Fantasy beyond sports
The business model that brings future to your doorstep
Life, as we know, will never be the same. Due to the pandemic, we stay home, but at the same time we don’t want to cut down on our quality of life. The market’s changing along with the world, introducing new entertainment types via online services, bringing new delivery and sports options, and more…
Hiding under the bed and waiting for the storm to pass is no longer an option. Crises such as this pandemic and new tech coming around force businesses to evolve. We believe that this evolution lies in Fantasy.
Remember when Uber burst the market some years ago, and everyone wanted to create a service made by the same principle? The whole business world became an Uber wannabe. We had Manicure Uber, Florist Uber, Hairdresser Uber, even Walk-my-dog Uber — there were all types of such apps and online services.
But now, it isn’t about disrupting old markets the way Uber did but about creating a new reality.
Fantasy began with sports, but it has so much more to give to the world.
What is Fantasy Sports
We are hardwired as humans to compete. From childhood, we run to be the fastest on the playground, the top student in the class, and the most liked by all our peers.
And nobody wants to be a loser.
Such a competitive attitude makes us fixate on the outcome, predicting the future, and surpassing competitors. We fantasize about what will happen to find the correct route to success; we build a strategy just like in sports.
So, to put it simply, Fantasy Sports are online prediction games. You assemble a virtual team of real sports players and earn points based on real-life data. The better your athlete performs on the field, the higher your fantasy points, the closer you get to victory online.
Fantasy Sports’ story began as a fun game played among friends in the basement something like 20 years ago. But today, it’s a multi-billion dollar business that has a tremendous influence on real sports.
As of now, only in North America, around 56 million people play fantasy sports. About 10 million of those players are teenagers. A total of $18 billion is spent on fantasy sports annually.
Why has it evolved so much and so rapidly? Could it be all because of the competitive note and the ability to play with any person you want from any corner of the world? Let’s find out!
Model of Fantasy success
Just imagine, you play against your friends or your colleagues and their teams. Everybody manages a roster by adding, dropping, trading, and selling players to keep winning, but you’re not playing against strangers, the casino, or some broker. Your competitors are real human beings with the same passion for the sport as yours. Exciting, right?
What is more exciting and making Fantasy Sports even more attractive is that it is entirely legal. The Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act, which Congress passed in 2006, says explicitly that fantasy sports are allowed under federal law because they are classified as a game of skill rather than a game of chance. The only restriction is that players may not bet on the outcome of a single game or a single player’s performance.
This year, the pure competition model that is so close to the heart of many American got another push. During the lockdowns, the nation that is passionate about sports was left with zero entertainment. No games were allowed to play in real life, but we all could play and follow our favorite athletes online.
Moreover, you don’t need to wait for the whole season to see the winner — you can place your bets and win a game in a matter of days and weeks. Traditionally, fantasy sports leagues competed over the same period as the real sports league they tracked. But these leagues could be time-consuming to play.
That is another reason why such companies as DraftKings and FanFuel saw such impressive growth. They offered games where players pick a team for only one day, or in the case of football, one week.
But, as we said before, one success makes a road to the many. Like in the case with Uber, the Fantasy concept outgrew the one sphere of life.
What lies beyond Fantasy Sports?
What limits Fantasy sports is geography and the loyalty to a single sport. What if we can expand the idea on other spheres and go global like it was done with Uber-like applications?
Ideally, the potential is enormous. People become fans of something quickly; they don’t want to lose this feeling and eagerness no matter what is happening to the world. And we don’t want to wait for ages to see who is the winner of any competition. Why do it only with sports if we can bring Fantasy competitions to make our favorite singers or movies battle with each other? There is always data available of how much each movie earned at the box office. Guys, we can actually bet on this stuff!
We believe that competition can be brought to everything, even to the stock market. Investing may seem complicated for beginners, but if we apply the gamification rules to it, won’t it be more fun and compelling?
Moreover, the stock market isn’t limited to a small group of devoted fans — it can be accessed from any corner of the world, bringing an even bigger audience to the Fantasy “marketplace” with Fantasy Stocks.
Fantasy Stocks
Now 60 million people play Fantasy sports with top athletes as their idols. Sports fans won’t become pros, but they love to compete and be a part of the winning team.
2020 proved the stock market to be the new ultimate Fantasy. There are 96 million zoomers that follow the market but haven’t invested even a dollar. But what if they also want to be part of the action where the season never ends?
We believe it’s possible to attract such people to the market while gamifying it and teaching them that investing is not a beasty thing where only WallST sharks and white collars can survive.
Just look at the Fantasy Invest app that combines the thrill of competition with stocks’ ups and downs. There are various games played hourly, weekly, and daily to satisfy any investing hunger. You can follow the companies you believe in (just like Fantasy Sports and your favorite athletes). Fantasy Stocks can be played worldwide and are only limited to the stock market hours. Also, when the cryptocurrencies were added to the game, even this limit disappeared.
To date, the Fantasy Invest app, which was launched less than a year ago, has 1 million games played by 120k unique players.
The fantasy concept has already outgrown sports-only limitations. We believe it to be only the beginning, and Fantasy Stocks are becoming the next cultural phenomena and a whole lot of fun.
