By TERRY LYONS @terrylyons
Contributing Columnist @The Daily Payoff

BOSTON – The sun would rise and the sun would set but in Boston and the entire New England region, where a record winter snowfall changed the landscape like never before, the temperature refused to rise and we thought spring would never come.

At Fenway Park, the equipment staff loaded the sponsored trucks for spring training, maneuvering around six-foot piles of snow as the grounds crew took extreme measures to melt the ice packed on the precious Fenway diamond – a new kind of frozen tundra. The T trains labored on broken-down commuter rails, the parking meters were buried deep and parking spaces were few and far between. Very gradually, the landscaped changed as the snow melted. Somehow, as the Boston Red Sox hosted the Washington Nationals for the Sox’ home opener earlier this week, the temperature climbed to 60-degrees, the grass was as green as the fairways at Augusta and New Englanders turned out to watch their Red Sox.

As fans poured out of the Kenmore Square T station on their way to Fenway Park, they were met with something new and different. Daily Fantasy Sports provider Draft Kings, as the Official Daily Fantasy Sports partner of the Boston Red Sox and Major League Baseball, purchased a massive billboard campaign, taking over nearly every inch of the station, including ads placed on the subway turnstiles and high-traffic corridors. That advertising was complemented with LED signage on Fenway’s centerfield scoreboard. The campaign even extended to the trash bins throughout the Fenway area. The very trash bins that were covered with snow a month earlier were now a branding campaign for Boston-based Draft Kings to attract new players to their daily fantasy baseball games.

DraftKings has a multi-year deal in place with the Boston Red Sox for stadium and media property advertising and experiential Red Sox fan activities, such as the ability to win premium seats to games, or a chance to throw a ceremonial first pitch or take “on-field” batting practice at Fenway Park.

Draft Kings’ strategy is to “own Boston.”

And why not? The company is based in the city.

“When you look at Boston, it’s pretty clear the fans understand the teams and the sports more. Fantasy sports rank higher relative to the population in Boston than in almost any other city in the country,” said Draft Kings CEO Jason Robins in a recent interview with Boston Common Magazine.http://bit.ly/1Jb5Bs3

With the strategy clear, Draft Kings acted decisively, signing advertising, sponsorship and marketing deals, first with the NFL’s New England Patriots at Gillette Stadium in Foxboro (an easy one since the Kraft family had an early seed investment), then with the Boston Bruins and TD Garden, situated near downtown Boston’s North End. Soon after, Draft Kings walked the walk within the NBA’s strict team marketing rules and signed a pact with the Boston Celtics. That deal, struck last December, came only a month after the league had signed on as an equity partner with Draft Kings’ daily fantasy rival Fan Duel.

“The Boston Celtics are one of the world’s most beloved, well-known teams and Draft Kings is thrilled to be aligned with the 17-time NBA champions,” said Robins at the time while noting, “we look forward to working with our hometown NBA team to bring new programs and adding to the in-game experience for fans watching the Celtics ‘in-person’”

Draft Kings’ partnership deal with the Celtics was similar to other team deals struck this season and it included exposure on LED court side signage and the TD Garden Jumbotron, multi-platform content posts on the team website and inclusion on “Game Day” ticket offers sent via email blast to the team’s customer database. In addition, Draft Kings grabbed a couple luxury suite nights, complete with visits from Celtics legends, for prizes and hospitality plays in their hometown surroundings.

Furthering the strategy, Draft Kings struck a deal with the Tiger Woods Foundation, host of two prominent PGA Tour events, including the Quicken Loans National in the Washington DC area and the Deutsche Bank Championship, a PGA Tour playoff event held at the TPC Boston in suburban Norton, Massachusetts. At that tournament, Draft Kings will receive ad placements on the grounds of the tournament, along with the usual plugs in e-mail blasts and social media posts. Draft Kings also has plans for interactive gaming and hospitality plays at the Champions Club venue at the TPC in ‘burbs of Boston at a time when Draft Kings will focus more on the Labor Day pro football scores than those of the PGA Tour’s FedEx Cup standings.

“We are proud to be a Boston-based company, and it happens that our hometown market is one of the biggest sports towns in the country. It’s amazing to be in a position to bring once-in-a-lifetime experiences to Boston’s passionate sports fans, said Femi Wasserman, VP Communications for DraftKings.

In addition to Boston, DraftKings has exclusive partnerships nationally with the NHL, UFC and MLB and with individual teams across a spectrum of major league sports teams, including Denver Broncos (NFL), Los Angeles Clippers (NBA), Philadelphia 76ers (NBA), Pittsburgh Steelers (NFL), Golden State Warriors (NBA), the NY Rangers (NHL) and the San Diego Padres (MLB), among others.

Now solidly focused on Major League Baseball, Draft Kings struck an exclusive deal with MLB and its online cash cow MLBAM in early April, extending a previous agreement signed just two years ago. Draft Kings carved-out more space on MLB.com and the MLB Network while furthering its strategy for “experiential” aspects of fantasy gaming to attract local “team” fans to contests in an attempt to do the most difficult task the daily fantasy sports providers attempt to do, with that being the challenge to attract and maintain customers.

Fantasy Stat:

Red Sox fans are 76% more likely to play fantasy sports than the general Boston population
Source: “Which MLB Teams Over perform in Popularity,” Nate Silver, April 2014 **Scarborough 2014