''Fantasy Focus'' is a sports talk

podcast A podcast is a program made available in digital format for download over the Internet. For example, an episodic series of digital audio or video files that a user can download to a personal device to listen to at a time of their choosin ...

devoted to fantasy sports. The show is available on iTunes, and

ESPN ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). Th ...

Podcenter. The baseball show is hosted by Eric Karabell and Tristan Cockcroft, along with producer Daniel Dopp and injury analyst Stephania Bell. The football show is hosted by

Field Yates Field Minister Yates (born April 23, 1987) is an American sportswriter and analyst, who currently serves as an NFL Insider at ESPN where he provides NFL and fantasy football insight. A graduate of Wesleyan University, where he was two sport athl ...

, along with Bell, Dopp and Kyle Soppe.

Matthew Berry Matthew J. Berry (born December 29, 1969) is an American writer, columnist, fantasy sports analyst, and television personality. Berry started his career by writing for television and film and creating a few pilots and film scripts with his writin ...

hosted until 2022 when he took a position with NBC Sports.

Nate Ravitz Nate Ravitz is Senior Director of ESPN Now. He was previously deputy editor for ESPN.com Fantasy, which focuses on fantasy sports. Apart from his internal duties for ESPN, Ravitz was best known as the co-host (along with Matthew Berry) of the Fant ...

hosted until 2014, when he took on an internal position at

, and was replaced by Yates. The basketball show was hosted by Doug Kezirian, John Cregan and Tom Carpenter until its completion. The Fantasy Focus Football podcast is ESPN's most downloaded original-content podcast (and second overall behind only the podcast version of

Pardon the Interruption ''Pardon the Interruption'' (abbreviated ''PTI'') is an American sports talk television show that airs weekdays on various ESPN TV channels. It is hosted by Tony Kornheiser and Michael Wilbon, who discuss, and frequently argue over, the top stor ...

). It consistently ranks among the top ten podcasts on iTunes and in August 2009, was the #1 audio podcast on all of iTunes. The show has won a total of five awards from PodcastAwards.com, including "Best Sports Podcast" in 2009, 2011, and 2012, and the overall "People's Choice" podcast in 2009 and 2012.

Segments

The Name Game

"The Name Game" is a rapid-fire question and answer segment, in which two players' values are compared against each other, with one ultimately being deemed the better choice based upon the fantasy league being discussed. The players discussed are often requested by listeners of the show, who submit their questions via email.

The Board

Ravitz, Berry, Karabell and Cockcroft make contradicting predictions on many zany issues, including how players will fare in an upcoming fantasy season, single week performance, and pop culture issues. These predictions are tracked "on the board", with the winner being the host who has the most accurate predictions at the end of the season.

Cousin of the Podcast

Prior to taking over as co-host of the Fantasy Focus Baseball Podcast from

and

Cockcroft was a frequent contributor. So much so that he earned the nickname "Cousin of the Podcast." Often taking the role of analyst alongside Ravitz, Cockcroft's fondness to calling player "streaky" was made famous by an oft-used drop on the show.

And Sometimes Karabell and Cockcroft

In 2013, Karabell and Cockcroft took over as co-hosts of the Friday edition of Fantasy Focus Baseball Podcasts. The change led Podcast theme songwriter

Eric Hutchinson Eric Hutchinson (born September 8, 1980) is an American singer-songwriter best known for his songs " Rock & Roll", "OK, It's Alright with Me", "Not There Yet", "Watching You Watch Him", and "Tell the World". Hutchinson was named an AOL "About t ...

to produce a modified version of the theme song to be played on days when Cockcroft and Karabell hosted the show.

Co-Host of Fantasy Focus Baseball Podcast

On January 28, 2014 the era of Cockcroft and Karabell as full-time hosts of the Fantasy Focus Baseball Podcast began.

Football Today Rivalry

Soderberg commonly stated that he preferred producing the other ESPN podcast ESPN Football Today. Many hours of banter were created from this topic.

League Formerly Known as the Man's League

Cockcroft and Karabell are hosts of "The Man's League," a fantasy baseball league in which the listeners of the show play against Cockcroft, Karabell, and the show's producer, Jay Soderberg (aka Pod Vader). The "Man's League" was originally named as such due to the high number of team owners the league has, requiring participants to be knowledgeable of lesser known professional baseball players to be competitive. As of March 7, 2014, Cockcroft and Karabell have yet to officially announce the name of the league formerly known as the Man's League. However, they have indicated that admission to said league will be determined by Cockcroft, Karabell, and Soderberg on the simple basis of whether a listener's email can impress them.

Geeky Stat of the Day

One addition to the show brought by Cockcroft in the 2014 season is the Geeky Stat of the Day. During this segment of the show Cockcroft delivers an arcane stat that he expects will be useful to listeners as they evaluate their own fantasy teams.

Daniel's Hashbrowns

After Eric Karabell misspoke the term "hashtag", the gag was continued into an ongoing segment. The segment contains content similar to the mailbag's email segment, but by

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

instead.

References

External links

ESPN Show pageESPN RadioESPN Fantasy Home
{{ESPN American sports radio programs ESPN Radio programs Radio programs on XM Satellite Radio Sports podcasts 2007 podcast debuts Audio podcasts American podcasts