SWARTHMORE

F A N T A S Y F O O T B A L L G U R UTED CHAN ‘02Pro football is back in season,which means ultrabusy Sundayafternoons for Ted Chan ’02.Besides watching a couple NationalFootball League (NFL) games at a timeon television, Chan can be found monitoringanother half-dozen matches viathe Internet. Who’s piling up theyardage and touchdowns? Who’s beeninjured? Who’s earning a one-way ticketto the bench?It’s more than football fanaticismthat drives Chan to keep track of theNFL the way day traders watch themarket. Despite his mere 20 years ofage, Chan is a nationally known profootballsage, part of a team thatwrites The Guru Report for the growinglegions of fantasy football enthusiastsacross America. The report has itsown Web site (www.gurureport.com)and is also seen by thousands onESPN.com, one of the most popularsports sites on the Internet.“Most readers don’t know my age,”says Chan, a Boston-area native andNew England Patriots fan who becamea “guru” at 15. “The editor of The GuruReport didn’t know for the first two orthree years I wrote for him.” By thetime he found out, Chan was a seniorwriter with a big following.For the uninitiated, fantasy sportsare a wildly popular spin-off of realsports that allows fans to form andrun their own teams and competeagainst one another. “Owners” accumulatepoints based on the real-lifeperformances of players they acquirein their leagues’ annual draft or auction.Although fantasy basketball,baseball, and football leagues havebeen around for decades, the pastimehas grown exponentially since theadvent of the Internet, with a satelliteindustry of league management toolsand inside information sources boomingalongside it.Game-day action is only one part ofthe seven-day-a-week, year-round jobof staying on top of pro football. Midweek,Chan, an Honors history majorand member of the varsity wrestlingteam, is busy keeping track of rostermoves and analyzing upcominggames. How will the Colts’ EdgerrinJames perform on natural grass Sunday?How effective does the San Diegodefense figure to be against theBrowns?Chan, known to many of his fellowSwarthmore students for his outspokensports columns in The Phoenix,was first introduced to fantasy sportsin seventh grade when two mathteachers at his school started a basketballleague to teach students aboutstatistics. “My best friend, who’s nowat Harvard, took part in the leaguewith me, and we both got completelyhooked,” Chan says. “Within twoyears, I was doing football, baseball,hockey, and basketball on the Internetand in local leagues.”By the time he was 15, Chan wasspecializing in his favorite, fantasyfootball. Also interested in journalism,he wrote a sample article for the fledglingGuru Report and submitted it tofounder and publisher John Hansen,who quickly brought him on board.This season, he is fielding questionsfor the call-in segment of a Sundaypregame radio show broadcast in St.Louis.“People say I have a knack for seeingtalent well in advance,” Chan says.“Watching a lot of college footballhelps me spot talent. I also read footballinsider reports and absorb anyother information I can get.”Chan has developed his own pettheories about how best to build a fantasyfootball team. His advice in onerecent Guru Report column: If youcan’t get a big-name quarterback inthe first or second round of your draft,wait until much later—you can probablyget someone good on the cheap.Not so with wide receivers and runningbacks; the field of top performersis not as deep. Chan advises gettingpass catchers and ball carriers earlyor risk being stuck with comparativedeadbeats at those key positions.His approach is being put to thetest this fall in one of the biggest andmost high-profile challenges of his fantasysports career. Chan is runningThe Guru Report’s franchise in a newsuperleague that is pitting the topinsider reports against one another.Going head-to-head against such rivalsas Pro Football Weekly, The SportingNews, and Rotonews can be a littledaunting, he admits. “I don’t want tolet The Guru Report down,” Chan says.“A lot of money and visibility are atstake. You also realize that whenyou’re dealing with such top-notchcompetition, much of it will comedown to luck.”Despite his apparent career track,Chan does not plan to pursue sportswritingafter Swarthmore; the fieldoffers too little security, he says. He ismore likely to become a technologyentrepreneur, he says, and, towardthat end, has already started a Webdesign and marketing company. Notthat he wouldn’t love to find a professionalniche in sports. His dream job:owner or general manager of a realmajor league sports team.—Tom KrattenmakerS E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 09