Mondogoal, a daily fantasy sports company whose games are pegged to soccer, has reached a deal that makes Premier League club Chelsea FC a partner, adding to a lineup of clubs that already includes FC Barcelona, Liverpool FC and AS Roma.
The deal was expected to be announced this week.
The partner deal allows Mondogoal to use a team’s marks and player images. The company ultimately can create team-branded pages on its website that target each club’s fans.
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“For other daily fantasy sites, soccer is the fifth or six fiddle,” Mondogoal founder and CEO Shergul Arshad says.
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The teams, who see the partnership as a way to engage with fans in another way, promote the site online and through social media, as well as via any other marketing vehicles they choose, according to Mondogoal founder and CEO Shergul Arshad.
“For other daily fantasy sites, soccer is the fifth or sixth fiddle,” Arshad said. “Our desire is to solidify our position as the site of choice for all soccer fans, as well as gamers who are interested in playing daily fantasy soccer.”
The site, which launched last year, has paid contests on a daily or match-week basis for multiple leagues, including La Liga, Premier League, Serie A, Bundesliga, Ligue 1 and MLS. It also offers free games.
Paul Charchian, president of the Fantasy Sports Trade Association, said soccer has a great deal of potential in daily fantasy.
“[Soccer], along with mixed martial arts, are a couple of really untapped areas in this segment of the industry,” he said. “One can obviously see the increase in fan interest in soccer, both in MLS and the international leagues, and the rise of daily games around it naturally follows.”
Incorporated in the Isle of Man (but with business operations in Boston), Mondogoal’s European base is what helps to set it apart from other daily fantasy sites, like DraftKings and FanDuel, said Arshad, who previously was head of digital for AS Roma, overseeing digital strategy and business development. The company can benefit from those culture differences when pursuing team deals, and on the visibility front, Arshad said 60 percent to 70 percent of its traffic comes from U.K.-based users.
“The culture in the U.K. is so betting-orientated, so it makes a lot of sense for those fans. Buying a drink and ‘punting,’ as they call it, is second nature,” Arshad said, referring to a British slang term for gambling. “At the same time, if it scales the way we think it will scale, the vision is to bring this to multiple countries.”
Mondogoal did a $2 million seed round as it launched, with funding from family and friends as well as undisclosed strategic investors. The company has begun a Series A round in which it hopes to raise between $5 million and $10 million, Arshad said, as the company is aiming to build out its marketing budget. It also is open to strategic investments, especially from a partner that could aid in building out player databases. Mondogoal is looking to form alliances with those already in the gaming world, such as Bwin or Paddy Power, as well.
“Ironically, while U.S. fantasy sites see 70 percent of their revenue during the NFL season, 70 percent of gaming revenue worldwide is focused on soccer,” Arshad said, “so we think we’re just scratching the surface.”
Staff writer Eric Fisher contributed to this report.
