College DFS Faces Uncertain Future
The future of NCAA daily fantasy sports is in jeopardy following Thursday’s announcement that DraftKings and FanDuel would cease offering college contests.
A Yahoo representative confirmed Friday that the site will also suspend NCAA offerings, and two other sites—FantasyAces and FantasyFeud—say they’re in a holding pattern for now.
“It’s more than likely that we’ll follow suit (and suspend NCAA contests),” said Bryan Frisina, co-founder of FantasyAces. “It’s not a very large sport for the industry, and I don’t really see any reason why we wouldn’t follow suit and take the proper steps to be in line. The last thing we want to do is cause any commotion or stir up any conflict that would put us in the penalty box.”
It’s not a certainty yet, however. Trent Frisina, Bryan’s brother and FantasyAces co-founder, said the company will monitor the ever-developing legal landscape before making any determinations.
“With us, we’re not going to jump the gun on stuff like that,” Trent Frisina said. “However, if states are going to have language like Massachusetts (with regard to amateur athletics and DFS), we’re going to have to fall in line and remove. But it’s all very new to us. We don’t get too reactionary.”
“Let’s say a couple of states come out and they don’t have that language (prohibiting college DFS contests). Let’s say for college football there could be 20 states or 25 states (where it’s allowed). That might be something interesting where we’d keep it open. But it sounds like the trend is not going that direction, and if that’s the case we’ll evaluate from there.”
A FantasyFeud representative said their site would take a similar approach and allow more states to craft and possibly pass legislation before reaching a decision on offering NCAA contests in the future.
“Our legal counsel will be reviewing the matter as he does with every state,” the site rep said. “Right now, no decisions have been made regarding college sports.”
Both FantasyAces and FantasyFeud said they have not been contacted by the NCAA on the matter.
Last week, Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey finalized regulations for DFS in the state. Included among that list was a prohibition on contests based on amateur sports. Indiana’s recently passed legislation also includes language banning college DFS contests.
The relationship between DFS and college sports has been a contentious one for months. Even as individual conferences continued to accept advertising money from FanDuel and DraftKings, the commissioners of the Power 5 conferences protested the sites offering contests based on NCAA events.
In October, the NCAA announced that daily fantasy companies would not be allowed to advertise during championship events—notably, the NCAA men’s basketball tournament.
The tension culminated in Thursday’s news that the industry’s leading sites would suspend all NCAA contests after the upcoming Final Four.
FanDuel, DraftKings and FantasyFeud will each be offering college basketball contests during the Final Four; FantasyAces and Yahoo have only offered college football in the past.