Daily Fantasy Sites Continue TV Ad Blitz Thanks To Influx of Capital

DraftKings "has aired more television ads over the past month than any other brand -- more than 25,000 nationwide," according to data from iSpot.tv cited by Callum Borchers of the BOSTON GLOBE. FanDuel "ranks 12th, with more than 10,000." Borchers: "Don’t expect marketing budgets to bust soon." FanDuel got a $275M investment in July led by KKR, Google Capital and Time Warner Investments, while DraftKings two weeks later had a $300M round led by Fox Sports. DraftKings co-Founder & CEO Jason Robins said of the TV campaign, "You definitely need the capital, so that’s obviously part of it. But it really was more about the opportunity. When you know the best time of year and you know the right messages to get people to try your platform, you’ve got to go for it. We had huge numbers we were projecting.” Robins added that on the day of the Steelers-Patriots NFL Kickoff (Sept. 10) and on the first Sunday of the season (Sept. 13), his company "hit an ambitious target: acquiring 10 times more new customers than on the same two days last year." He "declined to provide actual figures" (BOSTON GLOBE, 9/21). NBC’s Gadi Schwartz profiled the rise of daily fantasy sports and noted the industry "is booming for real, with buy-ins from NFL owners, the NBA and the MLB, and media companies like our own NBC Sports, all betting that becoming an armchair owner is how fans want to get in the game.” NBC’s Erica Hill said, “It’s amazing, too, the number of commercials for that that are on now. That’s all I see” ("Today," NBC, 9/20).

NOW A WORD FROM OUR SPONSORS: THE MMQB's Peter King notes the Broncos-Chiefs telecast last Thursday "was 5 hours and 7 minutes long, including a pre-game show and (longer) post-game show, which lasted longer on NFL Network than it did on CBS." There were 19 fantasy-game ads in the telecast -- FanDuel ran 11, including nine in pre- and postgame shows; DraftKings ran seven, including five during the game; and NFL.com ran one (MMQB.SI.com, 9/21). 

SLIPPERY SLOPE: In Detroit, Mitch Albom writes the proliferation of daily fantasy sports is "not hurting anybody." It is "not morally wrong." But it is "becoming so soaked in money that it sits on the end of a dangerous teeter-totter." Football may be a sport, but the NFL "is a business, and business follows money" (DETROIT FREE PRESS, 9/21). In DC, Norman Chad writes fantasy "is sports betting," and daily fantasy is "sports betting on steroids." Major pro sports leagues "have a history of keeping gambling at a very long arm’s length but now have opened their arms and wallets to the brave new world of it’s-not-gambling fantasy sports!" (WASHINGTON POST, 9/21).