It must be a strange time to be an investor in daily fantasy sports sites. On the one hand, the increased interest in DFS has led to an explosion in the marketplace over the last six months, and early investors have likely seen their initial capital contributions grow beyond their wildest dreams. On the other hand, the whole federal government crackdown.
Both DraftKings and FanDuel have enormous deals with every major American sports league—most of which are investors in one or the other—as well as many major media conglomerates that have funded the sites to billion dollar valuations. Everyone has wanted a piece of the daily fantasy cash cow, and that includes active players.
Detroit Lions Pro Bowl safety Glover Quin is, per Dave Birkett of the Detroit Free Press, an investor in both DraftKings and FanDuel. While he wouldn’t tell Birkett how much money he has invested in the DFS industry, he’s not shy about his support.
“I don’t have nothing against it.” Quin said. “I actually support fantasy football. I really support FanDuel. I really support DraftKings. I really do. In great ways. I just don’t play it right now because I play. When I’m done playing, I may play.”
He declined to say how much money he invested, but he said he has invested in six or seven companies as part of his group and that it appears as if his investments in DraftKings and FanDuel are “doing great.”
Awful Announcing reached out to the NFLPA to inquire on how many other players may have a similar investment strategy to Quin, but as of this publication the players’ association has not replied. The Free Press story quotes NFL spokesman Greg Aiello who said, “there is no issue as long as it is a personal investment.” ProFootballTalk reached out to the NFL as well, and spokesman Brian McCarthy told Mike Florio the league is even okay with players playing Daily Fantasy games. Wait…
NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy tells PFT that there is no issue with a player making a personal investment in a daily fantasy company. The NFL also has no problem with its players or other employees playing fantasy sports, as long as they accept no prize in excess of $250.
As more states fight back against the daily fantasy invasion, deeming the practice gambling and—as Nevada decided last week—illegal without a proper gambling license, it’s interesting to see the NFL’s stance on playing daily fantasy, especially with the league’s previous track record of not allowing players to participate in fantasy leagues.
Is this a money talks situation, because there is certainly a lot of money at stake.
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Ironically, the NFL is the only league not to invest directly in daily fantasy, as MLB, NHL, MLS and NBA all have deals with one company or the other. The NFL feels like the most closely tied to daily fantasy, with hundreds of millions of dollars of advertising going to the league (and its media partners, many of which are investors as well) to fund the constant barrage of television and radio ads during NFL programming.
Daily Fantasy, as an industry, is probably too big to fail, which is why it’s so unsurprising that it might. As the federal government and state gambling commissions continue to question the legality of these sites, everyone involved seems to be in a bit of a holding pattern.
Except, perhaps, the players.
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The great equalizer in all fantasy sports is that at the end of the day (pun) the winners and losers aren’t really up to the users or the investors. In a lot of ways, playing daily fantasy is similar to working the stock market, but the one great difference is that if we all decide to dump our Disney stock today because ESPN is laying off hundreds of workers and the mouse-colored sky is falling, that decision impacts the outcome of the market, and the success and failure of its users.
If we all decide to dump Calvin Johnson because the Lions stink, he could still score three touchdowns this weekend. And his teammate, Quin—and surely many other professional athletes—are going to make their money either way.
“I mean, fantasy is a huge thing,” Quin said. “Fantasy changed the way people look at games, honestly. Like, when you think about it, if you grew up and you were a (Washington) fan, you didn’t like the Cowboys. But if you got Dez Bryant on your fantasy team, you still might not like the Cowboys, but you want Dez Bryant to score. And so that’s just kind of how it goes. Fantasy’s a huge thing and a bunch of people play it and everybody plays it, and FanDuel and DraftKings are two, like, companies that are blowing it up right now.” [Free Press]
Blowing up is an interesting choice of words. It will be fascinating to see the fallout among the players and the players if they really do blow up soon.
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