The NBA announced a number of fantasy sports integrations for the upcoming season, including the unveiling of “Official NBA Fantasy Scoring.”
It’s the latest example of the North American pro sports leagues‘ interest in the future of the fantasy space.
‘Official NBA Fantasy Scoring’
The league will now feature fantasy sports scoring “embedded within NBA.com,” according to an announcement from the league. The fantasy stats will be standard across fantasy platforms at:
- Yahoo
- FanDuel
- NBA InPlay
- PlayON
- Dream11
The standard scoring is “intended to make the fantasy experience consistent for NBA fans across all formats and content.” You can see the scoring here.
ESPN reported on the changes more in depth:
“We’ve seen all the data that shows how engaged fantasy players are, and how much live basketball they watch,” said Scott Kaufman-Ross, NBA associate vice president, fantasy sports.
“Because of that, we’ve been looking for ways to make fantasy a bigger part of basketball culture and make fantasy basketball a bigger part of the basketball conversation.”
More on fantasy and the NBA
Other parts of the NBA’s fantasy announcement on Thursday:
- FanDuel is offering the “NBA Passport to London,” where fans can enter daily contests during the season’s opening week for a chance to win a VIP trip to the game between the Philadelphia 76ers and Boston Celtics on Jan. 11.
- The league’s website will feature “enhanced fantasy content” in partnership with FantasyPros.
- NBA is labeling its schedule by week this season, creating more defined contest periods for fantasy games.
Fantasy NBA vs. fantasy NFL
The most popular sport for season-long fantasy is NFL, and traditionally daily fantasy football is the most important part of the year for FanDuel and DraftKings.
But basketball is growing in both season-long and DFS for NBA. It’s particularly popular in DFS, because of the velocity of the games. Whereas there are limited opportunities to run contests based on the NFL, contests run every night for NBA DFS.
Regardless, fantasy basketball is clearly becoming more important to both the NBA and the fantasy sports industry.
