🚄 The Hyper-Nichification Of Fantasy Sports

In this week's P.O. Box:

This tweet from Denny Carter the other day cracked me up:

It does regularly blow my mind how much the fantasy football industry has evolved from both a content and analysis perspective over the past decade.

I remember when I started doing The Fantasy Football Comedy Hour (a show that is exactly like the title would suggest) in 2015 with a group of friends I met doing improv, it felt like we were too early (or maybe just bad…probably a little of both). We were making sketches with extremely niche punchlines and praying a handful of fantasy sickos would find it entertaining.

I ended up making a ton of friends in the fantasy space from doing that show, but it never found the audience that I think it could today.

In 2023, the tentacles of the fantasy space extend far and wide and the ecosystem can amazingly support hundreds of various sub-niches nested within other niches.

A quick scroll through Fantasy Twitter today could send you down rabbit holes about Deebo Samuel’s success rate vs. zone and man converge, an Onion style parody article about Arthur Smith, whether sims think Zack Moss is a good play at sky high ownership, the impact of auto drafting best ball teams, 2025 prospect analysis, and a million other things under the fantasy sun.

One of the issues with the sprawling world of fantasy football content, though, is that it’s super saturated and most of it is very redundant.

It’s rare to find someone bringing something entirely new to the fantasy football content table, which is why I was super excited to talk with Greg Brainos from The Coachspeak Index on DFS After Dark this past Saturday.

Normally I make that show available just for YouTube members, but decided to make this one public for everyone:

Over the past few years, Greg has been building up a database that specifically tracks things coaches says and then grades their reliability based on what later happens on the field.

Not only is it a super fun and inventive idea, but it’s a legitimately actionable resource for hardcore fantasy players.

Talking to Greg—who has a wild background from both growing up in a cult and dabbling in a bunch of various professions (stand up comedy, poker, scriptwriting, card collecting)—got me wanting to tackle some more ambitious projects in the future.

Quick, worlds colliding aside: after the show Greg and I learned that we share some mutual acquaintances from the improv world.

It’s really easy to find yourself in cruise control during the season as a “content creator” (god, I still hate that term, but I’ve capitulated). Most of that is by necessity—there’s weekly shit that needs to get done and not a lot of time to color outside of the lines—but it also is easy to fall in the trap of doing the same things over and over again without taking big swings.

I’m already very excited for the offseason and tackling some new projects that are impossible to make time for during the season.

Maybe I can even find a way to use “Fantasy Douche” as a punchline again.

💎 Week 13 Hidden Gems for Battle Royale & DFS. Got your scroll down plays at each position:

☕️ An RB Saves The Day + DFS Tips (Week 12 DFS Recap). We had a profitable DFS day thanks to Kyren William's massive outing, but couldn't get to the big money prizes. We recap our GPP lineups, including some mistakes we made on one team and how to use ownership projections. We also scope out the Deposit Kingdom tournament and review the top teams. We then take a stroll through Underdog Fantasy, featuring our Pick 'Em entries and the final Dawg Bowl qualifier contest. We also share some lessons for how to get an edge in those contests. We wrap up with a quick check in on our BBM4 teams and some weird constructions.

🏆️ Fantasy Life roundup. Recapped the epic duel between Hurts and Allen in Week 12, surveyed the return of Zach Moss, and begrudgingly wrote about Aaron Rodgers.

💪 Swolecast: Draftkings Week 13 DFS picks. Guest Rikkidee joins and…makes the show good??

📺️ Thoughts on Rashee Rice, Joe Mixon, and more. Hopped on the Fantasy Life LG show with Matthew Berry, Golden Tate, and Marcas Grant this week.

☣️ The Quest To Improve Ownership Projections. Topics discussed: Bric's love/hate with Chat GPT, how ownership projections are made and Bric's goal to make them better, when to IKB the projections/sims, showdown DFS strategy, and contest selection on Underdog Fantasy.

🚢 JSN Debates w/ Mattek, Pick 'Em Hits & Praying For OT. Davis Mattek joins the ShipCast to argue about Jaxon Smith-Njigba and talk about the Short King Summer Industrial Complex missing on Tank Dell. The crew sweat some nice pick ''em entries, including a core entry that unlocks a giveaway for a viewer. Steph Miller joins in the second half to discuss ungrateful Cowboys fans and our high stakes portfolio that is about to make some noise in the playoffs. We wrap up praying for OT so we can sweep all of our entries and Gretch threatens to order Taco Bell.

📈 Late-Season Hammers, Playoff Prep, & Week 13 Targets. Drico & Sack return for a Week 13 edition of Stat Chasing where they break down all of the important usage and trends from Week 12 to prepare you for Week 13 waivers, the fantasy playoffs, DFS builds and Underdog Fantasy drafts. Topics discussed: potential 2024 draft stock for players like Tank Dell and Keenan Allen, the Ravens cost in playoff best ball, Devin Singletary & Kyren Williams, is it the end of an era for Travis Kelce, Dalton Kincaid vs everyone, and the top 5 WRs for next season.

📊 Ship Chasing High Stakes Team Reviews & Week 13 Waiver Roundup. Steph recaps our high stakes teams, including 4 of 7 FFPC teams with playoff berths.

We got 4 shows on tap before the Week 13 main slate kicks off…

🧩 Block Party: Week 13 DFS Plays & GPP Strat w/ JMToWin

⏱️ Off & On The Clock: Week 13 Draft Party w/ Badge Bros

🥃 DFS After Dark: Interview w/ Sackreligious

🤓 Week 13 DFS Cram: Top GPP Plays & Hidden Gems

🤯 Is Zero RB going to go back-to-back for the regular season prize in BBM? Looks like it.

🎧️ We serviced the audio listeners this year. We’ll never stop.

😆 I think about this Jonathan Mingo play every day. It will live with me forever.

🙏 I have one Zack Moss share in BBM4 thanks to Lord Reebs. This team is pretty filthy tbh.

👷 Put In The Work. Nice post from Leone here that piggybacks on the sweat stuff I described a few weeks back.

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