The question of the value of club partnerships for both parties was the opener of the daily fantasy sports panel at Betting on Football (#bofcon) on Thursday afternoon.
Oulala Founder Valery Bollier, Sportego Founder Trev Keane, Mondogoal International Director Richard Graham and Fantasybet CEO Viktor Enoksen discussed DFS in Europe in a session chaired by Editec’s Simon Burrell.
Mondogoal’s Richard Graham opened with his view that club partnerships add credibility to fantasy operators. Mondogoal boasts partnerships with the likes of Real Madrid, Chelsea, Spurs, West Ham, Roma and more. On behalf of benefits to clubs he put forward his belief of how linking up with operators such as themselves offers clubs an engagement tool with fans. He also highlighted the importance of managing expectations noting how some people use the meteoric explosion of DFS in the States as a yardstick for its performance in the UK and Europe, and that this should not be the case.
Trev Keane added that it’s about personalisation for the fans of each individual club and pointed to their partnership with West Brom as a huge learning curve.
Burrell posed the question of whether getting a daily fantasy partner on board devalues the partnerships held with betting operators. Viktor Enoksen said: “We have a product which makes people watch more football and engage more with it. This can only help betting.”
Oulala’s Valery Bollier explained: “It’s not competition. Fantasy operators go together with betting operators and they complement each other. DFS is a game of skill and a different product.”
Discussing this further Richard Graham spoke on the potential benefit of DFS products to betting operators. He said: “Traditional bets can be demolished within the opening ten minutes whilst DFS products keep people interested in a game longer, at times over the course of the whole weekend. If their interest is maintained then the likelihood of them placing a bet is higher.”
Simon Burrell also questioned the speakers on what the next big thing in DFS is, and the potential for innovation. Bollier gave a straightforward and direct answer that innovation will come from advances in technology and data acquisition. He stated that the acquisition and use of live data, and the ever increasing range of data too, is the future.