The Washington Post on Tuesday published an article on how Daily Fantasy Sports has managed to become professional sports latest – what it termed – “addiction machine”.
The Post article follows a series of huge funding grabs by DFS industry leaders DraftKings and FanDuel in recent days.
Daily-fantasy site DraftKings said this week it had received a $300 million investment from Fox Sports, Madison Square Garden and the national leagues of baseball, hockey and soccer. Both DraftKings and Fox Sports will be attending next week’s highly anticipated Daily Fantasy Sports Expo in Miami Beach.
DraftKings chief rival, FanDuel, pocketed $275 million earlier this month from NBC Sports, Time Warner’s Turner Sports and other investors (including Google and Comcast).
So how did it all happen?
Fox Sports President Eric Shanks provided some insight: “The more people play, the more they consume our product on TV.”
From the Washington Post article:
The traditional fantasy match demands a season-long commitment, and players often bow out early if their chances go bust. But with the daily model, a player can draft a team in the morning, stay glued to her phone in the afternoon, and suffer the result (or pocket the reward) by day’s end, in time for the next match. If season-long fantasy is a long-term investment, daily fantasy is a slot machine.
– Aaron Goldstein, Gambling911.com