''The Fantasy Show'' is a fantasy football talk and debate show on

ESPN2 ESPN2 is an American multinational pay television network owned by ESPN Inc., a joint venture between The Walt Disney Company (which owns a controlling 80% stake) and Hearst Communications (which owns the remaining 20%). ESPN2 was initially fo ...

. The show was supposed to air for 18 weeks a year during the

National Football League 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 ...

season every Thursday at 6:30pm ET on ESPN2. However, the debut season of the show only had 11 episodes.

Overview

The thirty-minute program consisted of stats, charts, recommended benchings, trash talking, trade debates and updates on the personalities of ''The Fantasy Show's'' own fantasy football league. The Fantasy Draft Special aired at a special time at 5:30pm ET on Thursday, August 31, 2006. An odd thing about ''The Fantasy Show'' from other shows is that it was broadcast in a living room type set and Stone, Berry and Jaworski were dressed in casual apparel. It was produced by ESPN Original Entertainment.

Hosts and contributors

The show was hosted by

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 ...

veteran Rob Stone, who has covered the

MLS Major League Soccer (MLS) is a men's professional soccer league sanctioned by the United States Soccer Federation, which represents the sport's highest level in the United States. The league comprises 29 teams—26 in the U.S. and 3 in Canada ...

and

World Cup A world cup is a global sporting competition in which the participant entities – usually international teams or individuals representing their countries – compete for the title of world champion. The event most associated with the concept i ...

the majority of his time at ESPN. Joining Stone was fantasy expert Matthew Berry from TalentedMrRoto.com and seventeen-year NFL veteran

Ron Jaworski Partner owner , highlights= * Pro Bowl (1980) * Bert Bell Award (1980) * Philadelphia Eagles Hall of Fame ;NFL record * Longest touchdown pass: 99 yards (tied) , statlabel1= TD– INT , statvalue1=179–164 , statlabel2=Yards , statvalue2=28,19 ...

. Others contributing to the show were: Will Carroll, who served as the ''Injury Insider'',

Antonio Freeman Antonio Michael Freeman (born May 27, 1972) is a former American football wide receiver in the National Football League (NFL), most notably for the Green Bay Packers. He attended the Baltimore Polytechnic Institute and Virginia Tech. College ...

, hosting the segment called ''Free's Flex'', where he would inform fantasy players of the second and third wide receivers they needed to acquire and start and

Danni Boatwright Danni Boatwright Wiegmann (born Danielle E. Boatwright; July 13, 1975) is an American actress, TV host, sports journalist, model and beauty queen who won $1,000,000 on '' Survivor: Guatemala'', the eleventh season of the reality television show ' ...

, who also contributed to the show.

Cancellation or termination

On November 16, ESPN failed to air ''The Fantasy Show'', broadcasting the

2006 World Series of Poker The 2006 World Series of Poker (WSOP) began on June 25, 2006 with satellite events, with regular play commencing on June 26 with the annual Casino Employee event, and the Tournament of Champions held on June 28 and 29. 40 more events in various ...

instead. Fans of ''The Fantasy Show'' appeared on various Internet web sites asking about the sudden disappearance and apparent cancellation of the show by ESPN. Confusing the matter, Internet TV listing web sites including Yahoo! continued to list ''The Fantasy Show'' as airing at 5:30 pm ET on ESPN2 on November 23, one week after the first missed episode. Meanwhile, ESPN seemed to indicate that the show was over by its lack of any further mention of the show. ESPN's own TV listing web site, espntv.com, showed

as airing during that time. Further, the links to ''The Fantasy Show'' on ESPN's web site pointed to a web page that no longer existed. On November 22, a post at Berry's official website inquired if the show was cancelled. The response from one of the website's other employees was as follows:

No, fear not, Legion of TMR fans. There was no cancellation. In fact, the Fantasy Show was definitely well received by all. This is merely the end of the first season's run. Look for bigger and better things coming down the pike... but I'll let the TMR announce such things when and how he sees fit. Pete
____________________
Becker@talentedmrroto.com"

http://www.talentedmrroto.com/forum/Topic281455-38-1.aspx#bm281579

References

Press Release: ESPN2's ''The Fantasy Show'' to debut August 31
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fantasy Show 2006 American television series debuts 2006 American television series endings ESPN2 original programming American sports television series Debate television series