MMA Coming to DFS With DraftKings and UFC Partnership
It’s been rumored for weeks, and this week the highly anticipated deal between DraftKings and the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) was finally made official.
DraftKings is now the UFC’s official Daily Fantasy Sports partner.
This isn’t just a titular status either.
Going forward, DraftKings will have a strong brand presence at UFC events (likely inside and outside the octagon) as well as across the UFC’s website and social media channels.
DraftKings will also work with the UFC to create unique prize-packages for contest winners. One of these packages, “The Dana White Experience,” where the winner will attend a UFC event as the VIP guest of UFC president Dana White, was detailed in the press release announcing the partnership.
DraftKings and MMA
DraftKings first dipped its toes into the MMA market in December of 2014 when it signed UFC Light Heavyweight Champion Jon “Bones” Jones to a sponsorship deal just ahead of the company announcing its first MMA DFS contest. But now the #2 DFS site in the world has upped the ante.
By partnering with the UFC, DraftKings has essentially cornered the market on MMA sponsorships.
Yes, there are other fighting organizations, but in the world of MMA there is the UFC at the top and then everyone else scrapping and clawing on the bottom rungs. For DraftKings rivals their only chance to market to the UFC audience would be through individual sponsorships of fighters, which seems like a much tougher road to hoe.
Reactions
“Like all major sports and leagues, we continue to strive for ways to offer the most thrilling and innovative experiences for our fans and working alongside the leaders of the daily fantasy sports industry offers a cutting edge platform for daily action and entertainment,” said Michael Mosshoder, UFC Senior Vice President of Global Marketing Partnerships.
“The UFC is the fastest growing sports organization in the world, driven by the millions of fans who passionately follow MMA,” said Jeremy Elbaum, Vice President of Business Development at DraftKings. We’re excited to partner with the UFC to provide its fans with games that provide tremendous payouts and amazing, unique prizes. This partnership reflects DraftKings’ deep commitment to MMA and its fans.”
MMA appears to be a perfect fit for DFS
This is a major coup for DraftKings, as very few DFS sites even offer MMA DFS contests, which is a major oversight in my opinion, as MMA fight cards seem like an ideal fit for the DFS business model. For instance, the MMA fantasy site KounterMove.com has offered fantasy MMA for several years (there are private and public league options), carving out its own niche.
Certain sports seem to be a better fit for DFS than others. Football, soccer, and to a lesser extent baseball, seem like harmonious matches for DFS contests. In football and soccer virtually every team plays on a single day or over the course of a couple days, whereas in a sport like basketball or hockey the schedule is less clear, and some weeks a team might play three or four games while another team only has two games on the schedule.
So for DFS and MMA, not only do the two industries both have three-letter acronyms, but each fight card offers a dozen matches and they all take place on the same day. An MMA fight card is wrapped up in a neat package and tied with a pretty bow for DFS contests.
Furthermore, fights were made for gambling. Major boxing matches have always been one of the most heavily bet on sporting events, and with the rise of MMA, UFC DFS contests are routinely offered at Las Vegas sports books, but are hard to find outside of Las Vegas sportsbooks.
How Fantasy MMA works
Fantasy MMA is actually pretty simple.
Like other DFS contests, MMA contestants have a specific spend limit ($50,000) and must select five fighters from the night’s card to form their roster.
What makes fantasy MMA intriguing is, a fighters cost isn’t necessarily based on their skill level, as it’s contingent on who that person is fighting as well, and how you expect the fight to go down, as there are points awarded for certain “significant moves” as well as bonuses for how and when the fight ends.
For instance, if two of the best fighters in the world are squaring off in a fight expected to go the distance it’s not out of the question that an undercard fighter who has a notably weaker opponent may cost more – Especially with a 1st Round victory worth 100 bonus points, while a decision win is worth just 25 points.
Complete DraftKings MMA fantasy rules are fairly simple: Basically, assembling a successful fantasy MMA roster will require you to get solid value from a fighter capable of pulling off a big upset, and knowledge of the undercard fighters.
Yes, the big names may be the backbone of your roster, but you’ll need success picking the relatively unknown fighters to have a shot at winning.
Steve Ruddock is the content director for BettingUSA and the Editor-in-Chief of Gaming Law Review.
Steve has covered the legal and legislative developments in the US gambling sector for more than a decade for online and print publications.
