With the emerging fantasy sports industry there is a burgeoning ecosystem in the making. We have the task of trying to categorize the number of different organizations, companies, and websites in the industry. Although fantasy sports covers all sports, the reality is that fantasy football is king of fantasy sports. So any categorization would be skewed towards that fantasy football.
The ecosystem is supported by a number of different revenue streams from advertisers, gaming fees, payouts, and subscriptions. Although there were always be outliers, the ecosystem could be grouped in these areas both in verticals and horizontals.
For verticals these would be products providers and services providers. Horizontal categorization would be a vast topics and issues that influence the growing number of providers in the industry.
In this post we will look at the a segment of vertical product providers. These categorization will be reflected in FantaSandbox labels for articles. In addition, for twitter lists the product providers have been classified in separate lists as well. Overall the structure looks like this:
Verticals
- Game Providers (https://twitter.com/FantasySandbox/lists/game-providers)
- Season Leagues
- Weekly Contents
- Daily Games
- Content Providers (https://twitter.com/FantasySandbox/lists/content-providers)
- News and Stats
- Tech and Tools
- Paid Subscriptions
- Service Providers (https://twitter.com/FantasySandbox/lists/service-providers)
- Legal services
- Financial services
- Software services
Horizontals
- Industry Topics
- Demographics
- Business
- Gambling
- Technology
- Sport
Game Providers
These organizations provide the fantasy football games for which fantasy owners interact and play on. The game providers are the platform to which fantasy sports has been built upon. When fantasy sports started their were no game providers and scores and stats where tracked by pen and paper and calculated with calculators.
In today's world, these game-hosters success has been the main fuel for the fantasy sports boom. When the internet took off so did fantasy sports. With the recent progress of mobile devices, fantasy sports game providers can continue to reach a broader audience.
Game providers can further divided into three distinct categories on the pivot on how the game providers receive their revenue.
Season Leagues
Organizations that fall in this category include some of the largest and most influential in fantasy sports. ESPN and Yahoo are two most popular game platform that offer traditional league games. Although there are variations, most traditional leagues will last almost the entire football regular season and includes a draft and playoff system. The leagues will feature rotisserie format but the most common feature is head to head games. The key revenue drivers in this segment are from advertisers that are willing to pay for space on these massively popular sites. Thus, their is an incentive for the game providers to provide theses games free of charge and bring in as large of an audience as they can.
Although these organizations can reduce costs by producing a standard type of leagues and games, there will be a segment of owners that will want to deviate from the mainstream. These deviations would go beyond scoring changes like points per reception of individual defensive players leagues that are popular among owners however are not included in the standard format. These customizations are the ones that the segment would be willing to pay for and these organizations would receive their main source of revenue through these fees.
MyFantasyLeague would be classic example of this. The site provides a number of different customizations including scoring, league definition, draft settings, commissioner tools as well as 3rd party developer support for further customization.
Daily Games
These contest are primary where the daily fantasy sports site are located. They require an entry fee however do provide payout for winners. The fees are the main source of revenue and is collected for the cost of doing business in these type of games.
Although the traditional season league will offer payouts or prizes eligible leagues, they do it for game diversification to attract a diversified set of owners. Daily games organization business model is almost exclusive dependent on the fee model.
The category is under the scrutiny on how close the games are structure to be like gambling. Because of the short timing of the games, the notion of luck rather than skill could tip the balance of these types of games to be gambling games. If so, their revenue stream and target market could be drastically reduced if that happens.
Weekly Contest
An in between segment does exists where game providers conduct weekly contest. These games do not last an entire season, however will span several weeks. At this moment, this is not a very popular category of games. CBS Sports does provide this format of game.
Content Providers
The second set of classifications in the ecoystem are content providers. In today's digital age, these would include internet websites but does also include a small number of traditional print media. The type of content providers can be further grouped into the type of content that is provided.
News and Stats
Fantasy sports are measured by statistics and the content provider that provide sports statistics will be included in the ecosystem. Although statistics can be strictly defined to just include the numbers, the category can also include content ranging from injury status and depth charts along with performance statistical data.
Most of the major sports website and sports content provider in media will be in this area. ESPN, CBS Sports, NBC Sports, NFL, MLB, Sports Illustrated, SB Nation and USAToday are all traditional media companies that do provide news and stats that fantasy owners will use. Advertisers are the main source of revenue for this category and again in order to attract the largest audience, this type of data will be free of charge. TV and podcast are also included in this media, where there is growing number of programs that are dedicated to fantasy sports news.
Tools and Tech
For the more serious owners, there is second category of content that they are increasing dependent on. This content can be in the form of tools and tech. Tools and tech allows the owners to customize the data. They can do further research on trends and favorable match ups in order to pick the best players to start. There are a number of other draft tools and simulations that allows owners to prep for the upcoming seasons.
An increasing popular tools is Twitter. Owners are using it to keep up with up to minute updates on players but also using it to seek advice from knowledge fantasy sources as well. Tools can also include ones that organize the ever increasing amount of data in fantasy world. For example, Skyphrase is providing a search engine that can provide stats and information on fantasy players.
Paid Subscriptions
To go above what's available in free content, an owner can pay for expert advice and insights for fantasy sports. There are a number of fantasy content sites that for a subscription fee will provide subscribers with customized information, player advice, player ranking and player analysis. In addition the subscriptions will organize the information in a central place to save owners time from having to hunt for the data.
Subscription can be via the web or can also be purchased in the form of magazines of special draft issue and draft kits that are available. Subscription providers do provide some of the content free of charge in order to attract and entice consumers into using paid content to provide them further information.
We will look at Service Provider and Horizontal Topics here in Part 2.
In today's world, these game-hosters success has been the main fuel for the fantasy sports boom. When the internet took off so did fantasy sports. With the recent progress of mobile devices, fantasy sports game providers can continue to reach a broader audience.
Game providers can further divided into three distinct categories on the pivot on how the game providers receive their revenue.
Season Leagues
Organizations that fall in this category include some of the largest and most influential in fantasy sports. ESPN and Yahoo are two most popular game platform that offer traditional league games. Although there are variations, most traditional leagues will last almost the entire football regular season and includes a draft and playoff system. The leagues will feature rotisserie format but the most common feature is head to head games. The key revenue drivers in this segment are from advertisers that are willing to pay for space on these massively popular sites. Thus, their is an incentive for the game providers to provide theses games free of charge and bring in as large of an audience as they can.
Although these organizations can reduce costs by producing a standard type of leagues and games, there will be a segment of owners that will want to deviate from the mainstream. These deviations would go beyond scoring changes like points per reception of individual defensive players leagues that are popular among owners however are not included in the standard format. These customizations are the ones that the segment would be willing to pay for and these organizations would receive their main source of revenue through these fees.
MyFantasyLeague would be classic example of this. The site provides a number of different customizations including scoring, league definition, draft settings, commissioner tools as well as 3rd party developer support for further customization.
Daily Games
These contest are primary where the daily fantasy sports site are located. They require an entry fee however do provide payout for winners. The fees are the main source of revenue and is collected for the cost of doing business in these type of games.
Although the traditional season league will offer payouts or prizes eligible leagues, they do it for game diversification to attract a diversified set of owners. Daily games organization business model is almost exclusive dependent on the fee model.
The category is under the scrutiny on how close the games are structure to be like gambling. Because of the short timing of the games, the notion of luck rather than skill could tip the balance of these types of games to be gambling games. If so, their revenue stream and target market could be drastically reduced if that happens.
Weekly Contest
An in between segment does exists where game providers conduct weekly contest. These games do not last an entire season, however will span several weeks. At this moment, this is not a very popular category of games. CBS Sports does provide this format of game.
Content Providers
The second set of classifications in the ecoystem are content providers. In today's digital age, these would include internet websites but does also include a small number of traditional print media. The type of content providers can be further grouped into the type of content that is provided.
News and Stats
Fantasy sports are measured by statistics and the content provider that provide sports statistics will be included in the ecosystem. Although statistics can be strictly defined to just include the numbers, the category can also include content ranging from injury status and depth charts along with performance statistical data.
Most of the major sports website and sports content provider in media will be in this area. ESPN, CBS Sports, NBC Sports, NFL, MLB, Sports Illustrated, SB Nation and USAToday are all traditional media companies that do provide news and stats that fantasy owners will use. Advertisers are the main source of revenue for this category and again in order to attract the largest audience, this type of data will be free of charge. TV and podcast are also included in this media, where there is growing number of programs that are dedicated to fantasy sports news.
Tools and Tech
For the more serious owners, there is second category of content that they are increasing dependent on. This content can be in the form of tools and tech. Tools and tech allows the owners to customize the data. They can do further research on trends and favorable match ups in order to pick the best players to start. There are a number of other draft tools and simulations that allows owners to prep for the upcoming seasons.
An increasing popular tools is Twitter. Owners are using it to keep up with up to minute updates on players but also using it to seek advice from knowledge fantasy sources as well. Tools can also include ones that organize the ever increasing amount of data in fantasy world. For example, Skyphrase is providing a search engine that can provide stats and information on fantasy players.
Paid Subscriptions
To go above what's available in free content, an owner can pay for expert advice and insights for fantasy sports. There are a number of fantasy content sites that for a subscription fee will provide subscribers with customized information, player advice, player ranking and player analysis. In addition the subscriptions will organize the information in a central place to save owners time from having to hunt for the data.
Subscription can be via the web or can also be purchased in the form of magazines of special draft issue and draft kits that are available. Subscription providers do provide some of the content free of charge in order to attract and entice consumers into using paid content to provide them further information.
We will look at Service Provider and Horizontal Topics here in Part 2.
