Fantasy Rowing is back… What’s new? Why now?

There’s been a bit of a break since 2019 and the last time Fantasy Henley was run here at Fantasy Rowing.

It isn’t difficult to think of reasons why that might be, and in addition I have three reasons who are 5 years old or under, which makes tinkering around with websites like this hard to justify around other duties.

So taking all this family pressure into account I’ve done the obvious thing, and developed an app.

🤦🏻‍♂️

Well, almost…

It’s currently sitting in the app store waiting to be approved by the moderators. Sign up to the mailing list using the form on the homepage and you’ll know as soon as it goes live!

I started Fantasy Rowing back in 2015 because I wanted to do something to try and engage people more with the racing that was happening every few weeks, my observation was that people turned up, raced and then went home.

Naturally everyone’s interest gravitates to their own strata within the sport, if you’re racing at the men’s elite level you’re only really interested in the men’s elite crews, similarly if you’re racing in women’s novice eights you’re going to be keeping your eye on your competition.

Fantasy Rowing was a way to give people ‘skin in the game’, and in particular this was reflected in the points system that I developed which awarded points based on the number of entries in an event. If there are 72 crews entered in an event, you get 72 points if you pick the winner. If there are just three crews entered you get just 3 points.

Everyone looks at results, but when you’ve got skin in the game you really look at the results.

The site grew and grew but real life kicked in over the past few years which meant I just didn’t have the time or energy to pick it back up despite knowing that there is a demand for it.

But circumstances change and after a few life events, despite being time poor, I’ve found myself motivated to pick it back up and here we are on the cusp of a clunky iOS and android app hitting the app stores as version 1.0.

Although working as a product manager at a sports tech startup I’ve never got my hands this dirty and developed an app myself from nothing before and as I’ve learned through this process I’m far, far quicker and better at spotting opportunities and problems than my skills as a developer are able to match, which is a recipe for frustration and an impending deadline (HRR) has exacerbated this.

So right now I totally hate it, but still love it. I’m exhausted and ready to sleep but also energised and full of anticipation for the thrill of sending something out into the world that I’ve made. I’m depressed about how much I don’t know, and proud of how much I’ve learned over the past few weeks. I’m ready to embrace failure because at least I tried.

But not until the apple moderators say it’s ok.

Stay tuned.

P.S. I have a plan B if the app doesn’t get approved in time.