After a counter-productive ad blitz at the start of the 2015 NFL season caught the eyes of state regulators around the country, the two biggest daily fantasy sports sites say they are cutting back significantly on ads this year.
Last year’s ad blitz had DFS ads running around the clock in most U.S. markets.
“It tipped over an invisible line,” FanDuel Chief Executive Nigel Eccles told YogoNet.com. “When people saw the ad the 35th time, they were like, ‘We get it.’ ”
Eccles said his company will cut back advertising significantly from last year. The company is also launching a rebranding of its website and reconfiguring its ads to make DFS appear less like gambling. The new ads will focus more on being a fan and a love of sports in general, he said.
The redesign also includes a user Bill Of Rights and Governance page that informs players of their rights and exactly what to expect when playing FanDuel.
Last season, FanDuel and rival DraftKings spent an estimated $500 million on advertising. The blitz left many politicians in Congress and more than 30 states wondering if DFS was unregulated sports wagering. The industry has been fighting a state-by-state battle ever since as state legislatures considered regulatory bills for the industry in their respective states.
The blitz also brought media coverage of the industry, much of which focused on how skilled players armed with computer logarithms dominated payouts.
The blitz wasn’t completely counter-productive, however, as FanDuel’s revenue nearly doubled to about $100 million in 2015, from $57 million 2014, according to the company.
DraftKings also intends to spend less than one-quarter of its previous advertising budget this year, DraftKings CEO Jason Robins recently said. Eccles said in a recent interview that his company is spending less than half of what it spent last year.
The move, however, also reflects how much less cash each company has on hand as it funds lobbying efforts in several states. So far, only six states have adopted bills explicitly making DFS legal in their states.
In another matter, FanDuel has received a license from the UK’s Gambling Commission and is preparing to launch a site there. An exact date has not been set.
Eccles told VentureBeat in May that FanDuel UK will be football-only but could expand to other sports further down the line, and would be ring-fenced.
