Matthew J. Berry (born December 29, 1969)[1] is an American writer, columnist, fantasy sports analyst, and television personality.
After a few odd jobs Berry got hired as a production assistant for The George Carlin Show on Fox.
Berry worked on the show for one year and has fond memories of George Carlin who wrote a recommendation letter for the Warner Brothers Writer's Workshop.
[5] During his writing tenure, he worked on such movies as Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles, and the final year of the TV show Married... with Children.
[6] Crocodile Dundee was nominated for a Razzie award in 2001 under the category of "Worst Remake or Sequel", but lost to Planet of the Apes.
Report with Bill Simmons" podcast, he told the abridged version of how he went from Hollywood screenwriter to fantasy expert.
He eventually grew tired of being in meetings with two movie stars he didn't think were funny telling him what comedy was.
[11] Radio host Steve Mason, who was working for FOX at the time, was a fan of the TMR column and asked Berry to do a segment, which ended up lasting over an hour.
Berry and Ravitz co-starred the VideoCasts along with Paul Severino, Molly Qerim, Jon Anik, and various others.
In 2013, Berry was named the 2013 Marketer of the Year by the Academy of Marketing Science for his role in fueling the national growth of fantasy football [13] The popularity of fantasy sports, and Berry's status as one of the leading voices of them, led to him stepping in front of the camera in numerous occasions.
Berry began his first foray into audio podcasting in 2007 with the Fantasy Forget (Four Get) where he gave "four players to leave off your roster this week.
The shows are produced by Daniel Dopp and have featured many recurring ESPN guests such as Stephania Bell, Mike Clay, and Tristan Cockcroft.
Common features on the shows include the "Name Game," "Over-reaction Theater," "Mailbag," and "Double Trouble."
The Fantasy Focus uses user-created drops for certain features and other funny/off-kilter sounds, occasionally simply to test if their producer is actually paying attention.
He more often than not acknowledges his false predictions rather than his correct ones, both in the form of angry e-mails and tweets from people who followed his advice for the worse.
Berry initially wrote two main fantasy columns for ESPN, "The Talented Mr. Roto" and "TRUM: Thoughts, Ramblings, Useless Info and Musings".
He originally wrote Love/Hate, 100 Facts, and a Bold Predictions column for Fantasy baseball as well, but penned his final editions of these in 2014 to focus on football.
For example, in the pre-season article preparing readers for the draft, a usual first-rounder on the "Hate" list might be thought by Berry to deserve to go about five spots lower than he normally does, while later-round players on the "Love" list are players Berry would draft a round or two higher than expected.
Berry is also a friend to many stars including Jay-Z, Seth Meyers, and Zooey Deschanel helping them with fantasy world advice.