Daily fantasy sports operators DraftKings and FanDuel spent a combined $107m on television ads in the month of September.
According to estimates compiled by iSpot.tv, DraftKings was the clear Daddy Warbucks of the two, spending an estimated $60.1m on TV ad buys in the first 29 days of the month. The money allowed DraftKings’ 30-second commercials to run an incredible 16,259 times, which equates to over 135 hours or five-and-a-half DAYS of airtime.
The bulk ($23.6m) of DraftKings’ spending was devoted to running ads during National Football League game broadcasts. College football broadcasts ate up a further $8m of DraftKings’ budget, while $2m was spent on ESPN’s SportsCenter and $1.6m on NBC’s Sunday night pre-game show. In case you had any doubts as to DraftKings’ target demographic, the highest non-sports ad buy was $1.36m on Comedy Central’s pantheon of puerility, South Park.
By comparison, FanDuel was the picture of restraint, spending a mere $46.9m, although it spent more ($26.7m) on NFL broadcasts than DraftKings. College football earned $3.76m from FanDuel, while SportsCenter made do with $1.18m. Meanwhile, FanDuel’s largest non-sports buy was for reruns of the reality show Cops. “Bad bets, bad bets, whatcha gonna do….”