Meaningful Wins

For the uninitiated,“fantasy football” can be a misleading term. It's no fantasy; it's real. And it's more than a game; it's a lifestyle—one that's hugely popular and a serious profit-maker.

Consider these statistics for a moment: In 2014, more than 41 million people will play a fantasy sport—including football—while contributing $2 billion to their prize pools.

The“fantasy” in fantasy football starts with a league of team owners (usually between 10 and 16) acting as wannabe general managers, each drafting real-life players onto an all-star virtual roster. The owners then accrue points based on their players' actual, weekly performances on the field. Participants ultimately win by outscoring opponents in head-to-head matchups throughout each season. Fantasy lineups can cross NFL team lines, putting players from different franchises on one roster. Participants are also their own scouts and coaches, spending hours every week reading every little nugget they can consume from NFL insiders and experts, with the goal of beating their friends in securing prime players, putting together a balanced team, earning bragging rights, and—in most cases—winning money.

But what if there were a way to siphon off some of that enormous profit and funnel it into a great cause, giving fantasy football participants the chance to add altruism to their list of rewards?

That's where Thad Levine and John Ellis, longtime friends from the Class of 1994, saw an opportunity. Most fantasy football leagues require each member to buy in by putting money into a pot that is redistributed to the league champions—sometimes, a lot of cash can be at stake. This year, the pair started Meaningful Wins, a company and website that enables members of fantasy football leagues to give some of the money they spend to charity.

The“Georgia and Ms. Dubin”  league, named after Haverford College Dining Center workers and filled with Ford alums like Levine and Ellis, was the inspiration for the project. Ellis, who lives in Arlington, Mass., says he was collecting league fees from his classmates last year and suggested the proceeds go to charity instead of to the league victor. A history major turned entrepreneur who started an optical engineering company 12 years ago, Ellis received some positive feedback about his suggestion:“We said, ‘Maybe we should make it easier for people. This should maybe be an app.”

But wouldn't greed prevent fantasy participants from making donations? Levine, who went from earning an English major and going on a premed track to working as the assistant general manager for Major League Baseball's Texas Rangers, had the perfect sounding board to see if there would be interest: The professional athletes in his team's clubhouse.

“They're rabid fantasy sports enthusiasts, and they play fantasy football every year,” Levine says.“I started asking them, Does this concept resonate with you? We got a very positive response from those guys. It was very uplifting for me and John.”

The concept of Meaningful Wins is simple: Participants in a fantasy football league register and tell the site what percentage of their pot they want to donate to charity. Meaningful Wins then sends a bill to each team owner and asks him or her to choose a nonprofit—users can choose one of the site's featured charities, like Doctors Without Borders or Operation Smile, or can access the IRS database to pick one of their own. At the end of the season, the donations are made (included is a 7.75 percent service fee, used for upkeep on the site) and the participants receive a tax write-off. Even if you lose your league, your consolation prize is funding a good cause.

The goal of the site in the future, Levine says, is to get a good piece of the $2 billion pie—to“access 1 percent of that money, and redirect $20 million dollars to nonprofits.” If this year's fantasy football season proves to be a success—Ellis says hundreds of leagues and thousands of people have used Meaningful Wins thus far—they'll expand the site to include donations from other fantasy leagues in various sports, including baseball, basketball, and hockey, as well as from NCAA basketball tournament pools.

One thing that Levine and Ellis discovered in the process of creating Meaningful Wins seems counterintuitive, at least on the surface: In fantasy sports, winning money is secondary to the other rewards.

“I keep in touch with my Haverford friends through fantasy football,” Ellis says.“The money part is certainly motivating, of course. To me, the appeal [of fantasy football] is that you get instantaneous feedback about whether you succeeded or failed. There aren't too many things in life where you get that kind of satisfaction regularly. Every week in fantasy sports, you know whether you've won or lost. It's enticing to people to get that kind of gratification.”

Now, thanks to Ellis and Levine, there's the added gratification of generosity.

—Charles Curtis '04