Peter Funt doesn’t play football. He’s not likely to show up in People Magazine cheering from boxed seats, watching the 49ers. And he has absolutely zero personal interest, he says, in wagering against sports. Yet, despite never throwing it down in Vegas and never, ever having sat in on a poker game in his life — he’s just not a gambler by nature — he won’t be heard preaching against it. After all, Funt does believe he’s coming dangerously close to developing an addiction to playing fantasy football.
Fantasy football is a game in which participants act as owners and general managers of virtual football teams. Competitors select their rosters by participating in a draft in which all relevant National Football League players are available.
“I only got into fantasy football,” said Funt, “because my son, Daniel Funt, and his friends started doing it and called it to my attention. I really didn’t know what they were talking about. I gave it a go and got hooked, way beyond Daniel in terms of time invested.”
And then the “Candid Camera” reality TV show scion wrote a book about it, “Inside Fantasy Football: America’s Favorite Non-Contact Sport” (Candid Camera, Inc. August 2024), which he dedicated to his son, a journalist and author who is currently writing his own book on the rise of sports betting in this country. And because it was Daniel who got his dad hooked on fantasy football.
“The closer I came to addiction, the more I thought I’d better find a way to monetize my interest,” the senior Funt joked. “It wasn’t working for me as a player, so I thought I’d come at it as an author and write, not about sports gambling, but about everything related to fantasy football except how to win. I focused on the history of the game, the celebrities who love to play — and there are a lot — the winners who have hit it big, and how AI could help people win and perhaps really change the game.”
A few years back, CBS Sports put out an online article titled, “These Celebrities are Better at Fantasy Football than You.” The piece cited actress Brooklyn Decker, actor Paul Rudd, who said, “I wish I didn’t like it as much as I do. It’s a sickness.” It also included actor Daniel Radcliffe, who said he spends countless hours doing mock drafts, so he doesn’t embarrass himself; as well as actor and entrepreneur Ashton Kutcher, plus racecar driver Dale Earnhardt Jr., rapper and entrepreneur Jay-Z, comedian and television host Seth Meyers, and actress Elizabeth Banks, who said she got into it because her husband, Max Handelman, authored “Why Fantasy Football Matters (And Our Lives Do Not).”
This past June, the FSGA (Fantasy Sports & Gaming Association) elected its first female honoree to the Fantasy Sports Hall of Fame, Stacie Stern, who is renowned for her efforts to legalize fantasy sports and gaming across the United States.
“This is a breakthrough of sorts,” Funt said. “And, in July, ESPN’s award-winning senior writer Stephania Bell received this year’s ‘Matthew Berry Game-Changer Award,’ presented by NBC Sports football analyst Matthew Berry.”
The award recognizes innovators responsible for building fantasy sports into a multi-billion “pastime.”
Peter Funt also tracked down and interviewed Alisha Hunt, the only woman to have won a million-dollar prize ($1.1 million) in fantasy football, he said.
The fascination with fantasy football
Reportedly, some 29.2 million Americans over age 13 play fantasy football. Yet the FSGA suggests the number is closer to 62.5 million players in this country. Research also reveals that some 203 million do not play.
“Fantasy football is a fun pursuit for those of us who are football fans,” Funt said. “I can’t imagine someone who knows nothing about the sport or who doesn’t watch football games getting into it. I have zero interest in sports gambling, and there’s nothing in my book about it. Fantasy football is different. I appreciate the skill element in fantasy football.”
Funt’s 249-page book took some eight to 10 months to research and write. The more he investigated the phenomenon of fantasy football, the more intriguing information he discovered.
“Fantasy football began in 1962,” he said, “invented by an owner of the Oakland Raiders, during their third year of existence. They were having a horrible season, which ended with one win and 13 losses. Bill Winkenbach, then part owner of the team, gathered with some friends to create the first fantasy league, called ‘GOPPPL’ — the Greater Oakland Professional Pigskin Prognosticators League — to enable football fans to become ‘owners and general managers’ of their own teams, and boost morale.” It worked.
Turns out fantasy football is about the best thing that ever happened to pro football, besides replacing leather helmets.
“Fantasy football is the best marketing tool ever for the sport,” said Funt. “It holds interest more than any real-life game would and fantasy football fans are now rooting for players instead of teams. The bottom line is, that you’ll watch even lousy games you otherwise wouldn’t because you have a player on one of the teams. It’s a miracle of marketing.”
And now, Funt says, you have to add him “at the bottom of the marketing food chain” for having wanted to write a book about it — and then he did.
An award-winning journalist and host of TV’s iconic “Candid Camera,” Funt previously wrote the book, “Playing POTUS: The Power of America’s ‘Acting Presidents,’” which is headed to TV screens this fall as an insightful and, hopefully, he says, funny documentary.
