As a sports fan and casual fantasy sports participant, reading about today’s launch of FanDuel, a new fantasy sports wagering site by the folks over at HubDub, on TechCrunch definitely caught my attention. FanDuel’s approach to the fantasy sports is combining the quick thrill of traditional sports wagering with the unique nature of fantasy sports.
If you’ve ever been in a fantasy sports league you know it’s great when you’re on top but when you’re down, the season can be hellishly long and brutal. Tuning into the fast-paced nature we’ve come accustomed to via our daily social networks, FanDuel looks to solve that problem giving you a chance to put together a new team daily for baseball and weekly in football – the two primary sports FanDuel hosts at the moment.
On top of that and to capture the audience looking to make a little money on it, FanDuel lets you wager on each of your games (from $5 to $25). So is it legal? Yes. Current U.S. laws provide for wagering on fantasy sports with the payouts usually coming at the end of a season, FanDuel pays out daily or weekly. The site does offer free games with no prizes beyond short-term office bragging rights.
HubDub’s blog goes on to say, “Players can draft a new team at any time, and pitch it head-to-head against an opponent – a friend, or another FanDuel player – for real money. The player whose team has the most fantasy points at the end of the day’s games wins the cash prize.”
paidContent.org points out stats from the Fantasy Sports Trade Association estimating there are over 27 million fantasy sports players in the U.S., so FanDuel does have a large potential member base to tap into. The company took a great approach not trying to upend the giants in the traditional fantasy sports world like Yahoo!, ESPN or CBS, but with short-term commitments and the ability to make a few dollars on it, I think they have a good shot at grabbing some traction in the market. I have not seen such a unique approach to fantasy sports since the Wall Street Sports/Sandbox days of the late 1990’s.