This early version of fantasy football was entirely manual. Owners used newspapers to collect player statistics, and commissioners had to calculate scores by hand using pens, calculators, and box scores. Rosters and standings were updated weekly—sometimes not until Tuesday or Wednesday—once all the weekend stats had been tallied. There were no cash prizes, no sponsorships—just pride, strategy, and a whole lot of fun. “We weren’t trying to start something big,” Stirling once recalled. “We just wanted to make watching football a little more exciting.” Despite his role in inventing what would eventually become a multi-billion-dollar industry, Winkenbach never sought to profit from fantasy football. He didn’t trademark it. He didn’t pitch it to networks or sponsors. For him, it was simply a way to combine his two passions—football and friendly competition—into one unforgettable experience. Winkenbach never made a dime from fantasy football, but he cemented himself into the legacy of the game.  Although Winkenbach didn’t patent or commercialize his idea, he wasn’t shy about sharing it. As fantasy football proved to be a hit among the original GOPPPL members, they began introducing it to friends, co-workers, and other NFL insiders across the Bay Area and beyond. Members of the Raiders front office told other teams. Journalists who played in the league wrote about it or mentioned it to colleagues at other papers. Slowly, the idea began to travel—not through the internet, but by word of mouth. By the mid-to-late 1960s, other fantasy leagues began popping up in California, then around the country. These early adopters tweaked the rules, added their own scoring systems, and kept stats with whatever tools they had—usually a newspaper, a notebook, and a whole lot of patience.