One Sports Business Makes CNBC’s Disruptor 50 For 2015, And It’s Winning In Pay Fantasy

Uber, AirBnB, Pinterest, Dollar Shave Club. All brands that have challenged the establishment and lived to tell about it. They buck trends and carve their own way, and that’s why they were selected to the CNBC Disruptor 50 list for 2015.

CNBC features private companies in 16 industries-from aerospace to financial services to cybersecurity to retail-whose innovations are revolutionizing the business landscape. These forward-thinking upstarts have identified unexploited niches in the marketplace that have the potential to become billion-dollar businesses, and they rushed to fill them. In the process, they are creating new ecosystems for their products and services. They ranked those venture capital-backed companies doing the best job.

On the list was one sports industry brand, and it wasn’t ESPN or a new sneaker startup or even Under Armour. It was the brand that seems to be advancing and challenging even the new world of fantasy sports elite; the more established and much larger and higher valued Fan Duel.

It was DraftKings, which chimed in at number 50 and is the latest feather in the crown, so to speak, for the attacker brand of pay fantasy. The fact that a pay fantasy brand made the list is impressive. The fact that no other sports brand made it is even more impressive. Here is the full list, courtesy of CNBC.http://www.cnbc.com/id/102609977