DailyMVP Goes Free-to-Play: (Now Closed)
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Fantasy site DailyMVP.com sent out an e-mail to customers late last night announcing that the company will be moving away from paid contests entirely. From here on out, they’ll be hosting free contests only. Information is hard to come by as the e-mail offered few details other than the announcement and asking customers to withdraw by February 15th, 2016.
Update: DailyMVP.com is permanently closed.
The announcement comes at a time in which the entire DFS industry is under great stress between various state attorney generals declaring daily fantasy sports to be illegal and an increasing number of lawsuits from customers looking for refunds on the money they have lost in fantasy contests. We can only guess how much money sites such as FanDuel and DraftKings are spending on legal fees and lobbying, but it is probably a lot more than a smaller site like DailyMVP can afford.
Plus, as Steve Ruddock noted yesterday, it isn’t getting any easier for fantasy sites to process payments these days. You can check out that post for the full scoop, but the gist of the story is that a major payment processor for FanDuel and DraftKings has announced its intention to stop processing payments for the industry. Yes, the sites have other options, but Vantiv was a huge player in the payments industry.
DailyMVP’s future remains a mystery at this point. The site was not very large and so far, there has only been one real news story on the topic. Searches on Google and DailyMVP.com itself has yielded no results. In fact, just this morning I logged in and was able to enter a paid contest. It looks like DailyMVP has yet to even implement the changes it announced last night.
It is obvious from the e-mail that legal concerns played a role in DailyMVP’s decision to switch over to the free-to-play model. Dealing with significant legal risks on a limited budget would be frightening for anyone. What isn’t obvious is what DailyMCP plans to do to remain viable going forward. I still haven’t heard anything about how the company plans to generate revenue (let alone turn a profit) without paid contests.
This also leads to the next question. What are all the other smaller fantasy sports apps out there going to do? FanDuel and DraftKings went on a massive advertising blitz this season and still ended up having to lower some of their late-season NFL guaranteed prize pools. If these are tough times for the big boys, one can only imagine what it’s like for the second-tier providers out there.
Even before this latest announcement, DailyMVP has taken a different track than most other DFS apps. Most noteworthy of its style is its lack of salary cap games. Instead of requiring customers to “buy” players with a virtual salary, customers are allowed to pick anyone but only score points if their picks outscore expected stat totals.
DailyMVP also hosts quick-pick games in which you can pick as few as three players for your team. In a random basketball contest, for example, you might be asked to pick a forward, guard and center to comprise your entire lineup. These games are designed to be fast, easy for casual players and more oriented towards having fun.
Wes Burns has more than a decade’s worth of experience as a writer, researcher and analyst in the legal gambling industry and is co-founder of BettingUSA.com. As a former professional online poker player, Wes approaches his work from the viewpoint of players.
