As its industry "continues to tangle with U.S. policymakers," daily fantasy sports brand DraftKings made its "long-anticipated" int'l push with a launch Friday in the U.K., according to Philip Marcelo of the AP. The Boston-based company was granted a license by U.K. gambling regulators in August "and had hoped to launch" by the end of '15. But the release "was pushed to early this year, with officials saying the website's software was still being finalized." DraftKings CIO Jeff Haas said, "The focus has been on getting the product right. Any delays that may have occurred were not due to what was happening in the U.S." Matching the industry's "explosive growth in the U.S. is far from certain:" DraftKings will have to go up against a "lucrative, well-entrenched sports gambling industry in the U.K. -- something it did not face in the U.S., where sports betting is largely illegal." Legal Sports Report Editor Chris Grove said, "The United Kingdom is an incredibly competitive market for online sports wagering. If they're simply competing with established operators for share of the existing customer wallet for sports betting, then they're facing an impressive challenge." SuperLobby.com CEO David Copleand, whose company tracks daily fantasy sports spending, said that DraftKings "will also have to ramp up the product itself, which has been launched initially in the U.K. as a smartphone app and is not yet set up to take direct credit and debit card deposits" (AP, 2/5). In Boston, Curt Woodward reported DraftKings is "now accepting fantasy sports wagers from players" in the U.K., "completing a long-delayed international expansion that could help the embattled company add a critical chunk of new customers." Players in the U.K. "will be able to compete against DraftKings' existing customers in North America." Football is "expected to be the most popular sport" (BOSTON GLOBE, 2/6). Haas said of U.K. expansion, "Our biggest challenge is going to be education. People never have seen a product category like ours before." Haas said the company is "looking into adding games for additional leagues" after recent deals with some EPL clubs. He added that "much of the company’s education efforts will be through those partnerships and online content designed to acclimate new players." Haas said that the "major advertising blitz in the U.S. this past fall is not necessarily coming to the U.K." He said that DraftKings "will prepare for a larger marketing push this summer" ahead of the '16-17 EPL season (BOSTON HERALD, 2/7).
GAME-CHANGER?: WIRED's Pauline Bock reported DraftKings "might be about to change" how the U.K. watches sport. Well, "one sport." Haas: "We're under no illusion that our top three sports here won’t be anything else than football, football and football." Even though the EPL and Champions League were introduced on the U.S. platform two years ago and count 200,000 players overseas, the U.K. launch "made it necessary to rethink the platform’s scoring system," Draft Kings co-Founder and CRO Matt Kalish explained. The first football scoring "included only goals, assists and saves, he said, which was not satisfying enough for the surveyed audience." The scoring now includes 19 different play events (WIRED, 2/5).
