Patrick Butler ’98 sells fantasy basketball site Sports.ws

Thursday, January 31, 2013

[Patrick Butler ’98] Creator of the fantasy basketball site Sports.ws, Patrick Butler ’98 writes about the value of fantasy sports and his decision to sell the website in his blog post, “The Most Elaborate Weekend Project of My Life: Why I Built, Maintained, and Sold Sports.ws.”

“I have vivid memories of getting excited about the Sunday edition of the Chicago Tribune as a kid. It listed every baseball stat for every player on every team. I think I spilled more Honey Nut Cheerios on sports pages than I actually ate. I liked playing baseball like any red-blooded American boy, but I think I liked it the same way Nate Silver does today, because it has more data points that just about anything in history.

“I knew about Rotisserie baseball and how you could simulate your own games with friends, but damn if I was going to wait more than a week to get back results in the mail. I tried Strat-o-matic and Earl Weaver for Apple ][, but there was something about playing with a big group of friends that was most appealing about the potential of "fantasy" baseball.

“I made up rules and manually scored a league for my friends early in high school. I can’t say it made me the coolest kid in school, but it was fun. Don’t worry, I still got chicks because I played trombone and was in advanced math.”

Read the full story…

Image: via Patrick Butler.

Friendly URL: wesconnect.wesleyan.edu/news-20130131-patrick-butler

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