This Week in Daily Fantasy Sports: Sept. 11, 2015


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DFS commercials

“This Week In Daily” is LegalSportsReport’s weekly wrap of key facts, happenings and miscellany from the daily fantasy sports industry.

Stories of note

A DraftKings, FanDuel merger?

It’s not the first time the idea of the two biggest daily fantasy sports merging had been floated, but this time was a little different. Reuters’ Liana Baker talked to DraftKings CEO Jason Robins, who was pretty candid about his company’s future.

DraftKings’ Robins said he would consider a merger, but that it would take two to tango.

“In the case of a merger with FanDuel, even if we were really in favor of it, they’d need to want to do it too,” he said.

Of course, FanDuel CEO Nigel Eccles hasn’t really bought into that idea, so far. Both DFS heavyweights are weighing their options for their next move, according to Baker, including another round of private investment or an IPO.

All those TV ads

When the NFL season launched on Thursday with the New England Patriots’ win over the Pittsburgh Steelers, a quick survey of Twitter — and even some mainstream media outlets — confirmed that a lot of people are already sick of commercials for daily fantasy sports. That’s too bad, because you aren’t even close to done seeing them.

Nobody outspent DraftKings on commercial spending in the U.S. during the first week of September, according to data from iSpot.tv. FanDuel was advertising a healthy amount, as well, just not at the same pace as its rival. DraftKings has likely already topped $100 million spent on commercials this year. And Week 1 of the NFL season isn’t over.

In a related note, we surveyed DraftKings and FanDuel ads to see how they try to appeal to players other than men. It turns out there aren’t many women in their commercials.

Of the week

Read of the week

You Aren’t Good Enough to Win Money Playing Daily Fantasy Football”

Ever since a report came out outlining the skill gap problem that exists between pros and casual players, several media outlets have dug into the issue. Bloomberg does the most thorough job here, even talking to top pro Saahil “maxdalury” Sud.

Watch of the week

FanDuel CEO Nigel Eccles appeared on CNBC:

You can also catch him on the RotoGrinders podcast.

Tweets of the week

Number of the week

Six

The number of apps in the App Store’s top 10 free sports apps that are related to fantasy football. DraftKings is No. 2, and FanDuel is No. 6. Another DFS app, Draft, is right behind them at No. 11.

In case you missed it

Photo by Paul Lim used under license CC BY-ND 2.0