2016 Daily Fantasy Sports Year In Review

With 2016 in the books, I thought it’d be fun to look back at some of the DFS highlights that happened this year.

Feel free to give me a follow on Twitter. I’d love to hear from you in the Comments section – what were your favorite DFS moments in 2016?

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DraftKings & FanDuel Merge

Without a doubt, the biggest story of the year was the news that DraftKings and FanDuel have decided to join forces and merge, causing everybody to speculate on the new company name and what will happen to all the points they’ve built up (it’s not too late to buy a DraftKings golf shirt in their VIP store).

Time will tell how the combined company will impact the DFS ecosystem.

No Late Swap For You

In a surprise move, DraftKings removed the ability to late swap in their NBA product for the 2016-17 season, causing mass chaos among the DFS community and forcing DFS players to spend time with their families instead of monitoring late breaking news.

While the change has been met with mixed reactions, some have admitted that the change has been beneficial and provide more balance in life (me included).

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DFS Legal In New York

2016 was full of legal battles for various states. In August, a big win for the DFS community was the legalization of DFS in New York. The hope is that New York will lead the battle in bringing more states to accept and embrace DFS so that every person will have the chance at rostering Kike Hernandez at only $220.

The Kike Dilemma

Speaking of Kike Hernandez, FanDuel priced him at $220, causing a frenzy among DFS players.

Do you play him at $220 to pay up at other positions? Are you wasting a roster spot on a player who likely won’t get many at-bats? Some even asked whether FanDuel purposely priced him this way as some kind of test.

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Then FanDuel goes on to make Johnny Holton $0 during the NFL season, while also pricing Alex Rodriguez $696 in his final game in honor of his home run total.

While these pricing errors/fluctuations are fun, they really put game theory to the test and challenge us to think critically about roster construction.

The Loss Of JoFer

The weirdest part about MLB DFS next year will be the fact that Jose Fernandez will no longer be in the player pool. From a DFS perspective, we lost one of the most electric arms to ever play the game. If you rostered JoFer during one of his many double-digit strikeout games, he probably led you to a victorious night of DFS. I had the pleasure of watching him pitch in-person this season and he was impressive. He will be missed.

The Brow Morphs Into Wilt Chamberlain

On October 26, Anthony Davis put up a statline of 50 points, 16 rebounds, 7 steals, 5 assists, and 4 blocks, for a total of 99.5 DraftKings points. Amazingly, the Pelicans still found a way to lose to the Nuggets despite the historic Wilt Chamberlain-like game. This was the game that made us question whether The Brow is no longer made of Glass.

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Community Enhancements

In an effort to help players identify who are experienced players, DraftKings introduced experience badges. In theory this was an improvement, but in practice some felt this had the opposite impact than intended, as it made it easier for sharks to identify the fish. Others mentioned that while they were given a badge indicating they were experienced based on total games played, they were in fact losing players.

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DraftKings also shook things up by releasing Community Guidelines, which noticeably condemned lineup selling (sorry to all you lineup sellers out there). While the guidelines still left some gray areas, similar to the experience badges, it was a step in the right direction for the industry.

International Expansion

DraftKings and FanDuel both took their games overseas to the UK. In my article summarizing a recent chat with DraftKings CEO Jason Robins, he stated DraftKings has plans to further expand outside of the US and UK in the future (see how I seamlessly plugged my own work?).

The Evolving Ecosystem

The last thing that caught my attention in 2016 was the emergence of new sites and games. If you check the RotoGrinders Promo Codes Page, you’ll see sites like FantasyDraft and Draft emerging. The concept of drafting players in DFS is starting to take off, as well as DFS branching into other niche markets such as eSports. I look forward to the day when I can play The Bachelor DFS. Some sites are also rethinking the incentives – rather than have users play DFS for monetary rewards, they provide experiences or meet-and-greets with athletes as prizes.

I hope 2016 was a prosperous DFS year for you, and that 2017 will be even better. Thanks for reading, and Happy New Year. May variance be on your side.

About the Author

fathalpert
Allan Lem (fathalpert)

Allan Lem (aka fathalpert) began playing fantasy sports in high school and transitioned to DFS in 2015. He graduated from UC Berkeley with a degree in Economics and lives in California with his wife and two kids. Allan got his break in the industry covering Preseason NBA content. He is currently the Social Media Manager for RotoGrinders, ScoresAndOdds, and FantasyLabs. Follow Allan on Twitter – @AllanLemDFS