With the NFL season underway, fantasy operators have been investing heavily to get the edge in the battle for players. While FanDuel and DraftKings spared no expense in recent months in advertising and locking in new partners, Yahoo made its own move into the fantasy space, including the launch of the new Yahoo Sports Daily Fantasy, offering one-day and one-week fantasy contests for cash prizes.
Cynopsis Sports asked Dan Haight, Director of Business Operations, Yahoo Fantasy Sports about the changes and what we can expect in the years ahead.
Haight on Yahoo’s fantasy strategy: I don’t think our fantasy strategy has changed. We consistently evaluate our product suite and are always looking to add value to our users. In the past year we’ve watched the explosive growth of the daily fantasy industry, and believe it to be a great complement to our existing legacy fantasy products. We’re taking what we’ve learned as the leader in fantasy sports over these past 16 years and bringing that same expertise and legacy into daily fantasy. We see daily fantasy as a great new space for fantasy sports, with huge growth potential. We’re happy to be the first major fantasy site to offer both season-long and daily fantasy games, and look forward to providing users unique integrations between the two fantasy offerings.
On features: The newest benefit to our users is the addition of daily fantasy, which we launched right before the MLB All Star Break in July. We’re extremely excited that football season has begun; we’re running a $1 million contest in week 1 where first place will take home $100K. We can provide our users a unique experience by seamlessly integrating season-long and daily fantasy. The first integration launched alongside our season-long private cash leagues. In those leagues, users pay for the leagues by depositing money into their Fantasy Wallet. The Fantasy Wallet can then be used to enter daily fantasy contests, in addition to paying for season-long private cash leagues (a service we offer for free). Additionally, any user who has a season-long team is eligible for a one-time 200% deposit bonus (everyone else receives a 100% bonus) into their Fantasy Wallet.
On support: Our product and editorial teams work closely together. Our fantasy experts are some of the best in the industry and through their followings and what they write, they help drive a tremendous amount of traffic and support back to the fantasy site. We also have some integrations on the Yahoo homepage and are thinking through further integrations that will add value to our users across the Yahoo network.
On the future: It’s definitely an exciting time for the fantasy sports industry. As a leading provider, we are continually looking to innovate on the experiences we provider our users, both in terms of technology as well as the types of games and contests. We look forward to the challenge of maintaining our position as leaders in the industry.
