The Player Experience in Fantasy Sports is a Bust
57mm people play fantasy sports in North America. None of them are getting the player experience that they deserve.
I founded GOAT to provide a dramatically improved experience for fantasy players. We’re focusing first on the daily fantasy, but our vision covers all 57mm fantasy sports (daily and season-long) players.
Actually, serving the season-long player is what led me to GOAT.
The State Penn League (“SPL”, named after the Biggie lyrics, not any off-field issues you may be thinking of) is my prized, season-long fantasy football league. We just wrapped up our 13th year.
The twelve of us attended Penn State in the late 90’s and early 2000’s. 10 of the members are fraternity brothers from the PSU Delta Tau Delta chapter (I, sadly, am one of the two who is not).
We are brothers and close friends who love football. Now in our mid 30’s, juggling families and careers, the SPL became our virtual field to exercise our immense competitive energies.
It’s fantasy football, but it’s intense.
There are key differences between daily and season-long fantasy players. Whereas a daily player mostly seeks money, contest flexibility and a short-term thrill, a serious season-long player places a higher value on the history and rituals of a particular league.
Fantasy gold for a season-long player is when they can find a league where all members know each other, are similarly skilled and are similarly invested.
But even in that utopia, there are still problems.
The problem is that most season-long game operators don’t offer an experience that brings a great league’s history to life (to my knowledge, My Fantasy League does the best job of it).
As players, we’re pouring significant time, money and skill into something every year, yet we can’t answer simple questions about the history of league:
- Who is the best fantasy player in our league? The worst? Why?
- Who had the best single season team in our history? The worst? What made them so?
- How many times has a player won their division? Their conference? Made the playoffs? What’s their winning percentage in the post-season?
- Who executes best on draft day — the most exciting day of any season-long league? Who had the best draft of all-time? The worst? Why?
- Who manages their roster the best in-season? The worst? Why?
- Which owner dominates free agency? Which players were his/her best acquisitions?
- What role has luck played for each owner in our league?
- Who’s the best keeper in league history? The worst? Where does every one of my keepers rank all-time?
- Which division is the strongest over time? Which conference?
For the overwhelming majority of season-long fantasy leagues, the list of unanswered questions is endless. The history and rituals that the season-long players seek and love? Lost and undocumented.
Why? The data is there.
In the summer of 2011, I set out bring the SPL’s rich, undocumented history to life.
I wanted to collect data on every single decision and outcome across every facet of our league history. From there, I planned to analyze the data and determine career skill rankings 1–12 for our league. Data would be the backbone of the the story, but I needed a format that SPL owners would be interested in.
This was an aggressive goal since I was collecting everything manually, but I had the time.
My goals were simple:
- to provide comprehensive rankings, 1–12, of ever SPL owner
- to deliver a reciprocal experience to our league worthy of the time and energy we all invest into the league
- to drive additional engagement and discussion about our storied league
- to have fun and give myself a creative outlet
HEAD to HEAD
I started out small with a narrow focus on historical Head to Head data. Things like championships, points scored, points against, division championships, playoff data, etc.
I published the first report in August, 2011. It was a 12 page report, offering a single-page overview for every player.
I printed each players’ page and distributed them prior to our 2011 draft.
The report seemed to peak interest and discussion. Some had detailed questions. Some were poking holes. Others quietly browsed it, absorbing information they had never seen before. A few were pissed at their ranking — for them it was better to have their career performance mostly lost and forgotten.
It was clear, I got enough positive feedback, and had enjoyed myself enough, to continue the project.
I made some formatting tweaks for the 2012 Owner Report. I also expanded the scope, adding a new “pillar” of analysis.
To be a great season-long fantasy football player you have to be good across several categories. These categories are what I refer to as “pillars.”
I had launched the Owner Report relying on the “Head to Head” pillar, as it had the variables most familiar to my audience.
In 2012, I added a second pillar — Keepers.
KEEPERS
In August, 2012 I released the “Keeper Analysis Special Report.”
This, a 46 page deep dive into every keeper decision ever made in the SPL, was a game changer. Both in terms of production quality and content level. Check out the full report here.
Keepers add significant strategy to a season-long league. At the time of the “special report”, there had been 154 executed keeper contracts in our league history. I set out to provide information across every single one, including a:
- ranking of every owner in the keeper pillar, 1–12
- ranking every single keeper contract 1 through 154
- which owner had produced the most fantasy points from keepers
- which owner has derived the most value from keepers
- which keeper/owner was best at each position
- which keeper/owner was best for each deal length
Now I had people’s attention. H2H data was familiar data summarized for the first time. But the Keeper analysis took it to a whole new level.
My friends were asking for content. They wanted more.
By this point, two pillars were now introduced. For the report to be a comprehensive representation of skill, I had four more to go. My ultimate vision was 6 pillars:
- Head to Head
- Roster Management
- Luck
- Draft
- Keepers
- Free Agency
LUCK
In 2013, I asked the league what they wanted to see next. Based on their input, I added the “Luck” pillar.
Fantasy players know that the best teams don’t always win a fantasy contest or league. Many things can get in the way including injuries, inopportune fantasy matchups and game flow. It’s these type of things I address in the Luck pillar.
The SPL had one team in particular, the Chappies, who were constantly complaining about bad luck. The league wanted me to tackle “Luck” next in hopes of disproving him and shutting up the SPL’s loveable loser.
It turns out that the complaints were valid. At the time, the Chappies were the most unlucky team in the SPL.
They had the highest points per game against in league history. The Chappies also had the worst matchup luck, having played against teams experiencing “abnormal positive performance” (scoring well over their season average) more than any other owner.
Further, the Chappies were 6–20 all-time in “close games.” They had never won a game decided by less than one point. All the bounces were going against them.
DRAFT
In 2014, I added the Draft and Roster Management pillars.
Draft was a big one. Draft day is the highlight of almost all season-long fantasy leagues. My goal was to dig back through every single draft pick ever made in the SPL (1,481 of them) and tell the comprehensive story of SPL draft day.
How do we all rank on the biggest day on the SPL calendar? Who rises to the occasion? Who shrinks under the spotlight?
Who had the best/worst draft of all-time? Who was on those teams? Who drafts well in the early rounds? The late rounds? Who is best at drafting RB’s.
I dropped the Special Report on the SPL Draft in August, 2013. Check out the full report here.
There was only one problem. My Draft analysis had found that the best owner on draft day was the same one that, three years earlier, had very vocally boycotted attending (these kind of storylines are what make season-long so good) any more SPL drafts.
So, our best drafter refused to attend a draft.
That’s not cool for our player experience. So I reached out to the #1 ranked drafter with an idea.
I wanted to piggy-back off the Lebron “I’m Coming Home” headlines and create a path for him to return to live SPL Drafts. Our best drafter needed to be there.
I released the “The Boycott is Over” story in July, 2014. I used it to promote the upcoming Draft Report, to get the discussion firing early in the SPL and to bring our best drafter “home.”
The Draft Report, released a few weeks later brought the most exciting day on the SPL calendar to life. Texts, emails, conversations like “remember when…”, “can you believe…” were flying around the SPL.
The texts and emails started coming a few weeks earlier every summer.
- “ETA for the GM Reports? Dying to see the latest rankings.”
- “Nothing gets the blood flowing like these reports.”
- “I couldn’t even open it until I had a drink in my hand.” [Chappies owner, before digesting “Luck of the Chappies”]
- “These get me so pumped.”
- “They are breaking ground on my new home today but it takes a backseat to the GM Report.”
- “If I had the choice of being ranked #1 or Chappie being ranked #12, I’m not sure which I’d choose.”
People were hooked. So was I.
Free Agency
With 5 of 6 pillars introduced, 2015 was setup to be the capstone release.
Free Agency was the only pillar left to tackle. I did, in fact, get it integrated this past season.
But my focus was more on the big picture — more on the completion of a full skill report that was assembled over 5 years, and that covered 13 years of our league history.
What started in 2011 with a simple Excel and a 12 page report, had now reached 2015 with mountains of data about the competitive history of ten brothers and twelve close friends. Yeah, it was about fantasy football, but it was also about staying connected with friends.
I planned a bigger promotion than normal. I wanted to show the league the massive volume of data I had on us. I wanted to show that our history means something. The time and energy they pour into the SPL means something.
The promotion ended up being rather long, but that’s kinda the point. So is our history. Check it out.
The primary point of the SPL Owner Report is to tell our story and drive engagement through comprehensive skill rankings.
Without it, I would parade around the SPL arguing I was the best player in the league hands down. I’ve won 3 of the last 5 SPL titles and own 4 overall, the most in the league.
But a detailed analysis of our history, across all facets, indicates I’m a distant 2nd to Seth, GM of the dreaded Beasters. I’m barely ahead of the 3rd ranked owner, despite 3 more titles and his only title coming ages ago in 2004.
Why?
I’ll spare you a 50 bullet list and leave you with the profile of our #1 ranked player. In it I explain his true dominance over the SPL. If you want to see the full, 2015 SPL Owner Report…bless you, here it is.
The summarized answer, of course, is that season-long leagues are about so much more than just who won the title. Or who’s won the most titles.
There are multiple facets to playing the game, each with their own nuances. There are storylines, moments and decisions that make a season-long league great. When those things are lost and undocumented, the greatness starts to fade.
Serious season-long fantasy players get this. Unfortunately, most season-long product offerings don’t.
So what does all this have to do with GOAT? It’s simple.
Daily fantasy sports needs a similar player experience in order to drive the growth and lifetime values that billion dollar valuations demand.
Operators need it, investors demand it and the players want it.
We can deliver it.
