In the last week, DraftKings, FanDuel and other daily fantasy sports companies have felt pressure coming from the NCAA. It began even before NCAA Director Oliver Luck essentially declared the daily brand of fantasy is gambling, but it intensified after his direct comments. DraftKings and its competitors have little interest in curtailing college daily fantasy sports.
In a report published earlier on Monday by Super Lobby (which is a daily sports analytics provider), DraftKings’ most profitable competition on a busy sports day (Saturday, September 26) was college football:
DraftKings received just short of 215,000 paid CFB (college football) entries across 1383 GPPs (guaranteed prize pools) on Saturday, totaling a fraction over $1.1m in entry fees. Therefore, DraftKings beat its CFB guarantees by $123k? the highest single-sport profit of the day.
DraftKings has plenty of incentive to continue its college football competitions, regardless of the NCAA’s protestations.
Clearly, professional football will always be the leading draw for daily fantasy (DraftKings had 2.78 million paid entries for the NFL’s week 2 as opposed to the 215,000 college football entries). Yet the college competitions have certainly been profitable for daily fantasy, meaning they are likely to remain.
College sports have had a consistently tenuous relationship with daily fantasy sports. Even before Luck’s address, Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby gave DraftKings and FanDuel a blunt description, noting that “We’ve been wrestling with all the issues around DraftKings and FanDuel, which I don’t think anybody can suggest isn’t gambling.”
Luck’s announcement last week specifically cited daily fantasy under the description of gambling (and the consequences that college coaches and players would have to endure if they play). And even the SEC network formally went ahead and banned daily fantasy commercials, though the Pac-12 only banned commercials relating to college sports.
In other words, the NCAA appears to be out in front of other sports organizations in its opposition to the format, which has always been argued as legal due to its exemption under the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006.
And ultimately, the legal battle that some suppose is destined for daily fantasy sports doesn’t come down to what the NCAA thinks. As an independent organization, the NCAA can call something gambling, but that doesn’t necessarily make it so in legal terms.
That’s an important distinction if the NCAA ever hopes to limit the public’s participation in daily fantasy sports happening with college football (and money exchanging hands as a result of it).
Either way, the developing battle lines between daily fantasy companies like DraftKings and the NCAA will likely only grow firmer, as both sides have a vested interest in continuing down increasingly divergent paths.
