From FanDuel To Vault: A Chat With Nigel Eccles
You can take the sports out of FanDuel co-founder and former CEO Nigel Eccles, but you can’t take the daily fantasy out of him.
To wit: Eccles is the CEO and co-founder of Vault Music, a company that curates and releases limited-edition digital music releases.
“The idea behind Vault Music is to create a digital music format that is premium and limited edition,” Eccles said. “We thought what if we could create a digital format similar to vinyl, in that it’s a limited edition, it’s special, it’s something you can collect. And so that’s what we’ve created. We work with artists that drop their music in these formats. Typically it’s artists that have their music on Spotify, but their top fans will buy anything from them. What we feel is artists miss an opportunity to monetize their top fans.”
So Vault works generally with artists that range from up-and-coming to those that are getting up to 5 million listens a month on Spotify. And these artists will create live recordings, or special sets, or limited edition albums – and by limited, these are generally anywhere from 50 to 150 copies. They’re numbered, on the blockchain, and meant to be collectible.
“We believe these Vaults will have real value in years to come,” Eccles said. “Imagine if 15 years ago you were a fan of a singer/songwriter named Taylor Swift, and had a limited edition one of 50. That would be enormously valuable today.”
OK. So this is pretty cool. It helps bands monetize their content, and it helps connect fans with the bands they love. But Eccles couldn’t resist a turn towards fantasy.
“We created Vault Fantasy,” Eccles said. “Every week you would create a roster of five artists, and then we score them based on their gains in listener numbers on Spotify. So basically, you have your 5 artists, and the player who has the artists with the most gains wins, and the prize pool is $1,000 a week.”
While Vault launched a little over two years ago, the fantasy product is brand new, and Eccles has high hopes for its success.
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Daily fantasy still has room to grow
And while Eccles is no longer in the daily fantasy sports weeds, he is keeping tabs on it, and thinks there’s still plenty of room for growth – and he points to Underdog, PrizePicks, and Sleeper as three companies pushing the envelope.
“Obviously quite a different product, but Underdog, PrizePicks, and Sleeper have done an amazing job,” Eccles said. “The user interface is just fantastic. Incredible innovation.”
He also thinks these companies will weather the regulatory storm they’re facing.
“I think they’ll be OK,” he said. “You have to do a state by state analysis. FanDuel and DraftKings clarified the law in 22 states. PrizePicks and Underdog are compliant in those, I would think. And a large number of the other states have a broad definition of what games of skill are. Could they lose more states with the pick ‘em product? Absolutely. But they’ll launch different products.”
As for DraftKings and FanDuel? Eccles doesn’t think those DFS sites are going anywhere, but he also believes any innovation is coming from the upstarts.
“My impression is FanDuel and DraftKings have put all their focus on their sportsbooks, and I understand why,” he said. “FanDuel is going to do, what, $4.7 billion in revenue this year, and I’d be surprised if $150 million of that was fantasy. If I were CEO of that business I know where I’d be focused.”
One innovation Eccles is particularly impressed with comes from his old competitors at DraftKings.
“I like their Reignmakers product,” he said. “That’s real innovation, using crypto in an intelligent way.”
Lastly, Eccles said there is but one regret he has when he thinks back to his time with FanDuel.
“We never cracked social,” he said. “To an entrepreneur, whenever you don’t crack something, part of you gets pissed when someone else cracks it. But really, no one else figured it out yet. PrizePicks and Underdog have done a good job, created a social experience, but it’s still not totally cracked. I just sort of feel there’s still a real opportunity to crack social on a broader level. We tried a lot at FanDuel with somewhat mixed success. I would love to see more innovation there.”
Want to know what Eccles thinks about the current sport betting landscape in America? Part two of this interview will appear on SportsHandle early next week.
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