Andrew Wainstein, creator of Fantasy Football League, tells us the fascinating story of a simple idea that went global
This week, our guest on the 'Creative Legends' podcast is Andrew Wainstein, founder of Fantasy Football League.
Andrew is behind the hugely successful Fantasy Football League, which launched in 1991 and over the years has developed a loyal, cult following.
Many of those who played the game at its inception still play today!
Fantasy Football League is a great example of a creative idea that started in the pre-internet age, that has evolved and despite being copied, it has retained its individual popularity.
It is, essentially, the fascinating story of a simple idea that went global.
Here is a summary of what Graham and Andrew discuss:
- The concept of the game and how it works
- How Andrew came up with the idea
- How the formula is still basically the same as it was when it began 30 years ago
- How Fantasy Football League began as a game to play with mates in the pub and grew into a global phenomenon with a following of 6 million
- How Andrew, with his knowledge and background in computing, started Fantasy Football pre-internet, pre-Sky Sports and pre-Premier League
- How Andrew used the postal system to update players on their team's performances every week!
- Andrew talks about the issues surrounding IP, how he feels about protecting ideas and how, for him, it is about moving on to new ideas
- How Fantasy Football League became part of the 'data revolution' in sport that we are so familiar with today
- How Andrew's background as a 'geek' in computing helped with crunching the numbers
- How the business developed with newspapers The Telegraph and The Sun
- And how the TV programme “Fantasy Football” with Skinner and Baddiel helped make it a global success.
This podcast series is called 'Creative Legends', hosted by a good friend of Creative Moment, Graham Goodkind.
