The two largest daily fantasy sports websites saw huge growth in the usage of their mobile apps and websites, according to a report from the media research company Nielsen.
FanDuel and DraftKings reported more than 800% growth — in terms of users for their apps and their mobile websites — year over year from 2013 to 2014.
Massive surge
Thanks to huge growth and marketing pushes in the past year, the two leaders in the DFS market saw not just huge growth in revenue, but also in how users accessed their sites. Only a portion of Nielsen’s “Year in Sports Media” report dealt with daily fantasy sports, but the small bit of content illustrated just how much DFS has grown in the past year.
Here’s a quick look at the relevant numbers:
- Mobile users of the two largest DFS sites increased 847%, from 319,000 to 3.022 million, from 2013 to 2014.
- DFS internet users increased more than 400%, from 877,000 to 5.1 million, year over year.
You can see the entire report here. Both sites launched mobile apps in 2015, although FanDuel still does not have an Android app.
Not just DFS
Unrelated to FanDuel and DraftKings, Yahoo!’s fantasy sports app was No. 5 in the list of most-used sports apps in 2014. Yahoo only provides seasonlong fantasy sports contests, not daily contests. ESPN SportsCenter, MLB At Bat, Team Stream and NFLMobile had the top four apps.
The report noted that DFS still lags behind seasonlong fantasy competitions in popularity.
The surge in popularity of the major North American sports leagues, primarily the NFL and the NBA, has been attributed at least in part in recent years to the rise of fantasy sports. To punctuate that point, online viewing of sports also rose. Online viewership of sports increased more than 10% in 2014, while consumption of sports via mobile devices increased nearly 6%, year over year.
2015 and beyond?
There’s no reason to believe the numbers for DFS sites won’t continue to improve in the coming year. Both FanDuel and DraftKings featured huge marketing campaigns that brought new users into the market. As these two companies and other DFS sites continue to compete for marketshare, the total number of users for mobile devices — and just in general — is likely to continue to grow.
