A new SXM morning show!

I’ve already made the official announcement on Fantasy Sports Radio on Tuesday morning, June 18th, but I know a lot of listeners may not have heard the audio live on the air, so I felt a blog post was in order to let people know what’s going on.

Let’s start with the good news: I’m still going to be a big part of the SXM morning show! That said, the actual news is that I’m stepping aside as the full-time morning host on Fantasy Sports Radio. My last day in that capacity will be Friday, June 17th. Starting Monday, June 24th, the show will be a collaborative effort between SXM and FantasyPoints.com, and the new name of the program is “Fantasy Football Morning powered by Fantasy Points.”

I’ve been racking my brain trying to come up with the words to explain my decision, but all I came up with is the following: it’s time. I’ve had a great 20+ year run on SXM, and it will continue, but it’s time. When the channel launched back in 2010, largely on the strength of the twice-a-week show Adam Caplan and I did on NFL Radio, I already had what constituted two full-time jobs as I was producing a ton of content while also running the business. A few years later in 2014, I got a gig at DirecTV, which lasted nine seasons until the end of 2022. With a family of six to support as the sole breadwinner, I wasn’t going to turn down these two excellent opportunities even if I didn’t have the bandwidth, which I didn’t. The TV job went away on its own (thanks to YouTube), but it’s been a decade and a half for me hosting the radio show full time as a side gig, and the bottom line is simply this: After doing it for 30 years, I no longer need to bust my ass working multiple jobs. I simply want only one job, and that one job has to be for the company I own a majority stake in: FantasyPoints.com. But thanks to this new deal, I can and will stay involved, as opposed to vanishing like Keyser Söze.

This has been my plan for years: cultivate an excellent group of analysts and content people and then hand the show off to them and leave all the incredible listeners in great hands. The beauty of this arrangement is that I can remain a big part of the show while also getting back some valuable time for myself. If I miss hosting, I can still do that on a given day. If I’m listening live and disagree with a take being presented on the show, I can call in and argue, stuff like that. Like an aging NFL back whose workload is lessened to extend his career, this move will increase the number of years I stay in the mix as a full-time analyst, so if you like me, this is a positive! If you don’t particularly like me, well, it’s a big positive!

This is also a positive development because, as I stated above, it’s time. It’s time for me to step aside and open up some doors for others in this space, and who better than the stellar cast of analysts and personalities that I’m partnered with at Fantasy Points? First of all, they’re all great dudes, or else I wouldn’t be in business with them, but they’re also very, very awesome at their jobs. I hired Joe Dolan right out of college at 22 years old, and he’s been a fixture on the channel for a decade and a half. You’ll be hard-pressed to find a sharper person in this space than Joe. The Grinder Tom Brolley is an absolute machine when it comes to creating content, and his “takes” are as good as they come, which is why he’s always at the top of any leaderboard he’s involved in. Scott Barrett is a star who has flourished as our CEO, and Graham Barfield is a football and stat savant who has also kicked ass as our CFO. This new show will give all these guys a larger platform, which is a win-win situation for us and the listeners, since this is a crew of rock stars. In addition, our guy Paul Kelly, yet another star and one of the greatest people I’ve ever worked with, is still on staff for the site, and he’ll still be in the host chair three days a week. Paul’s worked with all of us at Fantasy Points for years, so there’s great continuity there. A new addition to the team is not really new, since he’s been doing work with us for a number of years, and that’s Brian Drake. I joke with Brian that he grew up listening to the show, but that’s not much of a stretch, since he’s only in his early-40s, yet he’s been listening to the show for 20 years. He’ll do an excellent job informing and entertaining a couple of days a week in the lead host chair.

As I stated on the show this morning, I’ve been the “star” of the #guruinthemorning show, but these guys are also stars themselves, and the biggest star of the show isn’t even a person: it’s the data, and we are now rolling at Fantasy Points Data with more tools coming in 2024. It’s a rocket ship led by another star, Brett Whitefield, and yet another with Brett’s right hand man and data scientist Chris Wecht. There’s more, too, including 2022 FSGA football writer of the year Jake Tribbey, who consistently crushes, and rising needle-mover Ryan Heath, whose understanding of data as it relates to NFL analysis is well beyond his years. This group is star-studded, so the vibes are fantastic.

Before I wrap this post up, I need to thank a lot of people, like my wife Holli, who managed being a single parent for half the year, and for 27 years of child-rearing. And also my kids for putting up with me and my intense work hours. Shoutout to Tim Riordan, my main producer in the AM, who put up with me for almost a decade and who did a lot of work to grow the show. SXM Fantasy Sports Radio would not exist were it not for my good friend and FSGA Hall of Famer Steve Cohen, who I first met at ESPN.com back in 1996 when we were both columnists for the site. We should all thank Steve repeatedly. Of course, around the same time, in the late-90s, I met a guy named Adam Caplan, not to be confused with Allen Chaplin, and being a couple of Philly-area guys with the same interests, we hit it off well and started doing some broadcasting work together, which led to Steve asking us to host the first fantasy football show on Sirius. It’s been an incredible 21-year run with Adam, and I’m certainly bummed it can’t last forever, but it’s very safe to say you haven’t heard the last of me and Mr. C, so stay tuned.

There also wouldn’t be a channel without the listeners, and that’s who I need to thank as much or more than anyone. In another life maybe this radio job could have been my only job, and I could have devoted more time to making it great. That wasn’t in the cards, so I flew by the seat of my pants, but one of the greatest thrills of my career was being able to go on national radio every morning and be authentic and totally myself, complete with all my nicknames and “Guruisms.” I so appreciate how most people adopted all my “stuff” and also those who didn’t love all that goofiness but put up with it. One of my favorite things about the program was being able to make the listeners the stars of the show along with me and the cohosts, and we had a ton of them. I won’t name any of them at the risk of leaving someone out, but in my book, you guys (and girls) were also a huge part of the show and the success of the show. I would have stopped doing the program a while ago if the listeners I interacted with weren’t so awesome, so thanks again for being amazeballs. And thanks to everyone in general for the excellent support I’ve received over the years. I have a good memory, so I’ll remember it all, and all of you.

In closing, I hate to let people down in any way, so apologies if this news has killed your buzz today! But again, I’m not retiring, so if you still want to consume my content, you can. Make sure you’re subscribed to all our pages, like our YouTube page and our podcast feed, and you’ll get the goods. Our video and digital media guy Trey Kamberling is incredible, and we’ve got some really cool things planned for me in terms of video and audio content, which is going to move to the top of my priority list as my next challenge, so stay tuned.

Thanks again for everything, and thanks for being so damn Gurrific.

John Hansen

My web site plans for 2019

Many people have been asking for an update on what I’m doing. More still have taken the time to send me their thanks, appreciation, etc. I read every comment here and on twitter, and they meant a lot to me, so thank you.

I wanted to let you know that I’m going to be doing a weekly podcast with my friend and colleague Jeff Mans throughout the 2019 NFL season. You can listen to us exclusively at www.fantasyguru.com.

Here is the first one: https://www.fantasyguru.com/the-draft-plan-podcast-series/.

Check in weekly at www.fantasyguru.com to listen to us all season long!

Some personal/professional news

I need to update followers on a major change in my personal and professional life…and to thank them as well. I did not advertise this when it happened because there was little need to at the time. In June of 2015, I sold FantasyGuru.com after a 12-month process. I stayed on board with an employment contract, so it’s been three and a half years since I had full control of the site I had founded back in 1995; and as of today, I am no longer employed by the site or its parent company. Leaving was my choice, not theirs, and I wish them the best (especially superstars Joe Dolan and Tom Brolley).

To explain just how indebted I am to former and current subscribers—as well as present and past contributors—a brief history of the site and how it started is in order for those who don’t know my story or how FantasyGuru came into existence.

In 1994, I was a 25-year old with a Bachelor’s degree in Communications and had designs on a career in broadcasting. But as the sole provider for my family, I was concerned that I couldn’t support my wife (still in college) and young son (now 26) while also paying my dues in media. I was making $7.50/hour as a radio DJ at the time, so my concerns were warranted. Back then, there were far fewer media opportunities, since the internet was in its infancy. I attempted to find a new line of work that would boost our bottom line, but things didn’t go well at all. At that low point in the fall of ’94, the only good things I had going for me were my wife, son, and fantasy football. I knew I had a passion for fantasy and sports in general, but since I had also previously been the co-owner of a pizzeria, I additionally realized that I needed to work for myself and control my own destiny…and that I certainly didn’t want to be flipping pies for the next 40 years (not that there’s anything wrong with that, and I actually still dream of opening up a pizzeria).

So, long story short, that’s how I came up with the idea to start a little hard-copy fantasy football newsletter the following football season. I was incredibly lucky in many ways during those early years; so lucky, in fact, that in 1996, ESPN somehow found and contacted me about contributing content to the new fantasy football area of their site. Talk about fortuitous.

But while I had good timing, a lot of good fortune, and was willing to work my ass off, I was also learning on the fly about owning and running a business, learning new technology and about the ever-expanding web, marketing, etc.—pretty much everything, since I didn’t have a solid background in anything I was attempting to do with this company and publication. Oh, and I also had to learn a lot more about football. Mistakes were made, lessons were learned, and despite some screwups, I’ve been able achieve all of the goals I set in ’95…and then some.

And the whole point of this letter is to thank the people who made all that possible through their support of my little enterprise by subscribing and helping spread the word. I used to know most of you by name, but that became impossible a long time ago. I always tried to overdeliver for subscribers, but that also took a toll on my well-being and the well-being of my family, and there were times when I set my sights too high, tried to do too much, and got burned. But there were many, many loyal customers who were happy to come along for the ride while accepting both the good and bad that came with the madcap worlds of NFL football and emerging technologies. I took a lot of pride in having a constantly-improving service that didn’t raise its price in over 20 years. That was one of the ways I attempted to thank the loyal customers, and I’m thanking you again right here.

It’s surreal to think back on how low I was back in ’94 and how, over the next 23 years, I was able to provide for my family and have a career in sports. But the NFL and fantasy football have given me even more than that. When I started the newsletter/site, I liked the idea of kind of being in media, but I did also basically give up on a career in broadcasting, which was my childhood dream. Yet, thanks to fantasy football, I was able to find a back door into broadcasting and land numerous gigs over the last 20+ years. I just finished my 15^th season on SiriusXM and my fifth season on DirecTV.

As for what’s in store for me, I’m not retiring or anything like that. I expect to be making a significant announcement about my SXM Radio show within the coming weeks, and I will remain on the DirecTV Fantasy Zone Channel for as long as it’s around and they’re inclined to employ me. But my work with the site has always enabled me to do these media gigs with little to no preparation, so I do want to continue producing projections, etc. because it helps me perform my media jobs to the best of my ability and it’s the only process I know. I actually did projections last week for the Wild Card Round of the playoffs, but just for myself, since there were not published anywhere.

I’ll use my Twitter account (@Fantasy_Guru) to update people on what I’m doing, probably for the remainder of my career. Speaking of that career, I say again: it would not have existed had it not been for the people who followed and supported me and my endeavors, so thank you very much!

John Hansen