Fantasy Football Expo draws experts to Canton in August

In 1985, one of Bob Lung's friends walked into a Canton-area bookstore and walked out with a 200-page book called "Fantasy Football Digest" by an author named Cliff Charpentier.

"He was like, 'Hey, I just read this. This looks like fun. We should try this,'" Lung said.

Fantasy football was actually 23 years old at this point, but it was still just a niche hobby, one that required its fans to scour newspaper box scores and add up the results by hand.

Still, Lung was hooked. Since he worked at the accounting firm Ernst & Young, he was one of the few people in his circle with his own computer. He used Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheets to keep track of the results, which were just based on touchdowns and field goals.

Each Wednesday, he mailed out 12 envelopes to his friends, who would leave their lineups on his answering machine on Sunday morning.

"We did it that way through the early 1990s, until the internet came along and Yahoo started offering fantasy football," Lung said. "And we had a blast.

"We didn't realize when we started doing it that it was going to be something that 60 million people did in the United States."

Nearly 40 years later, Fantasy Football is a $20 billion a year business — and Lung is still hooked.

The Canton resident, and nationally recognized fantasy football expert, will again produce the Fantasy Football Expo on Aug. 12-14 at the Doubletree Hilton in downtown Canton. The event will include more than 60 fantasy football experts across the country. Attendees can discuss their fantasy football team with the experts at their individual expo booths, or sit in live seminars, panels, mock drafts, and question and answer sessions.

"As someone who has lived in Canton my entire life and been around the Pro Football Hall of Fame ... I've seen how that has grown into an amazing event," said Lung, 58, who also serves as a driver for Hall of Famers during enshrinement week. "It used to be a two-day event, and now it's five days of concerts and craziness.

"I wanted to create fantasy football's greatest weekend in Canton."

The Hall of Fame, which is located 3 miles away from the Doubletree, will hold The King's Classic Expert Draft on Aug. 13. Lung created the draft four years ago with the help of FTN Network's Brad Evans and ESPN's Mike Clay. A year later, he started the expo as a way to compete with Tony Romo's fantasy football convention in 2019.

"People complained that it was too big and too expensive," Lung said of the Dallas convention. "I wanted something for normal folks like us who have real jobs, but have a passion for fantasy football."

Lung sold all 30 booths in 2019, but only 75 people attended. The pandemic wiped out the 2020 event, but last year's expo drew a better-than-expected 500 people, with about 70% of those coming from out of state, he said. He's expecting 1,000 people this summer and has already sold out the Doubletree hotel.

"The people who came last year are bringing all their friends, so it's continued to grow," Lung said. "It's become what I dreamed about, although I didn't expect it to happen this quickly. And with the Hall of Fame growing and getting bigger, there's the ability for the expo to be bigger. When they open a water park, you can bring your wife and kids and not feel like you're abandoning them for the weekend."

The key, Lung said, is to keep the event affordable. A weekend package costs $75, which includes admission to the Hall of Fame, a T-shirt, a swag bag and tickets to parties on Friday and Saturday night. There are also $55 (Saturday and Sunday) and $20 (Sunday) options. The booths are also affordable, costing $375 compared to $1,200 (and up) for booths at Romo's event.

"I want to provide an opportunity for folks like me who want to promote their site and their book to the general public," he said. "It's going to be a fun weekend. It's all about hanging out, having fun, having some competitive stuff and also sharing fantasy knowledge."

Bally Sports Great Lakes will broadcast eight Guardians spring training games between Friday, March 18, and Tuesday, April 5.

Rick Manning and Matt Underwood will call the action with Andre Knott reporting unless the telecast is produced by another Bally Sports regional sports network.

The games are:

• Friday, March 18, 4 p.m. vs Cincinnati Reds
• Monday, March 21, 4 p.m. vs Texas Rangers
• Tuesday, March 22, 4 p.m. vs San Diego Padres
• Thursday, March 24, 4 p.m. vs Seattle Mariners
• Saturday, March 26, 4 p.m. vs Oakland A's
• Sunday, March 27, 4 p.m. at San Diego Padres (Bally Sports San Diego production)
• Saturday, April 2, 9 p.m. at Texas Rangers (Bally Sports Southwest production)
• Tuesday, April 5, 3:30 p.m. at Arizona Diamondbacks (Bally Sports Arizona production)