SBC News Roy Clements - STATS is bringing fantasy to life

Roy Clements – STATS is bringing fantasy to life

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Roy Clements

Roy Clements, Managing Director, UK for STATS, explains how the firm is continuing development on its award-winning fantasy sports product.

SBC: Hi there, can you give further details of STATS’ fantasy sports product and where you feel it fits in with the sports data and insights solutions you provide?

RC: Our Fantasy unit has been in operation for more than 30 years and in that time we have built a well-established fantasy sports offering, which provides users with a full-service, turnkey management of fantasy game. The product has fully customisable development abilities which means it can best fit client’s needs and works across multiple platforms too, such as traditional web, mobile and native applications.

We have built and managed fantasy games for most sports, the most popular being for football (soccer), basketball, golf, baseball and American football. We have also developed and run games for the entertainment industry, including American Idol, EA Sports and the BBC among others

The great thing about fantasy games are that they also plug into STATS other channels – as a full-service data provider, you don’t have to go somewhere else to get the data and with the acquisition of Bloomberg Sports we now have a very strong prediction capability to offer.

SBC: Fantasy sports is becoming a quickly saturated market, where can operators and services look to offer consumers something new?

RC: You say it is becoming a saturated market, but there is huge growth to be had still. Daily fantasy games are booming and we’re having great results in that space.

We are also increasingly working directly with consumer brands to develop and run games to build and strengthen their customer base and loyalty. A good example is our work with Buffalo Wild Wings where GameBreak is a multi-platform gaming experience allowing consumers to play in restaurant (via tablet), online and on a mobile app (Android and iOS devices). GameBreak serves as a destination for guests to access sports content, track their performance, share game play information through social media and create leagues to challenge their friends.

Also users are always looking for new tools to better predict performance of fantasy players, so there’s plenty of scope to improve and refine what’s available on that front. That also feeds into the opportunities around providing statistical-based predictions of sporting results as a whole.

SBC: At the recent ICE 2015 conference US Fantasy Sports was a popular topic, do you feel that this popular US format can translate and grow in international markets?

RC: I think it is. The problem with the ‘Fantasy Sports’ brands outside of the US is that ‘old-style’  game formats are being used. The salary cap and predictor models are all rather stale these days and can do with a shake-up.

So, yes, I think the market is more than ripe for the US fantasy products, using league-style and daily formats to refresh things. They’ve proved so popular in the US and sport is a global language.

SBC: How does STATS approach product development for the Fantasy Sports Betting consumer, who must surely differ in choice and engagement trends to sports and betting consumers?

RC: The daily fantasy sports product is becoming one of biggest segments in fantasy sports and actually caters for a similar demographic to the sports betting customer in many ways. As the financial rewards for top Daily Fantasy participants continues to increase, the strategies and research which enables them to perform well become increasingly valuable. As such, these players also want timely and accurate data in much the same way as ‘traditional’ bettors.

The daily player stats projections are important to those betting on a single event or selecting a fantasy team for one day and this is why STATS is working to provide player projections across all major sports.

We try and make sure our projections provide content including top 10 value plays, odds of players scoring the most points, value optimal lineups and overall rankings, as these are the key metrics.

SBC: Is Fantasy Sports the social mechanism that the online sports industry has been waiting for?

RC: Funnily enough we have recently covered this in our very own e-book entitled: Analyzing Today’s Fantasy Sports Landscape. It says: “The currency of social media is sharing information, and fantasy sports provides a treasure trove of information to serve followers. Everyone wants to brag about their team. Did you defeat your buddy this week? Make sure everyone knows about the final score with a post-game message. Starting lineups, trades, standings and final scores all make for great social fodder.”

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