NASCAR was always a key wish-list item for daily fantasy operator Draft-Kings, even when the company essentially was an unknown startup in 2012 and early 2013.
“Right from our very beginning, NASCAR was always a key priority,” said Jason Robins, DraftKings co-founder and chief executive. “Sure, fantasy football has been more established. But it was always our intent to be part of something that has such a large and passionate fan base like NASCAR does. And the amount of letters and requests we got from people over the years, asking when we would offer a NASCAR product, further spoke to that.”
The Boston-based DraftKings finally got its wish last week when it formally announced a three-year deal with NASCAR to become the racing property’s official daily fantasy sports partner. The deal, formally starting with this weekend’s Coca-Cola 600 in Charlotte, grants DraftKings an exclusive license to develop NASCAR-branded daily games and offer exclusive experiential prizes. DraftKings also gains exclusive access to NASCAR Digital Media’s real-time statistical data feed. That last element was crucial in making the deal happen, Robins said.
“To have a truly real-time data feed, which we believe is crucially important to a racing game, working with them was the only way to do it,” Robins said. “So without this partnership with NASCAR, I’m not sure we would have been able to put together a racing game. But we have, and we think that will make our game superior in the market.”
DraftKings also will be able to seek out supplemental partnerships with individual tracks and drivers. None are signed at present, but Robins said there is significant desire by the company in further leveraging the NASCAR deal.
“That one was the first priority to get done, but I would consider us as very interested in working with individual teams and tracks,” he said.
Unlike DraftKings’ recent extension with MLB, the NASCAR deal does not involve equity.
For its part, NASCAR spoke with multiple entities in the daily fantasy space before zeroing in on DraftKings, according to an industry source. NASCAR has about 250,000 users playing its official, traditional fantasy game available on its website and mobile application.
In a release, Steve Phelps, NASCAR executive vice president and chief marketing officer, called fantasy sports a “core tenet” of the sanctioning body’s bid to broaden fan engagement and said the DraftKings alignment will “strongly support” that effort.
DraftKings, meanwhile, continues to work on a large-scale funding round that will include the Walt Disney Co. and ESPN but did not offer a specific timetable on its projected closing.
