NASCAR & DFS
02.14.22 - A missed opportunity…but still an opportunity. That’s the best way to describe the relationship between NASCAR teams and daily fantasy sports (DFS) as we approach the official start of the 2022 season.
The best time for teams to start fostering a relationship with the DFS community and promote related content was in May 2020, at the height of the pandemic when all team sports had been shelved on fantasy sites. NASCAR after a 9-week suspension put cars back on the track May 17th at Darlington, and DFS players that normally never considered playing NASCAR now had a reason because it was the only sport available on DraftKings and FanDuel.
With a new car and increased prize money from the DFS sites NASCAR teams are now getting a second chance. This year for the first time ever DraftKings is offering a millionaire maker contest for NASCAR on Feb. 20th for the Daytona 500, but unfortunately content around or promotion of DFS by teams is non-existent. A scan of the team accounts over the years on social media shows zero effort in fostering a relationship with the DFS community.
Opportunity?
So what exactly is the opportunity, let’s break it down in four categories:
1. First Mover
2. Growing Marketing
3. Sponsor Extension
4. Content
First Mover
Isaac Tigrett (Founder of Hard Rock Cafe and House of Blues): “There can be only one. The first guy out gets the hearts and minds of the people. Everything else is imitation.”
The playing field is wide open, no team touches on DFS at all right now. Even a minimal effort to just be DFS-friendly would make a positive impression on the community. Depending on the commitment level a team could own the NASCAR DFS category, which is an opportunity you almost never get around your sport.
The Market
How popular is DFS? IBIS World notes: The market size, measured by revenue, of the Fantasy Sports Services industry is $8.9bn in 2022. Full disclosure they predict the overall market to decline -0.3% in 2022, but the NASCAR segment is still gaining steam as evidenced by DK offering the sport’s first milly maker this year. (For a detailed analysis of the NASCAR DFS market I’d recommend contacting DK partnerships).
Another aspect of the DFS market I wanted to touch on is the correlation to sports betting. If you follow sports, right now you can’t get away from seeing ads for sports betting, and FSGA in 2018 noted: 78% of fantasy sports players bet on sports in 2018. And 75% of sports bettors played fantasy sports in 2018.
I don’t claim to know how NASCAR plans to further integrate sports betting, but they’re starting the season with four “authorized” gaming operators as partners: Barstool Sportsbook, BetMGM, Fubo Sportsbook, and WynnBET. This is something to keep an eye on, and if you work for a team I’d make sure i have a relationship with Matt Stallknecht, NASCAR’s senior manager of sports betting.
Sponsor Extension
I’ll touch on this more in the Content category, but it could make sense to involve current or possibly new sponsors in a team’s DFS content offerings. As noted above, DFS and Betting really go hand in hand, so it’s important to track where that category is going to understand potential sponsorship opportunities.
Content
For those that aren’t familiar with NASCAR DFS lets take a step back and quickly run through contest details:
Where to play: currently DraftKings and FanDuel are the two main sites. DK offers contests for all three series while FD is only for Cup.
Scoring: FanDuel is slightly different than DK and does require a separate strategy when it comes to roster construction, but for purposes of this post i’ll focus only on DK’s scoring information below:
>>Draftkings Scoring<<
In salary cap contests, participants will create a lineup by selecting players listed in the Player Pool. Each player listed has an assigned salary and a valid lineup must not exceed the salary cap of $50,000.
Contest results will be determined by the total points accumulated by each individual lineup entry:
Place Differential +/- 1 Pt
Fastest Laps +.45 Pts
Laps Led +.25 Pts
Finishing Position (1st = +45 Pts down to 40th at +1 Pts)
For full scoring/rules information:
https://www.draftkings.com/help/rules/nas?
>>Sample contest summary for The Clash on Feb. 6th<<
This 23529-player contest features $200,000.00 in total prizes and pays out the top 5520 finishing positions. First place wins $50,000.00.
Roster Construction Elements:
Next lets run through some of the considerations players use for roster construction (think of these as content buckets that could all be run through on a weekly basis):
Entry List
• Usual suspects, any changes in 2nd/3rd – tier teams
• Sponsor list (Truex – AO; Xfinity/Trucks)
Track
• Past Results (Current/Past Yrs)
• Race Trends
• Similar Tracks
• Weather (Day/Night)
Pricing
• First Glance (any mispricing)
• Breakout: Dominator, Place Differential, Value, Punt
• Initial Ranks
Differentiators:
• Qualifying (any issues)
• Practice (Lap Avgs, any issues)
• Driver Comments (Pre-Report; Qualifying/Practice)
• Tech Inspection (starting at back)
Platform Choices:
• DK vs. FD
• Betting
Roster Construction:
• Number of dominators
• Reevaluate pricing ranks
• Past Optimals
Content Recommendations:
As mentioned each one of the above points could be talked/written about in detail on a weekly basis so you can see we're not hurting for potential content. To wrap things up lets run through a few specific content opportunities for teams:
1. Becoming more DFS-friendly:
The first requirement is having a good understanding about what information is valuable to DFS and then being willing to share it. Couple examples:
Driver/CC Quotes: HMS does a pretty good job of this with their preview driver/cc quotes. The drivers answer honestly about how they feel coming to a track, what tracks they feel are similar, and some expectations. Going a step further would be including after practice/qualifying how good are they feeling about their car (top-15 car, top-10, feel we can be up their for the win, etc.). So this is just a matter of posting the quote/video. Here’s a good example from William Byron on the Duels - this would lead DFS players to player more drivers starting in the front than usual: “I do think the Duels may be somewhat calm just because guys don’t want to tear up their race cars since there’s not many backups available.”
Tech: If a driver qualifies 5th and then fails tech and starts at the back it’s huge for DFS purposes because they’re still scored from 5th starting position. You really can’t fully set your lineup until tech is finished so players wait for Bob Pockrass to tweet it out when teams could easily do this and include the tag (#NASCARDFS or #FantasyNascar). This is especially brutal when NASCAR decides to do tech on race-day.
Simple Acknowledgement: The DK milly maker was/is a no-brainer for teams to post on and include one of the tags. Takes almost zero effort to acknowledge the DFS NASCAR community, ridiculous when you really think about it that no team does. Extension of that milly maker will be if one or four of your drivers were in the optimal lineup that helps someone win a million dollars = easy built-in fun content. You want to start soft, simply post your driver’s salary when it comes out before the race, and dfs pts after the race (XYZ Racing DFS Update - Week 1 Daytona)
2. Dedicated Content:
This would involve organizing the dfs content related to your drivers and presenting it in a consistent weekly format via a post or possibly going a step further with a dedicated podcast. I’m willing to bet there’s someone within each shop that is up to speed on playing NASCAR DFS and could be involved in either writing or co-hosting. For teams with bigger budgets i’d even consider taking over an existing podcast, setting some ground rules, and seeking out sponsor involvement. I can think of a couple right now that would be a good partner, and maybe they even do it for no cost considering the larger platform you’d be giving them.
Sample base level podcast outline:
Race Review (overall and team specific)
Optimal lineup deconstruction, strategy recap
Upcoming Race Preview (Track; Salaries; Driver/Team Trends, Construction)
3. Branded Fantasy Game
Another great opportunity would be to work with DK or FD and setup your own weekly branded contest using their platform. This could include an overall sponsor along with weekly prizes featuring supplemental sponsor products.
Conclusion:
As someone that does play DFS NASCAR it would be great to see the teams show more of an interest in being involved in the community. As the market and sports betting continue to grow hopefully we see them lean in and make their presence known - there’s no better DFS sweat than going from cashing 5-6 figures to losing it all on the last lap of a race.
In no way is this post an exhaustive list of what can be done, it’s only meant to be an idea generation starter. The opportunity to own this category in NASCAR is there, it’s all up to the teams now.
