ESPN No Longer Mum on DraftKings Controversy Amidst Partnership Deal
ESPN is the 24/7 sports network but, despite the explosive controversy revolving around a potential insider cheating scandal at Daily Fantasy Sports site DraftKings, the network was slow to react to the news until Tuesday morning.
ESPN's website only made mention of the controversy in its Chalk section (which is actually the part of the site dealing with sports betting), and, yes, there is a big DraftKings banner sitting above that article. By Tuesday morning, the site had featured a headline on its home page.
Users in online forums are asking whether a DraftKings employee might have used information about lineups to win $350,000 in a competing contest on the FanDuel site. The information detailed the percentages of entrants who selected certain fantasy players.
The story was picked up by Gambling911.com and its sister site DFS911.com by Sunday afternoon following reports that began circulating on various Daily Fantasy Sports dedicated media outlets. By Monday morning, the New York Times released its own scathing report of the incident.
ESPN recently entered into a massive sponsorship deal with DraftKings. Many were left questioning why the likes of an ESPN were not all over the story within an hour of the glaring New York Times headlines Monday afternoon.
During ESPN’s airing of Monday Night Football, FanDuel and DraftKings ads appeared to be somewhat reduced compared to previous weeks (we counted an entire 40 minutes without a commercial for either company), though this could be the result of public disdain over the recent ad saturation and their proclamations that any “Joe Blow” can win millions on a DFS site.
USA Today’s Chris Korman probably had it right a few weeks back with an article that blared “DraftKings and FanDuel are Fun, Addictive and Completely Unfair for most fans”.
Korman points to a Bloomberg report that focuses on a winning DFS player who is far from a recreational player.
What Sud does each day doesn’t seem much like sports fandom—or even like much fun. He spends between eight and 15 hours working from his two-bedroom apartment in downtown Boston; the range reflects his uncertainly over whether to count the time watching games as work. During baseball season he puts about 200 entries into tournaments each night, and he can play more than 1,000 times in the weekly contests during NFL season.
But Star Fantasy Leagues CEO Seth Young insists that Daily Fantasy Sports are a game of skill and does not deny there is work involved for those who wish to win on a regular basis.
“Building a lineup for fantasy sports can require a different analytical model (then sports betting),” Young told Gambling911.com’s Thomas Somach. “Some of the highest volume fantasy players do some really interesting predictive modeling to craft the most optimal lineup for every individual day or week in each individual sport and each individual contest. A good way to describe the skill involved is comparing it to analyzing trends in the stock market, then executing your picks based on your knowledge of each individual player, their matchups, weather factors, contest size, you name it. “
Young’s company may have the most to benefit from the industry and all those DraftKings and FanDuel ads. Star Fantasy Leagues, not a household name by any stretch of the imagination, is more focused on the B2B side of the business. They are the leading Daily Fantasy Sports software producers with would be operators knocking down their door.
That being said, Young and company have focused on ensuring the very issues that cropped up this week with DraftKings do not happen at Star Fantasy Leagues or any of their operating partners.
“We believe our focus on legal compliance and building scalable, flexible technology gives us an advantage to easily work alongside groups around the world who also value this approach,” Young said.
- Jagajeet Chiba, Gambling911.com
