As daily fantasy platforms look to expand and bring more players into the fold, one way to potentially satisfy needs is to allow customers to watch sports on their sites. DraftKings will stream EuroLeague basketball games for players participating in $3 and above contests this year, and that could be the beginning of more sports down the line.
DraftKings CEO Matt Kalish told the SportTechie podcast with Bram Weinstein that it’s important to make his site a one-stop destination, rather than have players go to different platforms:
“I think what specifically DraftKings players really want is a one-stop shop where if you’re playing fantasy, you don’t want to have to hop around to necessarily five or six different places to consume the game content.
… And it’s not going to be something that we solve overnight. It’s going to be a process.”
He added that his subscribers don’t want to have “eight different subscriptions to a bunch of different products and you’re going off to NBA League Pass on one spot and NFL RedZone and all these different places.”
DraftKings does have partnerships with MLB, NFL, and NHL, as well as NASCAR and UFC, so it could potentially reach deals to fold in over the top packages like MLB.tv, NHL.tv, or UFC Fight Pass.
Kalish said that he feels the sports leagues will want to partner with DraftKings down the line on this:
“And I think the leagues, teams — everybody — media companies see the value in providing a great experience at least for the fans and players. So it’s something that we’re really working on actively and something that we’re really passionate about trying to chip away at over time.”
Should DraftKings be able to use its partnerships with the leagues to parlay it into livestreaming, it could be a game changer, not only for the service, but for the over the top streaming in general.
