Introducing DraftStreet

Introducing DraftStreet

Article Image DraftStreet is the newest site to arrive on the Daily Fantasy Sports scene – And they have done so in a big way! Check out our DraftStreet Review for full details on the site, but read further here for an in depth interview with one of their owners. Launched on just August 11th of this year, “DraftStreet” is already garnering a solid reputation with their sleek software, deep rosters, and variety of league-offerings and game-types.

To help get things started off right, DraftStreet has extended an incredible 40% Deposit Bonus up to $150 for any new users who register through RotoGrinders! (Make sure to use the DraftStreet bonus code GRINDERS when you deposit to receive this awesome bonus). I recently got the chance to talk with Mark Nerenberg, Vice President of Left Tackle, LLC, and discuss in more detail the background of and goals for DraftStreet, as well as all they have to offer in the future. To see more details on DraftStreet, please read or DraftStreet Review.

Interview With Mark Nerenberg – VP of DraftStreet

When did Draft Street open its doors for business? What was your motivation behind beginning Draft Street?

We officially launched this year on August 11th after four weeks of testing. The motivation behind DraftStreet began in the Fall of 2007…if you can believe that! I had always been huge into fantasy sports and I noticed that it was catching on to a mass audience and I wanted to create a way for people to test their fantasy skills against their peers around the country. I wanted to do for fantasy what online poker did for poker.

The idea blossomed quickly into short-term fantasy contests which allow players to test their skills over many iterations. Playing the matchups and then having the rush of an entire league magnified into one day combined with the instant gratification of winning that day was something that needed to be exposed.

A couple years later I told Michael Kibort (VP of Operations) about the idea. He loved the concept and we got Brian Schwartz (CEO) and Jeremy Elbaum (VP of Marketing) involved who both have experience with start-ups, web development and media buying. After conducting some more researching into the potential for our product, we became fully-confident that we could create the best product in the industry. So, in November of 2009 the DraftStreet team was formed!

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What separates DraftStreet from the other Daily Fantasy Sites?

I’m glad you asked. We have been impressed with some things that we’ve seen from other daily fantasy sites, but it seems that DraftStreet is the most fantasy-savvy. We feel we have the best gaming functionality (scoreboards and draft rooms), draft tools, salary cap pricing/budget as well as game formats.

Our scoreboards are a feature we have focused much of our attention on. Seeing your opponents picks and monitoring the scoreboard provides for intense moments and great entertainment. Our live stats feed allows us to update scores much more often than many of our competitors. Additionally our layout and functionality is top of the line. We also provide relevant information such as Player Innings Remaining (PIR) and player salaries, so you can see what type of return on investment players have provided.

We have gotten great feedback on our salary cap rooms and snake draft rooms. They are very intuitive and run very smoothly. The draft rooms provide a large amount of player statistics to aid users while making decisions and constructing their teams. Users can perform even more research on DraftStreet by browsing through the player profiles and upcoming matchup details that we offer.

Our Salary Cap Player Pricing Models are extremely accurate and we feel it is the best system in the industry. Our players’ prices change every single day (for baseball) and often times significantly. We factor in recent performance more heavily than past performance, and we also factor in every single daily matchup! That means each day the player’s price could be affected depending on their opposing pitcher in addition to their season averages. By using such accurate prices, we have managed to create very little overlap among competing teams. It is no fun to have half of your team the same as your opponent’s, and we feel that our system does an excellent job of preventing overlapping rosters as much as possible.

Finally, our game formats are what will set us apart in the long run. We offer the most variety and we have plans for so many more cool games. There was much debate amongst the group about how many different formats to include and which ones to include. We want users to be able to sign-up and play without being overwhelmed by so many options. The plan is to slowly add new fun games offering different opportunities for all kinds of strategy over time. The ideas are endless… Oh man, NBA season is going to be insane!

Speaking of your game formats, can you explain the difference between Draft Street’s Daily and Weekly drafts? Also between your Salary, Roto, and Sit and Draft leagues?

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Daily leagues have been the most popular so far, but we have some users who are die-hard weekly fans. Our weekly leagues are offered every day and they last exactly seven days. Weekly leagues replicate season-long leagues more accurately compared to daily leagues while still offering the opportunity to draft new teams during the season and focus on only a small time frame where matchups are still relevant. The amount of scheduled games becomes important in weekly leagues, as SPs will have either one or two starts, which makes a big difference.

Snake Draft leagues are currently the most popular form of draft for season-long fantasy leagues. Salary Cap leagues are the most popular for daily fantasy leagues. Snake Drafts are live drafts with picks going in reverse order on even rounds. However, both styles present different opportunities for strategy. For example, there might be one or two players at a specific position that are clearly much better options than the rest. In a snake-draft this needs to be considered as you might draft some players early due to a lack of depth at their position. Salary caps allow for players to be on multiple teams, so position scarcity is a non-factor. Part of the attraction of Salary Caps is they allow users to pick a team at their own pace. People love to mix and match throughout the day and try to make the best team within their budget.

Roto (rotisserie) scoring was the original form of fantasy baseball and is a popular form of scoring used in fantasy baseball. It requires users to build a balanced team that can compete in all 10 categories including HRs, SBs, Ks and ERA. You can find the exact rules on the Rules page on DraftStreet.com.
We also have future plans for large-field leagues (25 or more players). You may notice the 25+ player tab on our site, as that feature is also in the works.

It says that ‘HR-Derby’ scoring and ‘Auction’ contests are coming soon. Can you tell us more about these two options?

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Unfortunately these two game-styles have been pushed back a bit as we have so much on our plate right now, but rest assured they are still in our plans. HR-Derby is something I am very excited about. I have been running a HR-Derby Pool for the past few years. This year we have 130+ entries. At the beginning of the season every participant builds a team much like a salary cap league. Player’s prices are their HR total from 2009 and the scoring is simply one point for every homerun in 2010. Corey Hart, Vernon Wells, Chris Young and Joey Votto have been great picks this year. On DraftStreet we will be offering one-week HR-Derbys and we will have an advanced formula for prices that will run every day. The HR-Derby involves plenty of skill, but also appeals to more casual fans, because who doesn’t love watching HomeRuns?

We plan to eventually have live auction drafts for the types of leagues we offer, but that probably won’t be live for at least another month.

Why did DraftStreet decide to utilize a different scoring system for daily drafts and weekly drafts?

Many users have noticed that our scoring system is a little unorthodox for our daily leagues. Our weekly scoring is detailed but pretty mainstream. However, we realized a fundamental flaw with using that same scoring for daily leagues. Starting Pitchers (SPs) and hitters will play the same amount of games in a daily league (the ratio is one-to-one). Whereas over a season, SPs pitch every five games and are scored accordingly in non-daily leagues. So, we cut down the value of statistical categories that are SP-specific. Even with our modified scoring for pitching in daily leagues, the top SPs average the most fantasy points per game. Usually the 2-3 highest priced players on any given day are SPs whereas; the top 25 players are SPs on some other sites. This is especially important in snake-drafts where we don’t want draft position (which is randomly assigned) to be too much of an advantage or disadvantage.

I love that you offer deep rosters (i.e. 2 SP, 1 RP, 1 P) – Was there a specific motivation behind this decision?

Yes, we have 14-player roster for daily leagues (C, 1B, 2B, 3B, SS, 3 OF, 2 Util, 2 SP, RP, P). We feel this limits the percentage of overlap. But it is not just the size of our rosters that sets us apart, it is the flexibility. As opposed to other daily fantasy sites, we offer two Utility spots, a Relief Pitcher spot and a Pitcher spot (SP or RP). Also, we’ve noticed that many of the other daily fantasy sites specify LF, CF, RF for their outfield positions. But come on, when it comes to fantasy baseball outfielders are outfielders, am I right? Anyway, adding closers and flex spots just creates more room for strategy and that’s what this game is all about.

Where do you get your Player News feed from?

STATS.com. They have been very accommodating and helpful so far, and allow us to provide awesome player news and notes directly on DraftStreet so our members don’t have to leave the site.

This whole NFL (apparently it’s the 2nd most popular sport behind the WNBA) thing is coming up. Please tell us what you have in store for the pigskin.

[Laughs] I’m pretty sure I saw WNBA highlights on Sportscenter last night…apparently it’s the finals. Anyway, by the time this interview is posted on RotoGrinders football will be live on DraftStreet! We have a pretty cool roster format involving 2 QBs and 2 FLEX positions. And you can expect our pricing to be dead-on. We took Week 1 to test out scoreboards and make sure everything will be working without a hitch. It was a tough decision to sit out week 1, but we decided it was worth it.

Do you have any special promotions or bonuses that we should know about? Maybe NFL Deposit Bonuses, future plans for the Street Cred store, elaborate on the potential of your ‘Self-Recruit’ program, etc.?

Use Bonus Code: GRINDERS when depositing to receive 40% Deposit Bonus!

In addition to the 40% Deposit Bonus for RotoGrinder Members, we have a pretty awesome recruiting program. We have so much confidence in what we offer that we think we can accumulate a large user base simply from our users spreading the word to their friends. Unlike other referral programs, we offer a percentage of the revenue to recruiters as opposed to a one-time fixed payment. Theoretically you could sign up, tell all your friends about it never play once and collect a check every month. This way we are all on the same team. Owners, investors, users, recruiters…we all want action!

About the Author

Cameron
Cameron MacMillan (Cameron)

Cameron MacMillan is an entrepreneur and angel investor, who co-founded RotoGrinders in 2010, alongside Cal Spears and Riley Bryant. Cameron operated as the COO, creating & implementing a multitude of business & content systems for the company over the course of 11 years, before Better Collective completed its acquisition of RG in 2021. In 2022, Cameron stepped back into an Advisory Role.