RotoWire.com is a company based in

Madison, Wisconsin Madison is the county seat of Dane County and the capital city of the U.S. state of Wisconsin. As of the 2020 census the population was 269,840, making it the second-largest city in Wisconsin by population, after Milwaukee, and the 80th-lar ...

, U.S. that specializes in

fantasy sports A fantasy sport (also known less commonly as rotisserie or roto) is a game, often played using the Internet, where participants assemble imaginary or virtual teams composed of proxies of real players of a professional sport. These teams compete bas ...

news and

fantasy Fantasy is a genre of speculative fiction involving Magic (supernatural), magical elements, typically set in a fictional universe and sometimes inspired by mythology and folklore. Its roots are in oral traditions, which then became fantasy ...

-style games. RotoWire provides fantasy news and information to

ESPN.com ESPN.com is the official website of ESPN. It is owned by ESPN Internet Ventures, a division of ESPN Inc. History Since launching in April 1995 as ESPNET.SportsZone.com (ESPNET SportsZone), the website has developed numerous sections including ...

Yahoo! Sports Yahoo! Sports is a sports news website launched by Yahoo! on December 8, 1997. It receives a majority of its information from STATS, Inc. It employs numerous writers, and has team pages for teams in almost every North American major sport. Bef ...

, FoxSports.com,

NFL.com The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the major ...

, CBSSports.com,

FanDuel FanDuel Group is an American gambling company that offers sportsbook, daily fantasy sports, horse racing, and online casino. The company operates sportsbooks in a number of states including New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Indiana and West Virginia, as ...

DraftKings DraftKings is an American daily fantasy sports contest and sports betting company. The company allows users to enter daily and weekly fantasy sports–related contests and win money based on individual player performances in five major American ...

and

Sirius XM Radio Sirius XM Holdings Inc. is an American broadcasting company headquartered in Midtown Manhattan, New York City that provides satellite radio and online radio services operating in the United States. It was formed by the 2008 merger of Sirius Sat ...

. RotoWire is the successor to RotoNews.com, which pioneered the concept of real-time fantasy sports information when launched in 1997.

Products

RotoWire.com
is the company's primary product, a fantasy sports news site that focuses on MLB, NFL, NBA, NHL, auto racing (mostly NASCAR), golf, college football, college basketball, esports, MMA, cricket and soccer. The web site features player news, draft kits, in-season tools, feature stories and statistical data to help fantasy players in each sport. * RotoWire has two annual print publications produced by the same staff that operates the website: The RotoWire Fantasy Football Guide an
RotoWire Fantasy Baseball Guide
Both publications are published at the start of the preseason and focus on fantasy draft preparation. *RotoWire offers in-draft software fo

an

an

The software comes as part of a subscription to RotoWire.com and isn't sold separately. * RotoWire.com offer

* RotoWire hosts RotoWire Fantasy Sports Today o
XM 87/Sirius 210
each Monday-Friday from 8 to 10 pm ET, Saturday from 1 to 3 pm ET and Sunday from 9-10 am ET. The fantasy sports show is primarily hosted by Jeff Erickson and Nick Whalen, along with Clay Link, James Anderson, Todd Zola, Joe Bartel, Alan Seslowsky, Jim Coventry and Mario Puig. RotoWire also hosts RotoWire Fantasy Baseball on XM 89/Sirius 209 each Saturday from 7 to 8 pm ET. RotoWire previously hosted two fantasy sports radio shows on XM Radio from 2005 to 2008. Fantasy Focus was a one-hour show hosted by Jeff Erickson on the MLB Home Plate channel in connection with XM Radio's extensive MLB offerings. The "RotoWire Fantasy Sports Hour" was a one-hour show hosted by Chris Liss on XM Sports Nation channel 144 that covered all sports, but mostly focused on fantasy football.

Staff

Jeff Erickson Jeff is a masculine name, often a short form (hypocorism) of the English given name Jefferson or Jeffrey, which comes from a medieval variant of Geoffrey. Music * DJ Jazzy Jeff, American DJ/turntablist record producer Jeffrey Allen Townes * ...

is senior editor of RotoWire. He's the only two-time winner of Baseball Writer of the Year from the

Fantasy Sports Writers Association The Fantasy Sports Writers Association (FSWA) is an organization that represents journalists in the United States who cover fantasy sports A fantasy sport (also known less commonly as rotisserie or roto) is a game, often played using the Interne ...

(2007 and 2008) and winner of the 2007 AL Tout Wars fantasy baseball title. He co-hosts the RotoWire Fantasy Sports Today on XM 87/Sirius 210. *

Chris Liss Chris is a short form of various names including Christopher, Christian, Christina, Christine, and Christos. Chris is also used as a name in its own right, however it is not as common. People with the given name *Chris Abani (born 1966), Nige ...

is managing editor of RotoWire and co-hosts the RotoWire Fantasy Sports Today on XM 87/Sirius 210. He also writes "Beating the Book," where he has picked every NFL game against the spread since 1999 at an astonishing 54 percent success rate. He won the 2010 Best Fantasy Baseball Article in Print from the

, the 2008 Best Fantasy Football Article on the Net from the

and won the 2009 Mixed League Tout Wars fantasy baseball title. * Peter Schoenke is the company's president and also frequently writes for the site. He won the Best Fantasy Baseball Article on the Internet in 2006 from the

. In 2011, Mr. Schoenke was elected to the hall of fame for both the

Fantasy Sports Trade Association The Fantasy Sports & Gaming Association (FSGA), formerly the Fantasy Sports Trade Association, is a Middleton, Wisconsin-based trade group representing the fantasy sports and gaming industries. In 2019, the FSTA changed its name to the Fantasy S ...

and

for his contribution to the growth of the industry.

Frequent contributors

Joe Sheehan Joseph S. Sheehan was born in New York City on February 26, 1971, and attended Regis High School. He graduated from the University of Southern California in 1994 with a degree in journalism. Sheehan lives in the New York City area. He is one of ...

is a frequent guest writer and appears frequently on RotoWire Fantasy Sports Today on Sirius XM.

Former contributors

* Derek VanRiper - TheAthletic podcast host was a SiriusXM host and editor. * Jonathan Bales - FantasyLabs co-founder was a contributing writer. * Keith Law - ESPN baseball writer * Tony Blegino - Special assistant to the general manager, baseball operations, Seattle Mariners * Stephania Bell - ESPN Injury Expert. *

John Sickels John Sickels (born January 5, 1968) is an American baseball writer who specializes in minor league baseball and amateur baseball. Biography Sickels is a graduate of Northwest Missouri State University (1990, BA in history and philosophy) and th ...

served as RotoWire's minor league expert from 2006 to 2010. He also hosted Fantasy Focus on Fridays, when it was called "Down on the Farm." * Steve Moyer - President, Baseball Info Solutions * Carson Cistulli was a contributing writer for NBA and to RotoWire's RotoSynthesis blog. He won the FSWA 2011 basketball sports writer of the year award for his work with RotoWire. *

Will Carroll Will Carroll (born 1970) is an American sportswriter who specializes in the coverage of medical issues, including injuries and performance-enhancing drugs. Carroll's "Under the Knife" column appeared on '' Baseball Prospectus'' for eight years dur ...

has been a frequent contributing writer for RotoWire's baseball magazine. * Dalton Del Don was a staff writer and now writes for Yahoo! Sports. * Andy Benoit - The current SI writer contributed to NFL coverage. *

Eddie Huang Edwyn Charles Huang (born March 1, 1982) is an American author, chef, restaurateur, food personality, producer, and former attorney. He was a co-owner of BaoHaus, a gua bao restaurant in the East Village of Lower Manhattan. Huang previously h ...

- Contributed to NBA coverage. *

Jonah Keri Jonah Keri (born September 20, 1974) is a Canadian former journalist, sportswriter, and editor. He is currently serving a prison sentence after pleading guilty to multiple counts of domestic violence offences. Early life and education Keri is ...

- Wrote
blog
for RotoWire in 2009-10. Frequent radio and podcast guest. *Patrick Newman – Covered Japanese baseball.

Company history

RotoNews.com launched in January 1997 and published its first player note on Feb. 16 1997. RotoNews revolutionized how fantasy sports information was presented on the web with the innovation of the "player note" which were snippets of information every time a player got hurt, traded, benched or had a news event that impacted his fantasy value - all search-able in a real-time database. Most sites today follow how RotoNews had a "news" and "analysis" element to each player update.

"Back in 1997, Peter and his crew launched RotoNews.com (now known as Rotowire.com), giving us fantasy owners a wondrous gift: the player news application. You know, here's an update on a guy, and here's the fantasy spin on that news. This changed everything. The days of feeling like a moron because you started a quarterback who, unbeknownst to you, had frayed his septum? Over. And you have Peter to thank."

Within two years RotoNews had become one of the top ten most trafficked sports sites on the web, according to Media Metrix, ranking higher than such sites as NBA.com. RotoNews.com also launched the Web's first free commissioner service in 1998, quickly becoming the largest league management service.

"The Internet has been a god-send for fantasy-leaguers. Updated information is just a mouse-click away, while instantaneous box scores make the morning paper seem like the Stone Age. How did we ever play fantasy baseball before the Internet? The same question can be asked of an online service that is changing the face of the industry. In just two short years, RotoNews.com has become the industry leader for news and stats.

RotoNews.com was sold to

Broadband Sports Broadband Sports was originally founded in 1998, later becoming a high-flying dotcom-era network of sports-content Web sites that raised over $60 million before shutting down in February 2001. A new company with the same name and domain was launch ...

in 1999, which failed in 2001. The company re-emerged as RotoWire.com. RotoWire.com moved from a free model to a pay model in 2001. In January 2022, Gambling.com Group acquired RotoWire.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rotowire Fantasy sports websites Daily fantasy sports Internet properties established in 1997 Companies based in Madison, Wisconsin 2022 mergers and acquisitions