Gridiron Grumblings

Gridiron Grumblings is an e-zine first launched in 1995 with a focus on NFL football. As an early example of fantasy sports e-zines.

History

The e-zine was founded by John Georgopoulos and first launched in 1995, using the new medium of the Internet to focus on a percieved public desire for no holds barred NFL commentary.

As the internet advertising bubble burst in 1998, the company switched its focus from providing NFL commentary to that of fantasy football predictions and analysis. Unlike other sites which were dispensing "Start 'em, Sit 'em" advice, and instead of simple lists and fan forums, Gridiron Grumblings produced strategy articles. Each article was written with the purpose of spurring the reader to draw his own conclusions about the best players to draft, how to handle league controversies, the best way to run an auction draft, etc.

In January 2007, Gridiron Grumblings became Sports Grumblings to better reflect its coverage of all the major fantasy sports categories.

Innovation
Gridiron Grumblings has contributed original concepts to the fantasy football industry, including:

*Internet audio broadcasts, which it produced as early as 1996, in a one-hour audio broadcast format. Dubbed "WGRD Radio", there were 117 episodes recorded through September 2001, including owner John Georgopoulos' emotional first-person account of the September 11 attack on the World Trade Center. This was 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.

*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.

*Fantasy Forecast Rating System was the first system to be used across all positions, enabling the absolute valuation of players. The FFRS has been used to rank offensive, defensive and special teams players.

*Consistency Rankings was a metric designed to describe the degree to which a set of player performance varied-- either over the course of a season or a career. In essence, Gridiron Grumblings was able to apply a Coefficient of Variance to fantasy play.

*Age Variance, a metric to define the statistical effect of player age on performance, by position.

Notable contributors
Sports Grumblings has been home to several of the fantasy industry's award winning writers:

:Greg Kellogg - Winner of the 2004 Fantasy Sports Writers Association award for best fantasy football series (for Snap, Crackle & Pop)

:John Georgopoulos - Winner of the 2006 Fantasy Sports Writers Association award for best fantasy football series (for Fantasy Forecast - The Strategy Series)

:John Rakowski - Winner of the 2007 Fantasy Sports Writers Association award for best fantasy football series (for Snap, Crackle & Pop)

Affiliates

Sports Grumblings has also launched a 24-hour live streaming sports talk radio affiliate website, Radio Grumblings, with content on all sports covered by Sports Grumblings.

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See Also

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