In the span of less than a week, the daily fantasy market once again made an enormous jump. The still-new offshoot of traditional (longer term) fantasy sports is developing quickly, and each move by its handful of major players comes with quick reaction from the other companies competing for a stake. In just the past week, Yahoo’s long expected launch of daily fantasy games has been followed by another blast of funding for FanDuel, as well as an expected round for DraftKings as well (though Disney is reportedly out).
It’s not the first time that major events in daily fantasy have happened in close proximity to each other. And it signals that the real race for dominance in the skyrocketing industry segment is only just getting underway.
“We’re still in the second inning,” says DraftKings Vice President of Business Development, Jeremy Elbaum. He was describing his thoughts on DraftKings itself, but the metaphor is nonetheless applicable to everyone in daily fantasy.
In 2014, the big push was to secure partnerships with teams and leagues at a high level. Now, a year into many of those deals, DraftKings is beginning to expand into more specific avenues of advertising. They need to differentiate themselves from established competitors, not to mention new entrants that may shake up the market further.
Yahoo brings a built-in marketing engine in the form of the 58.4 million monthly unique visitors (May 2015) it reaches in partnership with NBC Sports Network, not to mention its status as one of the largest established host for traditional fantasy. With the number of daily fantasy users exploding, but still just a fraction of the 56.8 million who play fantasy sports, it’s only a matter of time before another established giant (potentially CBS Sports) moves into the space as well, bringing similar reach.
DraftKings is trying novel tactics to stay ahead. This week the Boston-based startup unveiled its latest addition: The DraftKings Fantasy Sports Bar & Lounge in Los Angeles’ Staples Center. It’s the first of its kind from any daily fantasy company, as a physical place that users can go to and enjoy not only food and a beverage, but also play the games.
“It allows people that don’t know much about DraftKings to gain some understanding,” Elbaum says of the new place, which will open in the fall. The deal was born out of DraftKings’ existing partnership with the L.A. Kings. It showcases the evolution of DraftKings’ marketing strategy.
“We had to learn, and to do that we needed to work closely with the Kings,” noted Elbaum. And while he admitted that the Staples Center (home to three major professional teams) was a special circumstance (“I will probably never be able to duplicate this”), he did note that creative projects like the Bar & Lounge is part of a new wave of campaigns that DraftKings is going to harness to reach new users.
