Though it didn’t get the attention of this week’s Yahoo launch, another DFS product from a recognizable brand was recently rolled out.
If you didn’t hear about Beckett’s new Daily Fantasy platform, that’s not entirely by mistake, says Director of Beckett Fantasy Jamie Kiskis. The well-known publisher of sports card pricing guides purchased WPS Fantasy in April 2014 and launched its own daily fantasy contests last month.
Kiskis spoke with DFT recently about Beckett’s slow-roll approach and hinted at the innovation he believes will help Beckett Fantasy stand out from a crowded field of competitors.
You’ve worked previously for Upper Deck and you’ve run your own fantasy sports company. Tell me more about how you ended up as the head of Beckett Fantasy.
I’ve been in sports my entire career — sports marketing, product development. I did start at Upper Deck in 1993, and built a series of well-performing brands. Innovation was kind of a hallmark for me. Throughout that time, when you’re making someone else a lot of money, you’re kind of like, ‘Wow, I’d like to be on the other end of that.’
So I started with my own concept of fantasy sports. It was in 2004. I was doing it in the evenings, after hours, during lunch. It was something I was really passionate about, doing this new version of fantasy sports. It was called On The Record Sports, and the idea was — I was conflicted by the idea that all fantasy players run across, the idea that you have to cheer against your favorite team in order to win your fantasy game. I never liked that. So the idea was that you would predict how your favorite team was going to do — individual players within a specific game, and you would be getting points for being closer on your predictions than everybody else. So I worked really hard on that concept and wrapped a social network around that and was able to raise the money by 2008 to leave Upper Deck for good and pursue my dream job.
I went through everything. From having a lot of money, to having no money, to having lawsuits, to having things not work right, to having to start over with a new team and just go through all those things that entrepreneurs go through. Especially a first-time entrepreneur. Shifted the business model a few times, so I got experience in trying to be a destination website and then trying to build Facebook app games, and then build games for other customers.
I had great experiences working with all these different angles of fantasy sports, but On The Record Sports couldn’t last. We couldn’t get the right combination; it seemed like we were always a day late and a buck short.
I got hooked up with Beckett — then the end of last year we started talking, and really came on board with them in earnest the first quarter of this year to be a consultant — just to see what they had. They had purchased this fantasy site, WPS, and they didn’t have the bandwidth or the expertise to really know what they had.
Daily fantasy sports is not an easy industry to break into. There are a lot of intricacies to how the games are played, and where the opportunities are. There’s already some big players in the market and there’s some small companies, too, and there are some medium-sized companies that are getting there, as well. So a lot of competition in that space.
Now, certainly, but even then competition was pretty intense, right?
One of the things that’s interesting to note was FanDuel started when we were still figuring things out, and both companies were trying to figure out a way to engage fantasy fans in a different way. We went the team angle, and they went the salary cap angle. And you had probably never heard of my company before today, and you’ve obviously heard of them. So more power to them, they made the right choice and they made it work. They made it happen.
What excites you about the present opportunity?
We have this opportunity to expose a large number of sports fans who perhaps have never tried daily fantasy. The question is, are FanDuel and DraftKings already doing what we feel we can provide to the market, which is really a place for friends and colleagues and family to play together. It’s important for people to feel safe. That they’re not playing against sharks. And you can’t stop sharks from being involved, but we have a 30-year history at Beckett of a brand name that people trust. So we have a community of passionate sports fans, really hardcore fans, but maybe they don’t know the daily fantasy game as well. So what we want to do is educate our community and bring them up to speed and then bring them into the marketplace. And then start to outreach to additional communities. We just really want to have a place where friends can play against friends, or fans of the same team, like-minded people.
Because a lot of times when you play on another site, you don’t know who you’re playing against. And when you start to do more research, there’s a small percentage of people who win a lot. They’re doing quite well. They’re making quite a name for themselves, and they’re making quite a living. However, it’s a little bit intimidating for new users, and I think that’s a balance that daily fantasy is going to have to walk. You need big players who play in multiple games and are willing to spend a lot, but you also need to let people win and let people grow and enjoy it.
How do you reach and ultimately keep those new players?
I’ve played traditional fantasy for years and I love it, and I’m quite successful in my leagues. But when I got to daily fantasy, I was just getting creamed. I would be happy if I just finished in the money. But it was exciting to me. I ended up playing FanDuel’s NBA game everyday and it was free to play and it was just a chance to stay engaged. I watched more games than I ever had and ended up learning more about the NBA and players that I previously wouldn’t have cared about. And I’m in that older demographic, that range that doesn’t really have a ton of time, and I still became engaged.
So if I use myself as a target demographic, I think there are lot of people out there like me, who, if they got exposed to daily fantasy, in an atmosphere that they felt comfortable in, I think you’re going to get people to try it, and I think we’re going to build the industry that way. I see it as a great opportunity.
So when Beckett came in, obviously everybody knows Beckett price guides and I had relationships with them in the past, so when the opportunity came to combine two loves of mine and two passions, it was a no-brainer, really, for me. We had been working on the launch behind the scenes before it was announced full time, and we’re still stabilizing the platform, and everyday there’s new things being added. But we’re out there, we’ve launched and soon our marketing’s going to be starting.
We’re excited about getting into the market and, like I said, providing a place for our community to feel comfortable and safe and really challenging each other to play and building it from there.
What about player acquisition?
Obviously, our player acquisition budget is going to be a lot more modest than DraftKings or FanDuel. Anybody who understands television advertising at all would understand by looking at their numbers and looking at what they spend on advertising, and you would say, ‘how can they be profitable?’ They’re spending so much on television advertising and it’s so expensive to do. And then you look at what their revenues are, well that’s all going to telelvision advertising. And they’re raising hand-over-fist money to keep going.
So once you’ve got your product established within your community and your target audience and you’re ready to go wider, what’s going to separate Beckett from so many others in the sector competing for the same customers?
We are just getting started with the innovation of our games. In addition to building a community, my background is really in product innovation. So believe me, I’m not excited as much about what we’re doing today, as much as what we’ll be doing in a year. We’re doing this now because this is the technology we have, and we think it’s viable and we think we can slug it out with some people. And then from there, we’ll turn on the innovation and we’re going to crank out new games that will bring in new users.
Are there any of those you can share with us now?
I wish I could.
Had to ask.
Just know that I was the first person who cut up a game-used Babe Ruth bat and put it on a trading card so people could touch and own it. That was my idea. Taking signatures from checks and putting them on the front of trading cards so people could have cards signed by Babe Ruth and other deceased players, that was my idea. The first $100 pack of trading cards, which Upper Deck still produces almost 20 years later, was my idea. There’s a lot of creativity and innovation that we’re waiting to get to. We have to walk before we run, but we really feel like that’s what’s going to set us apart when it’s all said and done.