DFS On The Go: DraftKings Leading the Mobile App Race
DraftKings has made some enormous leaps over the past year, and becoming the first daily fantasy site to launch a mobile product in the App Store is no exception. They also ran a multi-million dollar fantasy football championship and have secured major funding (they’ve secured about $31 million in their last two rounds) over that span, so it’s easy to see why they’ve become so popular in such a short time. The DFS mobile experience is still probably overlooked by the industry in general, but it’s an important feature that I hope the other major sites begin to unveil in the near future. DraftKings was the first to the party, and they’ve set the bar pretty high. Being the first site with a mobile app has undoubtedly grown their player base, because it’s a feature that the community has been begging for over the past few years. Since everyone has a smartphone glued to their hip nowadays, this gives DraftKings a unique selling point to new players who don’t want to stare at a computer screen all night making/editing teams, which becomes an even bigger deal on a late-swap site that encourages you to stay involved until the last game of the night tips off.
Download DraftKings iPhone App Here
Especially for the casual player, being able to construct lineups away from your home computer is vital because most of the players in our community have full time jobs, school, families and other responsibilities to occupy their time as roster lock approaches. As anyone who has played NBA daily fantasy can tell you, it’s tough to win over the long haul if you’re not able to make roster changes on the go when news breaks. Not only has DraftKings provided that ability to users, but they’ve done it in an almost seamless way that almost makes you feel like you’re working from your computer. Granted, it might feel that way for me since I typically use the app from an iPad, but the capabilities on this app are stellar regardless of the screen size. It pretty much allows you to do everything you can from the main site, but with a different look/interface, which itself is smooth and flashy. The app also consists of some mobile-only features that you can’t find on the main site, which we’ll get into shortly.
DraftKings is committed to making non-desktop device play a core piece of their product. The first platform specific device play was a native iPhone app, and since then they’ve built a smooth and seamless playing experience which is both beautiful and fast. The app allows you to do nearly everything you can do on the web, but includes mobile-only features such as Local Play, a feature that allows people in the same room to start a game just by pressing the Local Play button in proximity of one another. DraftKings has been the first to market with so many different types of product features; on-site/in-app Notifications, My Lineups and many more industry firsts are part of their relentless drive for innovation. At this point in time, DraftKings is currently on version 1.2, but 1.3 is coming in very near future (in roughly two weeks). Let’s get into some of the features we can see today…
App Features
Here’s the home screen, where you land upon opening the app. You can make a quick global swap if you just saw some news on twitter before tip, tinker with lineups, send out challenges, and all in all you can basically do anything here that you can from your desktop/laptop.
Below is the condensed game center view, where you can click on a player for his individual stats. The rest of My Contests contains all your upcoming, live, and completed contests. This is where you’ll sweat your contests out and keep track of how your players are doing.
Similar to the webpage, the app’s focus is on lineups instead of individual contests. Through the My Lineups page you can edit all of your team in one place, across all the contests you’re in. It’s great for last minute tinkering on the go and allows you to view any of the various lineups you’ve created throughout the day.
Create a Contest allows you to create leagues from scratch. Here you’re able to create H2H leagues or leagues of up to 20 people, and you can personalize the entry fee and payout structure, which is really cool. Below you can see your options that include a new local play feature.
Below is the loading screen for the local matches… DK will attempt to find a host via bluetooth (make sure it’s on) or Wifi. If they find someone hosting a game, you’ll join that contest, otherwise you’ll create your own. In case you’re unfamiliar with Local Play, here’s a quick breakdown: This feature allows people in the same room to start a game just by pressing the Local Play button in proximity of one another. So if you’re at a bar with friends or sitting around a poker table, everyone in the room can easily enter the same league and all aspects of the contest can be completed via your iPhone/iPad.
Personal Experience
To be honest, I’ve only been using the app for a short time, but it’s already impressed me quite a bit. Like I’ve stated a few times earlier, it is almost a flawless transition from the main webpage and gives you complete control over your lineups/contests while your out of the house. I unfortunately found myself without electricity this week due to an ugly ice storm in the northeast, which left my cellphone as my only entertainment, and I got frustrated pretty quickly trying to enter leagues and make lineups on one of the other major sites with a small screen. Personally, DraftKings is probably #3 for me in terms of my overall action on DFS sites, and I didn’t even have the app downloaded before this week. Upon downloading it, I quickly realized that I would have a much easier time joining leagues/creating lineups through this app then I would through the mobile site of another industry leader. This was my first real exposure to the app and I was instantly impressed.
I know that this is also a feature available on the main webpage, but I love how you can create lineups without actually entering them into any contests through the mobile app. There is really no better way for a DFS player to kill time then to venture into that day’s player pool and see what kind of interesting player combinations you can put together. By the time my power came back on, I had joined a handful of leagues and actually felt good about the lineups I put together, something I can almost never say when I’m putting together lineups with only my cellphone at hand. When comparing it to the mobile experience of the three industry leaders, DraftKings blows the other two out of the water with the product they have unveiled. I’ve used the DraftStreet mobile site pretty extensively, but it doesn’t come close to comparing to the speed/capabilities of the DraftKings app.
What’s Next?
As good as version 1.2 has been, version 1.3 will be even better. The guys at DraftKings are very excited about the release, which should come sometime in the next two weeks or so. I’m not sure of any of the specific features/upgrades that we’ll see, but based on how excited they seem about it, I’m guessing it’ll be a nice improvement on an industry-leading product. While getting an app into the Apple store is not an easy feat, I’m generally surprised that DraftKings is the only major player to have gotten there so far. The community has been asking for mobile apps for some time now, and the fact that DK is the only site to provide it just makes them that much more appealing. If you haven’t signed up for DraftKings yet, sign up through the RotoGrinders links and receive a 100% deposit bonus up to $600!. If you play on DraftKings and haven’t downloaded this app yet, what are you waiting for?