Interview: Robi Ganguly on The Fantasy Sports Phenomenon

While I am not a fantasy sports player, I have long been fascinated by the seeming iron grip these offerings have over the free time of millions of people. I am pleased to introduce you to Robi Ganguly this week, as well as to provide you with his perspective on fantasy sports and how to market using them.

Robi is a long time veteran of digital and a serial entrepreneur. His involvement in fantasy sports has been both personal and professional – he was once employed at Yahoo where he worked with Yahoo properties including their fantasy offerings to help define and implement the best inventory and offerings for publishers. Currently, he is a founder of a new site called DraftMVP.com, which he discusses in some detail below. Additionally, he provides consulting services to startup and major companies that seek to better communicate with their customers via digital.

Without further ado, let me hand the virtual mike to Robi to give us some insight into the world of fantasy sports.

1. Lots of us who are not involved in fantasy sports are nonetheless hearing a great deal about them. Can you tell us why you think they are so popular?

I think a lot of it comes down to the fact that a large part of sports fandom is about watching the decisions of the team management and applauding or criticizing it, as the case may be. Fantasy sports gives all of the "armchair quarterbacks" out there the ability to put their words into actions, managing a team of their own.

2. Why do you think fantasy players are so passionate about it?

Since real-life sporting contests tend to have very clear winners and losers, fantasy sports really extends that clarity of victory to an individual level. The fans can participate in feeling the exhilaration of winning as the athletes succeed on the field. Additionally, most leagues are made up of friends who like to taunt, tease and gloat throughout the season, which leads to a vibrant (albeit combative) community.

3. I know that fantasy has expanded well beyond baseball. What are the most popular sports? And is this primarily and American phenom?

Fantasy sports certainly have a large U.S. base (over 18 million players), but they are important to fans around the world, with the popular sports reflecting national acceptance. In the U.S., for example, the most popular (by number of players) fantasy sport is football. Basketball, baseball and NASCAR are also very popular, with fans of soccer, hockey, golf and other sports represented too. Internationally, soccer and cricket appear to be highly popular, reflecting their global popularity.

4. Your developing a new site and service for fantasy players. Can you tell us a little bit about it?

Sure. Our small team of 4 has created a fast and powerful tool located at www.draftmvp.com that assists fantasy baseball players during their draft. While the majority of players do a lot of research before their draft, identifying who they'd like to pick up for their team, there aren't any offerings that really assist that player during the draft. That's where DraftMVP comes in: we allow you to understand how your team's statistical portfolio changes with each pick in your draft and we help you evaluate each of your choices before adding them to your team. Our research about the methodology over the past few seasons has shown us that our approach outperforms those players who choose not to deploy it.

5. Is the service primarily for the hard core player, or is your target broader?

As a company, our aspirations are pretty broad. Our first offering, the draft tool, is focused on being as simple and easy to use as possible, so that we can help out the novice user. We've been hearing from many novice fantasy baseball players that it's exactly the thing to level the playing field for them.
(some Twitter comments:
http://twitter.com/mercinary/status/1398099935
http://twitter.com/uublog/status/1399138980
http://twitter.com/DrBlogstein/status/1404565718)

6. When I was younger, there was a hard core group of baseball fans who scoured Sporting News for stats and figures with an intensity I’ve seldom seen other places. Are fantasy sports built around the hard core stat head?

Most fantasy sports offerings are centered around content and league management. As such, it isn't really restricted to hard core stat heads. However, staying up to date on player activities can be really time intensive and as a result, many fantasy players feel pressure to be reading sports news every day in order to be competitive. Our team believes that there is an opportunity to develop powerful tools for fantasy sports managers, using statistics in order to make better roster decisions quickly. We believe that introducing tools to assist the average sports fan manage their fantasy team will make fantasy sports more enjoyable and hopefully, broaden the appeal of the industry as a whole.

7. Who’s making money in fantasy, and how?

The major providers of fantasy sports league management capabilities are Yahoo!, ESPN and CBS Sportsline, all of whom sell advertising. Additionally, they have premium offerings which cost money, providing them with the majority of their revenues. On the content side of the industry, there are literally hundreds of sites that offer fantasy sports news, insights, recommendations and player watch lists. These content providers tend to charge for their content and also sell advertising on their sites.

8. As you know, iMedia Connection is primarily focused on people charged with communicating brand messages. How does a sports brand participate in these communities? Are their opportunities for non sports brands?

To date, brands have used banner advertising and custom integrations with the larger sites to get in front of fantasy sports players. Importantly, the brands haven't just been sports brands, they've been brands like Coke and Subway. Brands who want to connect with players could sponsor paid features, content and tools in order to offer fantasy sports players services that they value. Additionally, they could organize specific contests, create communities for fantasy sports players to collaborate and work with the major sports leagues to extend the accessibility of the stats required by fantasy sports players (currently these stats are very expensive and tightly held). All of these actions would serve to associate the brand with clear benefits for the fantasy sports players.

9. In closing, what advice would you give to a marketer considering fantasy sports as a communications channel?

Brands have long considered sports as a good place to connect with passionate and highly engaged consumers. Fantasy sports players tend to be a subset of the sports category who are even more passionate and highly engaged. As such, experimenting with ways to get in front of fantasy sports players should be an area of focus for any brand that is already focusing on sports fans. Additionally, fantasy sports players tend to be highly connected individuals, managing their teams online, using their computers while watching sports and using their mobile phones to check scores, news and lineups. When brands think about communicating with customers digitally and experimenting with emerging channels, the fantasy sports market is a place where consumers can be readily found.

Thanks Robi!