LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. -- A fantasy football convention is really not much different from a Comic-Con gig. It can get a little freaky with the facepaint, getups and fanatical obsession with celebrities.
And then there are Comic-Con people in all their kooky costumes.
Matthew Berry dresses like an ordinary guy, but he has super powers behind the short-sleeve Polo. As the Jedi Master of the fantasy football empire, Berry can create a Death Star capable of bringing down your puny universe, especially if you've elected Colts running back Trent Richardson as team captain.
Berry was the smartest man in the room at Walt Disney Wide World of Sports Complex this past weekend, where hundreds of fans gathered for the inaugural ESPN Fantasy Football Convention.
A Disney character breakfast was included as part of a package with a high-end ceiling of $350, but Mickey and Minnie were reduced to opening acts for the real stars -- Berry, NFL Insiders Chris Mortensen and Adam Schefter, and analyst Mark Schlereth, among others.
I'm not sure anyone has to pay good money to realize that Richardson will very likely be a fantasy bust again. But the convention goes way beyond a standard cheat-sheet. There was a Q-and-A session involving specific players, draft-day strategy advice, plenty of meet-and-greet opportunities, and a lot of unfiltered access.
That's why it was cool to see Mort grab a seat next to some guys at a table across from me to chat during a lunch-time break. I chatted up John McIntyre from Virginia, whose wife -- bless her understanding soul -- suggested he sign up in conjunction with a family vacation.
McIntyre had to multi-task on Saturday, trying to gather as much wisdom as possible while dealing with two live drafts on his android. But he's a smart man, considering he ignored every single Miami Dolphins player on the draft board despite wearing a T-shirt that revealed his love for the boys down south.
The guy you always want on your team is Berry. He's been Mr. Fantasy since he joined a Rotisserie baseball league looking for a 10th player. Everybody was in their 20s and 30s, except Berry. He was 14 years old.
Now 44, Berry has made a steady rise in the world of fantasy football. The career trajectory has taken some odd twists and turns, including the time he was a Hollywood screenwriter and reached out to a site devoted to fantasy football. They checked out his credentials on IMDb.com, and found out he was a writer on "Married With Children."
"That is our favorite show of all time," one of the website founders told him. "You're hired."
Berry used to get 100 bucks per column, considerably less than what he makes now after ESPN asked him to move to Bristol, Conn., as director of fantasy sports in February 2007.
Berry now mixes and mingles with an A-list set of friends. He will attend Jay-Z's draft for the second consecutive year this week, just to hang out at the cool-kids party. He is a member of a league featuring Howard Stern and the people associated with his show. That is one of eight leagues that Berry juggles during the season, beyond dispensing advice to all the prisoners of fantasy football.
Count me among them, with three teams scattered across three leagues -- all with different scoring systems. To paraphrase Berry's most popular preseason column, it's a love-hate thing. It ruins your ability to watch games from a normal fan's point of view and turns you into an obsessive jerk. Especially when your field-goal kicker misses a chip shot.
That cost the Cuban Ninjas a championship in my ESPN League last year, Mr. Garrett Hartley of the New Orleans Saints, but who's holding a grudge, you ##!?
But the "get a life" stereotype is a bit harsh when you crunch numbers. The Fantasy Sports Trade Association estimates that 32 million Americans spend $467 per person or about $15 billion in total playing fantasy sports, according to Forbes magazine. A huge chunk of that -- $11 billion -- is devoted to fantasy football.
So excuse me and Mr. Berry if we sound a little giddy this time of year.
"There's no better day than draft day," Berry said. "It's Christmas, it's birthdays, it's the birth of your kids. It's the best day of the year."
Especially if Trent Richardson or Garrett Hartley are nowhere to be found underneath your fantasy-football Christmas tree.
Sports on 08/25/2014