By @TheDailyPayoff

The battle between the two elite companies in the daily pay fantasy space escalated Wednesday.
Terry Lefton of the Sports Business Journal broke the story https://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Daily/Issues/2015/04/22/Marketing-and-Sponsorship/FanDuel.aspx that FanDuel, just weeks after rival Draft Kings announced an exclusive deal with MLB, had signed one-year exclusive deals with 15 FL teams.
The new deal gives the biggest player in terms of participants in the growing pay fantasy space at least a marketing edge in the largest pay fantasy sport – The NFL. The 15 NFL teams joining Fan Duel were the Bengals, Colts, Packers, Bills, Eagles, Rams, Browns, Jaguars, Ravens, Buccaneers Jets, Redskins, Chargers, Lions and Texans.

Since Yahoo has an exclusive deal with the 49ers and three NFL teams are in states where paid fantasy games are illegal (Arizona, Louisiana, and Washington), it gives the New York-based company a leg up as the NFL Draft comes into focus (New England and Denver have already signed Draft Kings deals, and Kraft Sports, like ESPN and MLB, have taken equity positions with Boston-based Draft Kings).

According to Lefton’s report, last Friday, the NFL released to its teams new marketing regulations governing their deals with paid fantasy sites. The new rules essentially make daily paid fantasy sites equivalent to gambling casinos in ways clubs could market with them.