DraftKings has certainly had an interesting history. In 2015 alone the company went from being able to print money to being declared illegal by New York state virtually overnight. Now the company has an eye on the future, with a business model that they hope includes live game coverage.
Chief Revenue Officer Matt Kalish first kicked around the idea of DraftKings carrying live games on the SportsTechie podcast in February. Now, in an interview with Yahoo’s Daniel Roberts, DraftKings CEO Jason Robins says the company doesn’t want to stream just any live games. It wants to stream NFL games. He says the legalization of sports betting makes a partnership that would allow users to watch games in the same place they lay their wagers make sense.
I don’t think this is rocket science: I think media and betting will converge. There are so many synergies. The natural market forces should make media and sports betting converge. There are other blocking factors that could get in the way, but if you just left it up to market forces, that is what would happen.
Joe Lucia of Awful Announcing says there is one broadcast package that is an obvious fit for DraftKings. He says the company should pounce if the NFL really does intend to take the NFL Sunday Ticket package to the open market in 2019.
Think about it – on DirecTV is becoming something of a burden for the company and is losing relevance. The NFL of their DirecTV contract next year and could take it to the open market. Imagine how perfect Sunday Ticket could be integrated online with DraftKings – video links next to your lineup for each player’s game. A mosaic screen with all of your players’ games included. Alerts and highlights when your players score points. It would be absolutely perfect for the daily fantasy fanatic.
While it would make logical sense, would it make financial sense? DirecTV paid a reported $1.5 billion for NFL Sunday Ticket in its last contract. Are enough people playing daily fantasy sports to cover that bill? Even if DraftKings was content to carry just one game per week, Amazon doled out $65 million for its Thursday night package. Are enough people playing daily fantasy sports to cover that considerably smaller bill?
DraftKings is starting much smaller in their streaming efforts. The company will begin streaming European basketball games this season.
