Sports Illustrated Prepares It's First Fantasy App
ParkerM
Moderator
News today from Sports Illustrated who has decided to join the revolution as they will be launching their first fantasy sports app, complete with betting, within the next couple of weeks.
The app, named Fan Nation, looks as if they will offer a Double-Up version of a game for MLB, with future plans of similar games for NFL, NHL, and NBA.
A couple of interesting lines from the article:
Thirteen percent of American adults take part in fantasy sports, according to the Fantasy Sports Trade Association. And it's big business in the U.S., where participants spent $3.38 billion on products, services and entry fees in 2012. Daily play is fueling much of the industry's growth.
"It's gotten more investment in the past two years than in the history of fantasy sports combined," Paul Charchian, the fantasy sports association's president, told Bloomberg in January.
You can read the full article here.
What do you guys think about this? It certainly looks as if Daily Fantasy is just in it's infancy. With more major names like this sure to enter the market in one shape or form over the next year or two, who knows how big DFS could become.
WSOP started with small payouts when the boom first began, now look at it. Could we see a Daily Fantasy Sports event in 3-5 years offer a $10 million first place prize?
The app, named Fan Nation, looks as if they will offer a Double-Up version of a game for MLB, with future plans of similar games for NFL, NHL, and NBA.
A couple of interesting lines from the article:
Thirteen percent of American adults take part in fantasy sports, according to the Fantasy Sports Trade Association. And it's big business in the U.S., where participants spent $3.38 billion on products, services and entry fees in 2012. Daily play is fueling much of the industry's growth.
"It's gotten more investment in the past two years than in the history of fantasy sports combined," Paul Charchian, the fantasy sports association's president, told Bloomberg in January.
You can read the full article here.
What do you guys think about this? It certainly looks as if Daily Fantasy is just in it's infancy. With more major names like this sure to enter the market in one shape or form over the next year or two, who knows how big DFS could become.
WSOP started with small payouts when the boom first began, now look at it. Could we see a Daily Fantasy Sports event in 3-5 years offer a $10 million first place prize?
Comments
The advantage daily fantasy has is that there's an exemption in the laws allowing it, but I wouldn't be shocked to see the law changed to prohibit daily fantasy games and only allow season long ones. I hope I'm wrong, but I'd take the under on that projection for daily fantasy's growth in 5-10 years.
Here's another article over at Forbes yesterday about SI entering the market. It's notable how this really is a meaningful change. It's also interesting they mention how CBS and Yahoo! could not be far behind. If that happens, could it then be possible a conglomerate like ESPN would jump aboard?
Here's some of the article's highlights:
As Legal Risks Decline, Sports Illustrated Rumored To Enter The Daily Fantasy Sports Marketplace
In a move that is likely to shake up the daily fantasy sports marketplace, Advertising Age reported this morning that Sports Illustrated – a company owned by Time, Inc. – is launching a daily, play-for-cash app.
While it is too soon to predict how the Sports Illustrated app will perform in the daily fantasy sports marketplace, the mere entry of a NYSE publicly traded company into this market signifies meaningful change.
Until recently, most public companies perceived daily fantasy sports as too risky under both federal and state law. As a result, the fantasy sports marketplace was occupied almost exclusively by startups.
However, in the five years since these early startups such an FanDuel entered the marketplace, the federal government has largely taken a hands-off approach. In addition, the professional sports leagues themselves have not attempted to legally challenge these games.
With Sports Illustrated today announcing its launch into the daily fantasy sports marketplace, one could reasonable presume CBS and Yahoo! will not be far behind. Both companies already offer full-season fantasy sports contests, and CBS has experimented with short-duration games such as an NFL playoff challenge.
Matthew Berry of ESPN already openly promotes DraftStreet and has a partnership with them, so that looks like an obvious in there.
Can you imagine if ESPN jumped into the Daily Fantasy ring? Just think of the waves of new fish they would bring to the market.. HaHa! That's why we want to get better at DFS now!
It's an interesting format. Looks like it's a "Pick 3" contest with a handicap system. Basically, each player has their "projected points" for the day and you have to pick 3 players who you think will exceed their projections by the most points. Then there's an "equalizer" attached (I think this is where the real strategy will play) where if your projected points for your lineup is say, "67", and your opponent(s) is "70", you start the game with a 3-0 lead.
I'll dive deeper into this later, but you can read a bit more about it here on SI's Fan Nation site. Looks like you can setup games directly from the website, in addition to the app. Entry fees look to be anywhere from Free up to $500.
If anyone tries this, let us know what you think.