If you want to know where you're going,
you have to know where you came from
Fantasy Football's Origin Story
The year was 1962, and a man named Wilfred "Bill" Winkenbach created the first ever fantasy football league. Wilfred was a limited partner to the Oakland Raiders and a business man. He enjoyed sports related statistics, probability and decision making. He was particularly fascinated by how individual player performances could be quantified and compared. He would become the first ever commissioner of a fantasy football league and decided to call it "The Greater Oakland Professional Pigskin Prognosticators League" (GOPPPL). Everything was by hand, there was no character limit to create a name that long. The internet wasn't invented yet so everything was run by pen, paper and newspaper box scores.
The GOPPPL was made up of Raiders Executives, Sports Journalists and close friends. There was no initial plan to mass produce or monetize it. The motivation was bragging rights and friendly rivalry, not profit. It was meant to spark conversation, debate and weekly competition among a small group. The game of football had become limited to fans only caring about their local team. Fantasy Football started to give fans a reason to have a personal stake in games that otherwise wouldn't matter to them. He had no idea that this simple game concept would evolve into something culturally massive. Not just culturally massive, financially massive. Financially the fantasy market has grown to over 12 BILLION in North America alone, and he made nothing from it.
So it's safe to say the game concept caught on. Fantasy Football started as a smart social experiment to make fans think more deeply about the game. It has now become a global entertainment industry that literally reshaped how football is watched.
So why am I here today trying to launch a fantasy football platform?
I've spent two decades as a commish of fantasy football leagues, I've played this game on every existing platform. None of them are good enough. Stop being okay with things that are sub par, you deserve better. Somehow, in a world of technology and A.I., existing fantasy platforms still haven't given the people everything we want in this game.
The vision of RiVL is to create a fantasy football platform that embodies the very spirit of why we play this game. A game that should be represented by a simple, user friendly, and digitally engaging format. I say this as someone who is heavily involved in this game, played it for years and tired of going off the platforms to do things my leagues want to do. I also say it as someone with a business degree, worked 18 years in medical sales for both start ups and large global corporations. I can spot a business model that needs to be optimized.
Fantasy Sports is a 37 billion dollar global market and there is plenty of room for a new platform to step in and take a piece of that pie. Existing fantasy platforms should be aware they have a new rival (RiVL). The process of fund raising and making this dream a reality, has officially begun.
Let's build the greatest and most loyal group of game players this industry has ever seen. Architectural plans are being drawn up.
Kevin