By The Daily Payoff Staff @TheDailyPayoff
As we head toward baseball’s Opening Day this weekend, the question remains where does the MLB stand on joining the fantasy wave?
The NFL recently opened the door opening for teams to engage in daily pay fantasy partnerships, joining both the NBA and the NHL in creating extra revenue streams for the teams. The move also provided engagement opportunities for fans who are looking for more and unique ways to follow their favorite teams, now with a dollar figure attached.
However baseball is still silent on the opportunity, either as a league or with clubs, for pay fantasy. Could a break be coming soon? MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred said again this week in an interview with MLB.com that he understands and supports the value of fantasy baseball as a way to engage. He has said numerous times that MLB, like the NBA, needs to consider the possibilities of working to find ways to make gambling legal for fans in North America like it is in other parts of the world.
Sports media observers say MLB sees the value and the opportunities, but will jump in when the time is right for it.
“When they are ready,” said Dan Cohen, now head of North America for MP & Silva, one of the world’s largest sports media sales companies and a growing player in the digital activation space for teams and leagues. “There is no doubt that baseball is a data-rich sport and fans love digging into the numbers and MLB has seized that opportunity over the years. However they will balance the pros and cons of official pay fantasy engagement as a sport, and will make the call when they see the full opportunity. Everyone sees what other leagues and teams are doing, and MLB will be able to have any partnership they want when the time is right.”
Manfred has also said on numerous occasions that finding ways to keep a younger audience involved with baseball is a priority, and that the gaming industry could be a key factor there.
“MLB is aiming to find more ways to inspire children’s passion for baseball. If kids are interested in fantasy baseball and stats, they could be on track to becoming passionate lifelong fans. That’s exactly what we want to achieve. If tracking batting average or ERA helps kids build some fundamental skills, then we welcome all of those practical applications,” Manfred said in an MLB.com interview this week.
So why not a partnership yet, or some form of open agreement for clubs to partner with companies like Draft Kings (who MLB Advanced Media has made an investment in but has not yet activated against) of New York-based Fan Duel or both?
The NBA made an investment in Fan Duel but left the teams the opportunity to cut their own team-specific deals, which has resulted in a mix of partnerships for pay fantasy, a mix which the teams benefit from by playing one of the mega-companies against the other. There are also smaller companies, like New Jersey-based Hotbox Sports, which cut their own team deals with the Philadelphia 76ers.
So when will baseball, with the most savvy digital business in sports under Bob Bowman, and the most data-rich of any sport, engage in pay fantasy partnerships?
Part of it still may reside in the hesitancy of baseball, a sport whose commissioner’s role came about as a result of a gambling scandal (albeit in 1919 with the Black Sox), to still make the change that “gambling,” whether it is legal like pay fantasy or not, is still frowned upon.
No one has to look any further than the Pete Rose ban to wonder how strict baseball still will be on circumventing rules involving dollars wagered in any form and baseball, and this week Mason Levinson at Bloomberg reported that MLB in the offseason put measures in place so that no players could be involved in pay fantasy in any way as well, an escalation of the anti-gambling policy for the sport.
It is the first time players won’t be permitted to join paid fantasy baseball leagues, following an agreement between the sport and the MLBPA, an agreement which the NBA and the NBAPA have failed to reach for their players. The MLB deal, according to the story, doesn’t limit players’ ability to sign sponsorship deals or other business transactions with fantasy sites, however, creating a bit of a paradox. Also no leagues prohibit their players from legal gambling on other sports, which can only be done right now in Nevada. Pay fantasy however, moves such wagers to one’s smart phone.
“We are certainly in unchartered waters with lots of dollars at stake, and the leagues are taking very careful measures not to circumvent anything going on in Washington with regard to federal laws on gambling,” said Chris Lencheski, a longtime sports media consultant now running his own firm, Phoencia. “However there is no doubt that everyone sees the dollars out there and pay fantasy is the next step to take advantage of for the teams and the leagues and at some point soon, the players will also look for their share of the action.”
For now, the league and the teams play a wait-and-see game. Will it be a short term wait or will the game deepest in tradition continue to be outside the pay fantasy lines? For now, no one is saying officially, from Draft Kings and Fan Duel, which did not return calls, to several teams, who refused comment.
As fans settle in to make their final choices for the fantasy baseball season, the clock is ticking.
