On a weekly basis Tony Kornheiser shows the world a distorted and stupid side of them which should outrage the population.

At the beginning of the season award winning sports personality Bob Costas referred to them as geeks unworthy of being in his esteemed presence.

Of course the “Them” are not a 60’s rock band featuring Van Morrison singing Gloria, “they” are us; the fantasy football owners of the world.

Since before the inception of the internet, and the main streaming of the fantasy sports experience, owners have had to tolerate general ignorance regarding their activities. It used to be when an outsider found out you played fantasy football the response was, “Huh? What’s that?”

I gave up trying to explain anything but the barest of examples to people. Even this would leave them scratching their heads in an attempt to absorb what they found to be too unfamiliar. The worst insult I received came from a graduate student who, upon asking what I was busy writing about and hearing the answer said, “Oh. One of those sports things; How boring.” I did not get into how boring life long students are. I had learned from experience to let it slide while keeping a smile on my face. With this latest attack, I am finding it more difficult to just let it go.

Last week, during their pre-game show, ESPN posed the question, “Is fantasy football good for the game?” Although some players admitted to either indulging as owners themselves or tolerating fantasy owners, Jake Plummer came down on the negative side. He questioned how loyal fantasy owners could be if they had players on their team who were not a part of the “real” NFL team to which they portend loyalty. He concluded when it came down to winning and money fans would not be loyal to their geographic team, rather they would be loyal to the team they had created. This could only be bad for football. Jake could not be more wrong than if he was trying to avoid throwing a game losing interception.

I come from the land of the pirate; I am a Raider fan. This season it has been rough being one who bleeds Silver and Black. In fact, for the first time ever, I did not attempt to attain one Raider player on any of my fantasy teams. Despite this I am still a loyal fan even wearing my Raider jacket to school after the most embarrassing of loses. I endure tons of garbage from my students; still I am loyal to the guy with the patch on his eye as are all of the players in the Northern California league I play in each season. Yes we would love to see our team do better, but we hope for a victory as all loyal fans hope. When the Raiders are up against a team where we have fantasy players performing we hope for a huge offensive shoot out where our fantasy team players score three or four times while the Raiders score more points winning the game. There is no real conflict of interest, just hope we can fulfill both of our objectives while screaming at the television. There is no question of loyalty when it comes to matters of the heart. Jake is as clear about this as he is about his future in the league at the moment.

I have endured Tony Kornheiser for years. I first became aware of him on ESPN radio on my trip to school each morning. Sometimes he cracked me up, sometimes I just wanted to reach through the dial and smack him. When PTI aired I finally got to see what he looked like. Although the comb over looked silly, I found my opinion of him had not changed. There were times I laughed out loud; there were also times I wanted to reach through the screen to smack him. I found him to be relatively benign as a sports personality just like most sports personalities are. There are exceptions, see Jim Rome, but most sports people are nothing more than background noise while waiting for the action.

When Tony went to the ESPN Monday Night team replacing Paul McGuire, I hoped he might be a breath of fresh air compared to the hackneyed style of the aging kicker. In the beginning Tony seemed to be well briefed. While his insights were fairly obvious, he was not really irritating until the Monday game week five between the Broncos and the Ravens. With the final score of the game being 13 to 3 to Denver’s advantage it could hardly be called an offensive gem, but it was here we discovered the real Tony.

During the game he admitted he played fantasy football. Worse yet he admitted he had Jake Plummer playing just so he could have some fantasy action for the evening. In one sentence he demonstrated his total knowledge of the fantasy game; he would do anything just to have action both Sunday and Monday. Any fantasy owner worth his salt knows Plummer is nothing better than a back up, perhaps even a back up to the back up. (Of course now he is not even on the fantasy charts) In the pursuant weeks Tony demonstrated his total ignorance regarding the nuance of the fantasy games by admitting he had loser after loser playing in the game of the evening. There had to be fantasy owners across the country wondering how to get into a league with a patsy like Tony. In fact his last name could become an adjective in the fantasy lexicon as in, “I won last week; the other owner Kornheisered his team.” My esteem for Tony has plunged making his comb-over look nothing short of ridiculous. Anyone who knows of an owner in their league listening to Tony for fantasy advice should have at least one win for their season. Kornheiser is not alone as a television personality insulting the intelligence of fantasy owners, Bob Costas and NBC are doing their part.

Back in the pre-merger days of professional football NBC covered the fledgling American Football League while CBS showed the established National Football League. Between the two, NBC had the more creative coverage. Because the AFL played in smaller stadiums, or large stadiums with smaller crowds they devised camera angles which would show the game in the best light. During some games they would not even show the crowd as it was too meager to deserve being called a crowd. They kept the cameras focused on the game or the announcers making the spectacle appear to be bigger than it actually was. Even in those early days there was one man at NBC who was bigger than any of the games; Curt Gowdy.

Gowdy began his broadcasting career in 1944 working a Cheyenne high school football game in his native Wyoming. Before his death in February of this year he had been inducted to twenty different hall-of- fames. He began covering the AFL for new comer ABC in 1960, then moved to NBC in 1965 where he spent more than a decade with the network. In addition to football he announced the Red Sox and baseball on a national scale. He was one of the original members of the American Sportsman team. He was the first broadcaster to receive the esteemed George Foster Peabody Award. His efforts in the broadcasting booth led to the creation of Curt Gowdy award given to recognize excellence to sports writers and broadcasters. One winner of this high award is Bob Costas of NBC and HBO.

This year, for the first time in several years, NBC is airing the NFL. They lost their bid to air games a few years ago when they were out moneyed by FOX. When the opportunity to air games on Sunday night became available, NBC jumped at the chance. They developed the program, Football Night In America. (FNA) They created a catchy theme song sung by an award winning recording artist while attracting professional broadcasters from ESPN, HBO, ABC and Sports Illustrated. They even attained the tandem of former Monday Night Football announcers Al Michaels and John Madden. Given the subject matter, the possibility of creative production and the professionalism of the cast, NBC could not lose. With regard to fantasy football owners they should have lost their audience the first night.

One of the sponsors of FNA is Chevrolet. Besides giving away a truck a week for sixteen weeks, they also ran a contest to have a one fantasy owner win the opportunity to meet with the show’s personalities and hang around for an evening of football. The response of Chris Collinsworth and Jerome Bettis was fairly positive, but not “Sportsboy” Bob Costas. “You mean we have to spend a day with some kind of fantasy geek,” he queried incredulously. The other guys tried to smooth his comment over saying it would not be so bad, but he would not let go of it. To put things into perspective it might be good to look at the whole picture of FNA.

Bob Costas, all 5’7” of him, never really played any sports. He attended Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Public Communications, but left to begin his professional career as the play-by-play man for the ABA’s Spirits of St. Louis. In other words he is a non-athlete/college drop out who has done well. No matter, Steve Jobs and Bill Gates are both dropouts who have done well.

Costas signed on with NBC in 1980. Since then he has hosted several Olympics, worked for HBO on his show Costas Now and received awards for his performance as a broadcaster. He also posses a photographic memory but he, along with his producers, seem to lack anything in the way of creativity.

The name Football Night in America is borrowed from our neighbors up north; they have a long running show called Hockey Night in Canada. The FNA theme song is a direct rip off of the Joan Jett song, I Hate Myself for Loving You. The singer, Alecia Beth Moore, goes by a name she stole from a color; Pink. The format of “round table” football talk is a parrot of every other pre-game show on the tube and their sideline reporters came over from the Disney owned ESPN and ABC respectively. What ever creativity the show may have had in the beginning has been reigned in by the effort of NBC corporate owner General Electric as they seek to reduce costs for 2006-07 by $750,000,000. This bottom line attitude is what cost NBC their NFL rights in the first place.

With regard to Mr. Costas, one would think as an Emmy and Gowdy award winner he might adopt one of the rules of the broadcast master Curt, “The mind is a muscle. You have to continually exercise it.” Costas’s mind was not being exercised that first night and I have not seen a lot of exercise of the muscle this season. I genuinely hope his up-coming experience with a fantasy geek is not too taxing for his gray matter.

All of this brings up the question; what do Jake Plummer, Tony Kornheiser, NBC and Bob Costas have in common? The answer is simple, they all make a lavish living off of the money they earn from a game played on a field and broadcast on television. Their payment stems directly from ratings, these ratings are dependent upon the fans and fantasy football has been one of the reasons football has become the national sport of America. In many ways they have all bitten the hand which feeds them. They might all do better if they took the advice of John Fogerty. “…but I've always felt that with true talent, and a commitment to hard work, it is possible to achieve an enduring respect and appreciation. In other words, I don't take my fans for granted.”

It is wonderful his fans get some respect from a leading personality in their field; it would be great if fantasy owners could get the same.