantasy sports for many, many players, while growing the number of participants. When I started in 1989 there were an estimated 1 million fantasy players and today there are more than 30 million fantasy players in the U.S. and many, many more worldwide.
And along the way you have to be lucky. I was lucky when I saw the ad for an editor of a Rotisserie Baseball Magazine in April of 1989, applied for the job with more determination than anyone can imagine and got the job. I was lucky that we didn't shut down the magazine after losing money for two straight years. I was lucky when we decided to put football players on the cover of Fantasy Baseball Magazine and the incredible sell-throughs saved the magazine. I was lucky when Rob Neyer called me to be a regular fantasy columnist -- the first one for the site -- for something called ESPN.com when we didn't even have Internet in Iola, Wisconsin. In fact, for more than a year I wrote football, baseball and basketball columns for ESPN.com and never saw them because we still didn't have the Internet here. I was lucky when that gig gave me enough exposure to be asked to be on TV with Brady Tinker in 1997 for Fantasy Football Weekly, which aired on what would soon become FoxSportsNet. I was lucky when ESPN Radio then called and asked me to be a regular guest each Sunday night on Jack Arute's show. And I was lucky when our die-hard subscribers ponied up and supported the NFBC and NFFC enough to keep us alive for seven years.
Now today I KNOW I'M LUCKY with what the future holds for our high-stakes contests and events. I've never been more excited in my 22 years in the industry. I know this is going to play out well for Tom and myself and for all of our customers. So it's back to the hard work and back to building up the trust folks have had in us here. It's true that I've been lucky, but sometimes you also make your own luck.
Just so you're not worried about me, I will give myself a chance to have a little fun in Las Vegas with my buddy Geoff and Charlie and all the rest of my friends in the industry. It's going to be a good celebration and a time to reminisce about some funny stories. I'd like to think I've made a good contribution to this industry for the last 22 years, but there's no question in my mind that the next 22 years are going to be even more historic and productive.
I really do think the best is yet to come and I'm EXTREMELY excited about it. Come join me for the ride!!
Founder, National Fantasy Football Championship & National Fantasy Baseball Championship
Twitter: @GregAmbrosius
