The Super Bowl, being the culmination of the NFL’s season, is an appropriate time to reflect on the rollercoaster ride of daily fantasy sports advertising. The TV ads for DraftKings and FanDuel began with an expansive campaign in the fall. By the end of the year, the familiar commercials have all but disappeared.
Examining the statistics provided by iSpot (which measures TV advertising), DraftKings and FanDuel ad spending peaked in the first half of the NFL season, before falling off a cliff. In the season’s opening month from September 10 through October 10, the two companies spent a combined $64.9 million on ads for NFL broadcasts ($29.1 million for DraftKings, $35.8 for FanDuel). And the overall ad spending totals were even higher. Then, as can be seen in this chart, each company pulled back considerably:
Observers will be quick to point to the surge of legal challenges that DraftKings, FanDuel and the entire daily fantasy industry has been confronted with over the past few months. After all, the original crises sprung from events in late September. And not long afterward, the (still unresolved) chain of investigations from state and federal regulators began.
Still, the reality is that much of the drop-off was planned, since neither DraftKings nor FanDuel had anywhere near the marketing budget to maintain a nationally-ranked ad campaign for the duration of the football season. According to DraftKings’ chief marketing officer Janet Holian, the plan, developed months before, was to hit hard in the preseason and early regular season:
Our strategy on advertising was to have a strong presence in the market for the two weeks prior to the start of the season and the first week of the season. 2015 was an important year for our marketing. We were able to connect with our existing players and also new audiences through a true emotional connection – bringing our players closer to the sports they love and the thrill of the game.
This explanation, at least for DraftKings, seems to check out with the available data. As the above chart shows, DraftKings did indeed begin a deceleration of ad spending prior to the start of the daily fantasy legal challenges. And, per iSpot, the single most prolific day of ad buys for DraftKings came on September 20, when $8.3 million was spent. Of course, whether or not the legal situations in various states added further to the slowdown is debatable. It’s certainly plausible and there have been reports suggesting that. That said, the daily fantasy companies themselves have never acknowledged it officially, and it should be noted that there are no bedrock facts to prove it.
Here are some additional ad stats from iSpot, looking back on the entire football season from a daily fantasy TV ad perspective:
Total DraftKings TV ads: From August 1, 2015 through January 24, 2016, DraftKings spent $126.5M running 18 spots 35,275 times on TV.
Total FanDuel TV ads: From August 1, 2015 through January 24, 2016, FanDuel spent $137.6M running 29 spots 27,165 times on TV.
Total ad spending over the past six months:
DraftKings
- August ’15: $31 million
- Sept. ’15: $60.5 million
- Oct. ’15: $26.8 million
- Nov. ’15: $5.1 million
- Dec. ’15: $1.5 million
- Jan. ’16: $1.6 million
FanDuel
- August ’15: $5.4 million
- Sept. ’15: $48.5 million
- Oct. ’15: $56.8 million
- Nov. ’15: $25.7 million
- Dec. ’15: $142 thousand
- Jan. ’16: $1 million
Overall, DraftKings ranked 28th in total ad spending during NFL broadcasts this season. FanDuel ranked 10th. Of course, given the leading total that each company spent in the early weeks, it only highlights the drop over the next few months that much more.
So as the most notable time for TV advertising approaches (the Super Bowl), keep in mind that the once-ubiquitous daily fantasy commercials from just a few months ago are now all but gone from the airwaves.
