Over the last decade fantasy football has become a growing source of entertainment. Fantasy football allows users to become general managers of their own team. Each owner is able to manage and coach games based around NFL players. Fantasy football started in 1962 and since then has grown to 32 million people in the United States and Canada. Fantasy football has evolved to become one of the most well known fantasy sports over the last decade. In this post I will discuss when and how fantasy football started, current fantasy football information and why this is important.
Bill Winkenbach started a fantasy golf league in the 1950s. Golf was the first sport to have a fantasy league. Owners in this league would draft a team of professional golfers. At the end of the week the owner with the lowest score would win. This was before computers so all fantasy owners would sit down with paper and a pen and keep track of the league. You may be asking what does this have to do with football well it was the golf fantasy league that led Bill Winkenbach, Scott Stirling and Bill Tunnell to create the first fantasy football league in 1962. Bill Winkenbach was the part owner of the Oakland Raiders. He saw the potential for a league that involved football. He teamed up with Scott Stirling the Oakland Tribune columnist and Bill Tunnell public relations for the Oakland Raiders. The first fantasy team they created was called the GOPPL. This was an acronym for the Greater Oakland Professional Pigskin Prognostics League. They were able to get others involved. Drafts were held throughout the Oakland area as people continued to keep track of leagues independently.
