The three guys from Arizona behind popular podcast are coming to SiriusXM with their own two-hour, live weekly show.
Launching ahead of the 2019 NFL regular season, “The Fantasy Footballers on SiriusXM” will feature the podcast’s hosts — Andy Holloway, Jason Moore and Mike Wright — analyzing the gridiron fantasy-sports landscape and taking calls from listeners seeking advice on their draft picks. The show will debut Aug. 22, airing every Thursday (5-7 p.m. ET/2-4 p.m. PT) exclusively on the SiriusXM Fantasy Sports Radio channel.
In addition, The Fantasy Footballers’ independently produced podcast will be broadcast on the SiriusXM Fantasy Sports Radio channel — the first podcast to air on the channel — each weeknight at 1 a.m. ET/10 p.m. PT, starting Monday, Aug. 19.
“The Fantasy Footballers are trusted experts in the game, and we’re excited to give our subscribers a leg up in their leagues with exclusive access to Andy, Jason and Mike on their new, weekly SiriusXM Fantasy Sports Radio show,” said Steve Cohen, SiriusXM’s SVP of sports programming.
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In another new pact with the NFL, The Fantasy Footballers are participating in “NFL Fantasy League One,” a new short-form video series premiering Tuesday, Sept. 3, which will connect NFL fantasy experts and NFL Network personalities with celebrities who love the game. With participants divided between “expert” and “celeb” divisions, “NFL Fantasy League One” will stream four shows per week and feature segments updating viewers with the latest fantasy news, as well as League One updates from both the celebrity and expert divisions. “NFL Fantasy League One” content will be distributed via the new NFL Fantasy app, NFL.com and the NFL app. Segments will also be featured within “NFL Fantasy Live” on NFL Network and across the NFL’s fantasy social accounts.
In addition, this season, Fantasy Footballers’ Wright will be the voice of Amazon Web Services NFL Next Gen Stats national TV campaign.
The Fantasy Footballers podcast debuted in 2014, after the three had become friends when they worked for a Scottsdale, Ariz., tech startup producing Facebook games. Initially, it was just a fun sidelight: “Andy and Mike started a podcast just ragging on the other guys in our fantasy-football league,” Moore said.
It became a hit, and they soon quit their jobs to turn The Fantasy Footballers into a business. In 2018, the podcast topped 100 million downloads in 2018, making it the largest fantasy-football podcast in the U.S., and their YouTube channel, which over 140,000 subscribers. The show won the “best sports podcast” category at iHeartMedia’s first Podcast Awards in January 2019.
At the outset, “We felt there was an opportunity to bring something new: a fantasy-football show that spans the full year,” Holloway said. “We knew we had to be accurate, and we had to be entertaining — there are some fantasy shows that are like reading from a spreadsheet.”
The business is profitable and last year generated $2.7 million in revenue, according to Holloway. The team produces the podcasts and YouTube videos from a studio in north Phoenix, and the company has three full-time employees and 12 contract writers. Especially in the early days, The Fantasy Footballers relied on fan contributions via Patreon, where they provide their members extra content. So far, they’ve remained independent and haven’t taken on any debt or outside investment.
“We’re lucky we got in when we did,” said Holloway. The recent gold rush into podcasting and resulting content explosion, he said, “makes it more difficult for independent podcasts to break in today.”
The Fantasy Footballers also sell “The Ultimate Draft Kit” digital guide (available in two editions, priced at $30 and $60), which they market through the podcast, and the trio went on a five-city tour earlier this year. In addition, they have committed to philanthropic efforts, partnering with St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital this year to support its mission to end childhood cancer.
The Fantasy Footballers are represented by Amplify Management and are signed with WME.
Pictured above (l. to r.): Mike Wright, Jason Moore, Andy Holloway