The lingering NFL lockout has begun to seriously hurt many fantasy football companies. Usually by now, thousands of the estimated 24 million people who play fantasy football each year already have begun preparing for their leagues. But as NFL franchises and players skip offseason workouts and free agents go unsigned amid the labor unrest, companies that depend on fans poring over statistics and incremental personnel moves to form their fantasy teams have coped with the reality of lost revenue. The fantasy football industry brings in about $800 million per year. "We'll be lucky if we make one-third of what we make in a normal year," said Bruce Taylor, the 46-year-old co-owner of Seattle-based Fantasy Index Magazine, Inc., which isn't publishing its Fantasy Football Index magazine for the first time in 25 years. "It's tough because we've had to lay somebody off -- I've got another employee that I should lay off, but I don't have the heart. We're a small company," Taylor said. "I try and be philosophical about it because when you hitch your wagon to somebody else's horse, you're going to take your lumps."