This is an I-Heart podcast.

Guaranteed Human.

And we return to our American stories.

Up next, a story about America's favorite non-contact sport, talking about fantasy football.

For the uninformed or uninitiated, fantasy football has nothing to do with sorcery or magic

spells, unless you count getting a league winner off of the waiver wire as a particular form

of sorcery. It's a game where you serve as the general manager of a football team by drafting

real-life players and receiving points for how well they did in their real-life game that week.

Here to tell the story of the first fantasy football league is Peter Funt, author of Inside

Fantasy Football, and the host of Candid Camera.

Let's get into the story.

We start it with football going from Bush League to the big time because of a merger.

The Oakland Raiders were third in the Western Division with a 6-8 record.

Tom Flores was ranked 6 in passing in the AFL.

The turning point really was in 1960 when the AFL was formed, and this was a rival to the NFL, as we know it now.

And some of the teams in the AFL were owned by guys who tried

hard to get an NFL franchise and were, for one reason or another, rejected. So there were

these wealthy individuals who wanted to invest in football.

The NFL wouldn't let them in.

And so they formed the AFL.

Originally in 1960, there were eight teams in the AFL.

And one of them, in fact, the last to join the list was the Oakland Raiders.

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