Yahoo Sports GM Geoff Reiss has experienced firsthand just how much fantasy sports has grown since it was brought to the web. He said, "We were throwing huge office parties the first time we surpassed ten thousand people signing up in a year. And now, for Yahoo Sports and certainly other category leaders, we’re measuring participation in the category well into the millions.” On the latest episode of "SBJ Unpacks: The Road Ahead," Reiss joins our Andrew Levin to break down the business of fantasy sports -- its past, present and future.
On fan engagement in various fantasy sports:
Reiss: When it comes to engagement, they’re different animals because the daily nature of baseball calls for a higher level of engagement from a smaller number of folks. We’ve had a lot of success on the NBA-side, shifting to a more week-oriented model to try to make it feel less daunting for that user. In partnership with the National Basketball Association, we’ve seen some healthy growth in seasonal and fantasy basketball. But it would be disingenuous to represent it in any other way: professional football still absolutely leads the category.
On any new emerging revenue streams in the space:
Reiss: A couple folks have done some really nice jobs on creating premium subscription content to layer on top of fantasy, and that’s something we’re watching very closely. And then, there are a host of adjacent categories that benefit from fantasy participation. It’s highly likely that you’ll see higher levels of adoption of various OTT or pay-per-view platforms that fans rationalize, in part, because they’re fantasy players. It becomes easier to say, “I have to have out-of-market packages for the NBA,” or, “I have to have this OTT package.”
On navigating an unpredictable NFL schedule:
Reiss: It’s been a really challenging year and listen, it’s been challenging across every aspect of the way we operate, not just Yahoo Sports but across all the media brands. One of the things that the fantasy team does a truly exceptional job of is the way that we communicate with our fans, both directly in terms of how we do it through push notifications and even through channels like Reddit. One of the reasons that our fantasy products have been so successful is the folks who build those products, the folks who manage those products, are hardcore fantasy players themselves.
