About ETB
Launched in February 2007, Empty the Bench, LLC is geared toward fantasy sports enthusiasts and serious sports fans and currently offers insightful and thorough analysis and fantasy advice on the National Football League and the National Basketball Association. The founders and principle writers are Brian Spencer and Andrew Thell, two avid and knowledgeable sports fans with over 20 years of combined experience in the fantasy sports industry and professional backgrounds in small, successful start-ups.
Empty the Bench, LLC, has been featured on sites that include ESPN’s TrueHoop, Deadspin, AOL Fanhouse, Yahoo! Sports, NBA.com, USA TODAY’s Game On, and HoopsWorld.
Brian Spencer, Editor/Writer/CEO
Brian Spencer was born and raised in the suburbs of Detroit, MI, where the Bad Boys taught him a thing or two about hard-nosed basketball and the Lions showed him how to creatively and consistently lose football games. He once cried tears of humiliation after getting bombed (and benched) in the 1st inning as starting pitcher of his only Little League All-Star Game appearance. He also earned his fair share of technical fouls—unwarranted, of course—before retiring from basketball in high school.
Brian now lives in Brooklyn, NY, where he’s an editor, music programmer, freelance writer, and devout bicyclist. You’ll find the likes of Clutch, Madlib, Bad Religion, The Knife, Ween, Ellen Allien, and Johnny Cash in his regular music rotation. He has an inherent affinity for anything ‘70s, including glam hotels like Bangkok’s Asia Hotel and Glen A. Larson-produced TV shows such as The Hardy Boys, Knight Rider, and Buck Rogers in the 25th Century.
Contact Brian at brian@emptythebench.com.
Five Albums to Check Out:
1. Ricardo Villalobos, Salvador
2. Orgone, The Killion Floor
3. Dub Trio, New Heavy
4. Buddy Guy, Sweet Tea
5. Torche, Meanderthal
———————————————————————————————————————————————————
Andrew Thell, Editor/Writer/Frotteurist/President
Andrew hails from the heartland of our own Midwest, a small outpost known as Minneapolis, Minnesota. He is a graduate of George Washington University, but he has decided to eschew the fame and lucrative business opportunities typically associated with a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy in favor of a more rewarding cubicle position. Growing up he played basketball and Little League Baseball, where his teammates affectionately referred to him as The Big Whiffer (No, he wasn’t a pitcher). He still clings to his 92% free throw shooting, and to this day will mention it to anybody within earshot every time an NBA center goes to the foul line.
The NBA is his first love, and while he reserves the right to change his secondary affiliations from time to time, he currently pulls for the Minnesota Timberwolves and Portland Trailblazers in the Western Conference and the Boston Celtics and Atlanta Hawks in the Eastern Conference. In the NFL he roots for the Minnesota Vikings in the NFC and the San Diego Chargers in the AFC. His MLB team in the AL is, of course, the Minnesota Twins, and in the NL he wishes the Philadelphia Phillies well.
Outside of sports Andrew is an avid fan of graphic novels (Or ‘comic books’, if you wanna be a dick about it), film (The Coen brothers, David Lynch, Beat Takeshi, Werner Herzog, Chan-wook Park), whiskey and rock music (Steely Dan, Clutch, Opeth, Kyuss, Mark Lanegan, Tom Waits, William Elliott Whitmore, Ween, early 90s era Grunge and most anything with Mike Patton). In addition to Empty The Bench, Andrew is also passionate about his small but burgeoning mail-order taxidermy business.
Contact Andrew at andrew@emptythebench.com.
Nine Graphic Novels to Get Started On:
1. From Hell, Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell
2. Watchmen, Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons
3. Akira, Katsuhiro Otomo
4. Marvels, Kurt Busiek and Alex Ross
5. Starman, James Robinson
6. The Walking Dead, Robert Kirkman
7. Sin City, Frank Miller
8. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neil
9. The Sandman, Neil Gaiman
