Brady Tinker Fantasy Sports Pioneer

By Emil Kadlec
Emil Kadlec

Back in 1996, Brady Tinker helped create the first fantasy sports national TV show. What would become the NFL players fantasy football show and the MLB fantasy baseball show was aired on prime sports network. Despite never doing TV, Brady worked diligently to learn the craft and recalls the first show working with many notables including Terry Bradshaw.

The following year prime sports went out of business and Fox Sports took the show over. Brady was instrumental in garnering significant sponsors including EA Sports. Over time he was able to integrate plays from EA Sports into the show mixed with the NFL film of the previous week's games to make an entertaining show and giving EA Sports an excellent advertising platform.

The show lasted six years until ESPN nudged their way in and stole the sponsors. It's a great achievement by Brady Tinker at such an early stage of fantasy sports they were able to create a significant fantasy TV show that had 45 million viewers on the first day.

Check out the entire Fantasy Sports Pioneer Interview Series.


3/11/2020