Throwback: The Hedge Fund Fantasy Football League

Remember back in the day (last decade)?  When a player could be a player, throwing around cash like whatever, because who was going to say anything?  I do.  My friend Joe sent this lost classic my way, I can almost remember reading it the first time around…

From the Wall Street Journal:

The financial crisis has been scorching investors around the globe. But through it all, some of the world’s wealthiest financiers still have enough money to play in one of Wall Street’s most exclusive and secretive competitions: A fantasy football league where the total purse is $1 million.

The list of participants in the league, which has existed since at least 2002, includes Paul Tudor Jones, the legendary trader who helped build the hedge-fund industry; Raj Rajaratnam, the Sri Lanka native who founded Galleon Group, one of the world’s largest hedge funds; Chris James, the head of Partner Fund Management in San Francisco; Jim Pallotta, a former associate of Mr. Tudor’s who is part owner of the Boston Celtics; and Michael Novogratz, a former U.S. Army helicopter pilot who is president of Fortress Investment Group, the publicly traded firm that says it manages approximately $35 billion in assets.

Stanley Druckenmiller, the 55-year-old founder of Duquesne Capital, who recently made a bid to buy the Pittsburgh Steelers, was one of the fantasy league’s original members. When he quit the league before this season, his spot was taken by John Griffin of Blue Ridge Capital, a protégé of hedge-fund titan Julian Robertson.

Raj is in jail now, Druckenmiller gave up the fund and retired. But man, those were the days. Click over for the whole story if you’re feeling nostalgic…

Source:

Wall Street’s $1 Million Fantasy League (WSJ)