John T. Georgopoulos
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John Tilemachos Georgopoulos (born April 20, 1965, in New York, New York) is a fantasy sports writer, commentator and computer scientist of Greek ancestry, whose work involving fantasy football analytics has been prominent in the fantasy industry since 1994.[1]
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[edit] Biography
After four years at Fordham University, Georgopoulos graduated in 1986 with degrees in Computer Science and Biology. While still in university, his interest in meshing fantasy sports with computer science became evident as he created a fantasy wrestling game-- dubbed Sgt. Slaughter's Matwars[2]-- which was the basis of the formation of the Silverline Games entertainment company.
While working as a programmer for an investment bank in 1994, Georgopoulos capitalized on a new medium-- the Internet-- to produce a simple website, with the goal of teaching himself HTML; he chose this forum to express his views on one of his favorite topics: professional football (the NFL).[3]
[edit] Gridiron Grumblings
The site received enough hits to encourage Georgopoulos to regularly update his commentary, as well as recruit former owners in his college roto leagues to provide additional content. By 1996, Gridiron Grumblings(R) was born, one of the first independent sites of sports commentary [4]
The site received several awards for excellence, including Netscape's "Cool Site of the Month" and "Cool Site of the Day" [5], a 'Top Site' recognition by Yahoo! Magazine [6] as well as a recommended site of FHM Magazine. [7]
[edit] Fantasy Forecast
Perhaps the first major insight gleaned by Georgopoulos was the concept of creating a ranking system to be used across all NFL positions, enabling the absolute valuation of players. In 1998, drawing on his experience in FOREX markets and as a programmer, Georgopoulos designed the Fantasy Forecast(R) Rating System (FFRS).
The success of the FFRS as a tool for fantasy football owners led to the concept being applied to all the major fantasy sports: baseball, basketball and hockey.
[edit] Innovation
Georgopoulos' work at Gridiron Grumblings has included:
Internet Audio Broadcasts as early as 1996, Georgopoulos was producing one-hour audio broadcasts, which were made available to its readers. Dubbed "WGRD Radio", there were 117 episodes recorded through September 11, 2001. His first-person account of the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center marked the final broadcast of WGRD Radio.
In 2004, WGRD Radio was reincarnated as Gridiron Grumblings Live!, a two-hour live broadcast covering fantasy football,the NFL and other topical events.[8]
Individual Defensive Players (IDPs) in standard fantasy football leagues. While a staple of fantasy football drafts today, the inclusion of IDPs in 1996-97 was considered FFL heresy.
Consistency Rankings was a metric designed to describe the degree to which a set of player performances varied-- either over the course of a season or a career. In essence, the application of a Coefficient of Variance to fantasy play.
Age Variance, a metric to define the statistical effect of player age on performance, by position.
[edit] Awards and Recognition
- Winner of the 2006 Fantasy Sports Writers Association award for best fantasy football series (for Fantasy Forecast - The Strategy Series)[9]
- Six-time finalist for various Fantasy Sports Writer Association (FSWA) awards
[edit] External links
[edit] References
- ^ Bleier, Thomas; Eric Steinert. "Net.People: The Personalities and Passions Behind the Web Sites", Cyberage Books, 2000, pp. 102.
- ^ U.S. Copyright Office, Reg. TXu000227258
- ^ Bleier, Thomas; Eric Steinert. "Net.People: The Personalities and Passions Behind the Web Sites", Cyberage Books, 2000, pp. 99-100.
- ^ Bleier, Thomas; Eric Steinert. "Net.People: The Personalities and Passions Behind the Web Sites", Cyberage Books, 2000, pp. 101.
- ^ Netscape Archives[1]
- ^ "Yahoo! Magazine", Ziff-Davis, November 1999.
- ^ "FHM Magazine (US)", 2000.
- ^ Radio Grumblings[2]
- ^ Fantasy Sports Writers Association
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