Most new entrants into daily fantasy sports tout their innovation, but FantasyHub’s differences go beyond the contests it offers. Some portion of every game on FantasyHub goes to charity, and since launching last year, the site has helped raise more than $75,000 for charity organizations.
Andrew Busa, who founded the company with lifelong friend Steven Plappert and former University of Tennessee baseball player Chris Pierce, believes commitment to charity and bridging the gap between sport and fan through partnerships with high-profile athletes will help sustain the site over the long haul.
Busa spoke with DailyFantasyTalk recently about those topics and FantasyHub’s pending launch of e-sports contests.
You are already offering traditional daily fantasy contests, but you’re also getting ready to launch e-sports soon. What led you in that direction?
All of us here were kind of closet gamers growing up. One of our developers actually played League of Legends, which is one of the world’s most popular video games, and it was kind of amazing to see the excitement of hundreds of millions of people engaging with League of Legends and e-sports overall. The prize pools for these tournaments a few years ago were pennies on the dollar and now for the Dota 2 International there’s $17 million at stake for the 24 teams competing for it.
All that money for the prize pool was created with just 25 percent of add-on sales that consumers put up for the game. Because they want the game to have more progress, they want to see these big tournaments happen, and they want to see the top teams compete for that ultimate prize. So the fact that fans of this game were wanting to propel their industry forward is amazing to see. So if they’re willing to do that, it’ll be fascinating to see other things moving forward.
For us, whether it’s football, baseball, NASCAR, whatever, e-sports is certainly a sport. It was made so by federal law in 2008. So if a Chinese team comes over to compete, they have the same custom as the Argentine soccer team and what Messi gets when he comes over to play a game. We see it as a sport, just like anything else. There’s certainly a different group of people that engage with it, but most fantasy guys are gamers themselves; they played FIFA or Madden growing up and this is just kind of a different type of game, a different level of competition, but it’s really just as engaging to watch as your regular football match. So that’s what really kind of compelled us—the passionate fanbase that’s there, the growing numbers—prize pools, tournaments, all that. It just kind of fit in with what we wanted to do, which is provide a great experience to all fans.
There’s a growing existing base for e-sports, but what do you do for your current users who may be unfamiliar with it?
For our current users that play traditional fantasy sports, it’s an education tool, just like if you know nothing about golf but play daily fantasy football. It’s helping people understand what it is and how it works, and what are the drivers that win tournaments and that make a successful team or a successful player. We had a guy who’s been playing with us for a while doing beta for e-sports and within his fifth game he won a tournament against 40 other people. He wasn’t really watching, but just kind of looking at the numbers and guessing and making changes and he was able to have success. So we’re going to provide those kinds of guides and tools and things to help kind of bring awareness to a space that most fantasy players haven’t seen before.
The other thing that kind of differentiates FantasyHub is the charity aspect. Tell me more about that.
The charity thing came about in 2013 when I was coaching a middle-of-nowhere Kentucky basketball team and we were doing a mattress fundraising sell. Ultimately, I knew these kids and parents knew nothing about selling mattresses, but what they did know was fantasy sports. I thought that would be a great tool—using daily fantasy sports as a fundraising mechanism for high school teams, youth teams, and pretty much anyone in and around sports who needed to engage with their donors in a fun and unique experience.
Then we had the partnership with Adrian Petersen kind of fall into our lap, and we started to see that most professional athletes have their own foundations, and they have the same fundraising struggle as a youth sports team. So we were a great tool and mechanism for them to engage with their fan base and provide a fun and enriching experience for their fans while also raising support and awareness for the great causes that they’re trying to make a difference with.
We’re really trying to provide a different place for fans to play fantasy sports at and ultimately have a more compelling, different reason to play fantasy sports outside of just winning money. Our fans can win cash and prizes, but we want to have a different experience, and that kind of comes back to us trying to bridge the gap between fan and sport. Our charity piece is definitely a big part of why our fans play with us. They know that whether they win or lose, just them being active and choosing to play, they’re helping to impact the communities in which they live in and ultimately that makes for a better sports experience.
Long term, we want to make our experiences richer, where you’re not just meeting your favorite athlete or receiving an autograph like you can now, but we want to give the whole experience, whether its tickets to a game or being a GM for a day—things that fan could really only fantasize about before.
Growth in the daily fantasy space really exploded in the last year and with football season rolling back around, it must be an exciting time. What do you envision for the industry as a whole both in the short term and maybe five years down the road?
In the short term, there are going to be more competitors popping up. That’s just kind of the nature of the beast. The guys that are currently in the space—especially FanDuel, DraftKings, they’re going to have a heck of a lot more ads on TV than there already are, and there are going to be bigger prizes to entice more people into the space. You’re going to see a lot of people coming back this football season who have already played daily and ultimately the space is going to continue to grow massively.
Last year there was $1 billion spent in daily games across the year, and it’s projected to grow to $17 billion by 2020. So with that money—just like with e-sports and those prize pools—there are going to be a ton of opportunities and more eyeballs on the space. There’s all these different things going on, and it’s not just going to be a two-horse race like it is now. I could see FanDuel and DraftKings potentially consolidating in the future, just like how Bwin and 888 poker recently consolidated with a $1.4 billion price tag. I could see FanDuel and DraftKings doing similar things.
But ultimately with us being a start-up in a space with two established players already, it’s up to us to continue to be unique and provide those kinds of things so fans will keep coming back like they currently have.