At the outset of last year’s National Football League season, it seemed like every other commercial was for DraftKings, FanDuel or some other daily fantasy sports site. However, after a year of legal wrangling, it looks like these companies are trying a new direction in 2016.
In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, FanDuel CEO Nigel Eccles acknowledged that even some of its most loyal users may have hit a saturation point with its ads last year. Rather than simply overfishing the waters, though, the deluge of commercials may have also contributed to daily fantasy sports’ questionable legal status, considering how hard it played the get-rich-quick card with viewers.
“It tipped over an invisible line,” Eccles told WSJ. “When people saw the ad the 35th time, they were like, ‘We get it.’”
New ads for this year, while much fewer in number — FanDuel plans to spend half of its 2015 budget this year, while DraftKings plans to spend less than one-quarter — will also seek to promote a view of daily fantasy sports that de-emphasizes the big jackpots and other games that can’t shake their gambling aura. Also new to the spotlight will be competitions between friends so as to quell fears from new players about being taken advantage of by wily fantasy veterans.
