Howdy Fantasy Lovers, Fantasy Novices, and Fantasy Creatures! Welcome to Fantasy Football 101, where I, Kyle Bazin, will be sharing my opinions, experiences, and advice on Fantasy Football to you all.
Before I start this blog, I have to shout out #TheBeachBoys. Love you guys. Hope we all get together again soon.
Change of plans people. I know I said I would be talking about overcoming season-ending injuries and busts, but that can wait for another week where I can't think of anything to write.
Huge news out of the state of New York's Attorney General;s office this week. If you want to read everything that happened you can read this ESPN article here. If not, I'm going to tell you a quick synopsis. Basically, the Attorney General said that Daily Fantasy Sport sites (specifically DraftKings and FanDuel) accept wagers from their players and that the games they offer are not games of skill. The original argument these fantasy sites were making was that it required skill to win at Fantasy Sports... That's a bit of a stretch, but I do agree to a point. You most likely can't just be a random person that doesn't know anything about sports, go on and win a ton of money. It just doesn't work like that. But there is a threshold of "skill" and once you hit that area, everyone has a pretty equal chance of winning.
FanDuel and DraftKings are particularly upset about this decision because of the billion dollar corporations they have made, New York holds about 10% of their users. That may not seem like a lot but a huge decision like this taking away that many users could lead to other states doing the same. The sites are afraid of a domino effect and if I was them, I would be as well. On Tuesday, the Attorney General gave them five days to comply with the cease-and-desist motion sent from the Attorney General.
Very soon I expect the sites to come together and fight to win this by any means necessary. I do not think that anything will happen to these sites in New York or any state, but I have been wrong before. Not often, but it has happened. There are a few states already that don't allow fantasy sports in general or just specifically daily fantasy but losing a big player such as New York could put them in the deep end. I'm not sure they would be able to swim if they are thrown down there.
Another big thing this affects if these sites somehow go under is how much FanDuel and DraftKings have done in advertising not only on TV but with professional sports teams. Especially the New York teams, many professional teams are affiliated some way with one of these sites whether it be a jersey sponsor, a facility sponsorship (as in advertising inside the stadium), and I'm sure it wasn't that far out of the realm of possibility that one day some facility would be called FanDuel Arena or DraftKings Park.
We will end up seeing what happens very soon with a decision required by these sites by Saturday but as of now, if you play daily fantasy on either of these sites, don't worry yet. The sites most likely will not go down and even with a decision saying they are illegal means almost nothing. The money you put into these sites will be safe.
As always, thanks for reading everyone. Again these are all MY OPINIONS! Do not take them as a Bible scripture and do not use my word as the only word. It is OK to make opinions for yourself! I promise! My next blog will be about my Week 10 reflections and looking forward to week 11.
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