This Week in Daily Fantasy Sports: DFS at G2E; NFL-DraftKings Deals

Written By

Dustin Gouker

Updated on

DraftKings NFL UK

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

Stories of note

DFS at the Global Gaming Expo

Daily fantasy sports was one of the most discussed topics of this week’s G2E. There were several panels, and it was part of the keynote (see below). This seems to sum up the general feeling of the event:

ESPN agreed, capturing some of the mood in a contentious panel that discussed the possibility of regulation of sports betting and DFS.

DraftKings CEO Jason Robins appeared in a much less heated panel, making his case for DFS as a game of skill and the possibility of synergy with the casino industry. You can see some of Robins’ comments from his panel below:

On the heels of all the discussion, we took a closer look at what a regulated DFS industry might look like.

In the end, G2E seemed like a continuation of what we have already seen in recent months: Namely, no one is quite sure what to make of the DFS industry, or what to do with it.

DraftKings ramping up NFL efforts

There is still no deal between a DFS site and the NFL as a full league partnership, but DraftKings is really stomping on the gas on the pro football front. This week:

With teams pretty much all lined up with FanDuel and DraftKings, already, that leaves us to wonder how long until we see a deal between one of the sites and the league as an official partner. The NFL seems to be getting involved in DFS in just about every other way possible, but will it make that final step that other pro leagues have taken?

Of the week

Read of the week

“DraftKings says rival FanDuel lost top spot”

DraftKings has been saying that it is currently the No. 1 operator in the DFS space, and LSR has generally agreed, although the difference between DK and FanDuel is not a huge one. Now, they are apparently getting serious about the claim that they, and not FanDuel, are the industry leader.

DraftKings cofounder Paul Liberman revealed the advertising demand Friday during a conference at Babson College — though he apparently didn’t mean to. Addressing an audience of roughly 100 students, Liberman fielded a question about competition with FanDuel and mentioned that “we’re going through a formal process of making them take ‘leader in fantasy sports’ out of all their marketing messages.”

Will anything come of it? That’s unclear and also probably unlikely. It also probably doesn’t matter much, in the grand scheme of things. But it is interesting that DraftKings is worried about the message at all.

Watch of the week

Unirkn (eSports betting site) CEO Rahul Sood gave the keynote at G2E:

Tweets of the week

https://twitter.com/KevinRCochran/status/649982172166799360

Number of the week

$17 million

After weeks of DraftKings setting the pace for the most money spent on TV commercials, FanDuel rose to No. 1 in a seven-day period, at $17 million. Right now, neither is No. 1.

In case you missed it

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Dustin Gouker

Dustin Gouker has been a sports journalist for more than 15 years, working as a reporter, editor and designer — including stops at The Washington Post and the D.C. Examiner.

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