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DraftKings strategy focuses on content

Daily fantasy sports operator DraftKings is shifting its MLB activation for the 2016 season, moving from last year’s full-throttle brand awareness campaign to a more integrated strategy aimed at engagement.

Boston-based DraftKings has partnered with nine clubs — the Chicago White Sox, Cincinnati, Colorado, Detroit, Houston, the Los Angeles Dodgers, Miami, St. Louis and San Diego — to incorporate fantasy statistics, leaderboards and other fantasy game-related content into stadium scoreboards, ribbon boards and other LED signs.

In each instance, DraftKings is providing daily fantasy statistics reports to game operations and scoreboard personnel to present during games. The company intends to fold additional MLB clubs into the activation strategy as the season continues.

DraftKings is integrating its stats and analytics inside its MLB partner ballparks.
Photo by: TAKA YANAGIMOTO / ST. LOUIS CARDINALS
“Last year was all about getting our brand out there and building name recognition, with a lot of focus on having our name and logo very present,” said Janet Holian, DraftKings global chief marketing officer, who joined the company in January. “But we are evolving as we go, and we wanted to do something a little more impactful this season that made better use of assets and showcased the [fantasy] games.”

DraftKings does retain some more straightforward branding and signage in several markets. It has a total of 27 MLB team deals.

DraftKings’ shift in its baseball activation strategy arrives as the company, along with chief rival FanDuel and the rest of the daily fantasy business, continues to fight a tenuous state-by-state battle to maintain daily fantasy’s legality. DraftKings is now not accepting cash entries from nine states, and fantasy sports-related legislation is active in nearly two dozen states.

The company also is not maintaining active MLB partnerships in any state where pay-based daily fantasy is illegal, with the exception of New York. There, DraftKings is working with the New York Yankees and Mets on more hospitality-based and experiential marketing efforts. But large Draft-Kings signage in and around Yankee Stadium and Citi Field, present last year, has come down for the 2016 season.

Michael Young, Dodgers senior vice president, said the DraftKings content integrations were initially contemplated before the 2015 season, long before daily fantasy encountered any legal and legislative hurdles. The Dodgers see the DraftKings content as a key tool to engage younger, more millennial fans.

“If you don’t get in and really spend time with baseball, it can seem a little slow,” Young said. “But this is something that can take the game, speed it up and make it more engaging to a younger audience. And in developing this with DraftKings, it was really sympatico from the start because we’re both really built around analytics.”

In Chicago, a large DraftKings sign present last season on the U.S. Cellular Field outfield wall has been replaced by fantasy statistical content to help populate more than 12,000 square feet of new scoreboards at the ballpark.

“This made a lot of sense for both sides,” said Brooks Boyer, White Sox chief marketing officer. “They were looking to do something more dynamic and customized and have different messaging, and we have these new boards we want to show off to our fans. This allows for a much more creative situation than simply a static sign.”

Illinois is one of the states where daily fantasy is being contested, and state Attorney General Lisa Madigan wrote late last year that she believed the activity was illegal under state law. But Boyer said the club’s partnership with DraftKings is “basically business as usual. We’re proceeding forward unless we’re told differently.”

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