The success and proof of concept that Mondogoal achieved these past two weeks with Women’s World Cup showed that select niche mega-events can draw both dollars and attention.
DraftKings and other smaller companies have been looking to golf as a new growing platform because it is simple, mobile and can be played in and around live event. Their their million dollar winner for the US Open demonstrated a growing market not just for golfers but for millennials who may never play a four-hour round on a Saturday.
As we move closer to the one year out celebration that countries all over the world will put on for Rio, it’s interesting to start thinking about the permutations of Olympic fantasy and how it would work. New sports coming into Rio, golf especially, can easily be adapted to a pay fantasy model, and team sports like basketball are ripe for an engagement game.
Parlay the fact that the International Olympic Committee earlier this year approved legal sports books in Nevada to carry betting lines for next summer’s games, and that means that a deeper analytic dive will be made by betting houses around the world to find ways to create interest in sports like swimming and other individual sports as well. Fantasy gymnastics, anyone?
Maybe not gymnastics, as individual sports outside the mainstream may be too difficult to create an audience for. However for key team sports, and add in a growing sport like rugby which will be in the games for the first time and has a strong tie to traditional gambling play, and other mainstream team sports in the Games, and you have interesting opportunities for pay fantasy alongside traditional gambling being done legally from Las Vegas.
The interest in fantasy and gambling will not be lost on rights holder NBC as well. The recent numbers by the Fantasy Sports Trade Association show that the more fantasy play involved with sport, the more the viewer is engaged in the broadcast and all pieces that go along with engagement. Since the Olympics traditionally skew viewers that are older and more female, the goal is to find a younger and more engaged audience, and an investment in fantasy play may be smart, at least for American audience engagement for 2016.
“There is no doubt that pay fantasy is growing in engagement, the question is still how do you make it simple and appealing to a wide audience of casual fans, and there is no bigger event other than the Super Bowl that gathers casual fans like the Olympics,” said Chris Lencheski, longtime marketer and currently running the consulting business Phoenicia. “The amount of data available for the Olympics so vast, the broadcasters want more engagement, and the marketing dollars are there. While it might not be a huge playing audience for 2016, it can set the table for the future just like this Women’s World Cup game has, so it will be interesting to see who steps up to engage.”
While Yahoo has said they will make a big play in the pay fantasy space this fall, most other media companies have gone the partner route, looking for revenue share and advertising dollars from the bigger pay fantasy players thus far. Could that change if the marketplace shows an interest going forward? NBC has done a great job in creative engagement around its properties, and added engagement for the Olympics in the form of pay fantasy would be an intriguing look.
If it worked for WWC, maybe it can work for the Olympics as well.
