Fantasy football can get expensive, but no one has paid more for it than Cameron Pettigrew.
Pettigrew was fired from Fidelity Investments in Westlake, Texas for running an office league, according to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
The smoking gun wasn’t even an obnoxious trash-talking email. Pettigrew was smart enough not to send any emails from work, but “investigators” found two instant messages with fantasy football-related material.
“One of my buddies sent me something about how bad Trent Edwards was playing or something like that,” Pettigrew said. (If complaining about Trent Edwards was a crime, no one could work in Buffalo.)
“So they called me in and talked to me for about 90 minutes on everything I ever knew about fantasy football,” Pettigrew continued. “They interrogated me as though I was some sort of international gambling kingpin. Then they released me for the day, and I was like, ‘OK.’ I never thought they’d fire me for this, but, the next day, I get the call saying I had been terminated.”
Pettigrew says there were at least ten leagues in his office and four commissioners were canned. There’s a lesson here: Being the commish is a thankless job with no upside.
While the firing sounds heartless, the corporate culture was pervasive enough at Fidelity to scare Pettigrew from emailing in the first place. We’ve heard separately that Fidelity employees know that fantasy football is taboo and are very careful not to openly break the rules.
(Of course, the same corporate culture seems fine with part of the New York office showing up to work in the morning so hungover that a nap under the desk is required, but that’s another story.)
A Fidelity spokesman said the company has clear policies related to gambling and Pettigrew violated them. Fantasy football has legal protections that sports gambling doesn’t, but Fidelity doesn’t see it that way. From the outside, the firings look like a convenient way to cut costs during lean times.
We just hope Pettigrew found a good replacement for Edwards so he can recoup some money as a league champion.
And we hope this story won’t stop people from checking out the latest fantasy football information, since it pays the rent. It is the playoffs, after all. Priorities, people!