Today we're proud to be launching the 2015 NFL season here on Product Hunt. As a special for you, when you enter the promo code #FreeBrady you'll even get to watch the greatest quarterback of all time play in the kick off game.
In all seriousness, we're really psyched to be launching Draft for Android and Draft 2.0 for iOS. We got the very first version of Draft iOS out at the tail end of last NFL season and have spent the last nine months working hard to improve the experience.
I'll be here all day, so feel free to AMA whether it's about Draft, the exploding daily fantasy industry (I've been in it for about 6 years), or even if you want some quick fantasy advice (we've got 11 big time players here in the office, so I'll be sure to crowdsource the answers).
If you want to do a draft against me download the app through playdraft.com/jerlevine and we'll be matched up or just search and download "Draft" in the app store and search for "jerlevine" to challenge me.
@jerlevine maybe Brady gets off "free" but it seems Belichik's legacy may not go down as well as he would have hoped as more people start questioning his entire history
@jerlevine ha ha ha. i had to have SOME trash talk on here since you opened with it :) but I'm sure you've seen the ESPN reporting including this: http://espn.go.com/espn/otl/stor...
Jeremy's been thinking about the fantasy sports space and mobile for as long as anyone I know and I've thought for a while that Draft is the slickest experience I've seen. Some (not so quick) questions for @jerlevine:
1) It seems like Draft is a "pull out your phone at a bar and make a lineup in 2m" experience versus other games oriented around heavy research (for desktop). What pushed you in this direction? Do you think this is what's going to take off with "normals" (NFL fans that don't play fantasy, season-long players)?
2) It seems like the media has been pushing this narrative that the only way to make money in DFS is as a "pro" -- that it's just as hard or (even harder) than playing Vegas books. Do you think large companies focused on tournament play are going to run into this issue? Do you think the future is in low-stakes play with friends?
3) Patriots run it back this year? Looks like it should be a challenge (especially with the hits to our secondary) but I'm psyched! Bills and Dolphins both look good this season too.
Thanks for this--really excited to see your progress!
@arjunblj Thanks Arjun!
1) Really a lot pushed us towards simple/mobile. What we had built with StarStreet (which after starting as a sports stock market pivoted into being a direct competitor with Fanduel and Draftkings) was really targeted at the hardcore of the fantasy market. The entire time we were building it, we really wanted to build something simpler that could appeal to a wider group. To date, there are just about 2.5 million people who have played daily fantasy for money (FD and DK) , yet there are over 50 million fantasy players. That's a big gap. Even bigger, there's about 250 million sports fans in America, yet only 50 million play fantasy. We thought if we could build something simple quick and mobile we could fill those gaps. As we became more and more confident we wanted to build a mobile game we spent a lot of time looking at what games that aren't hardcore or graphics intensive had succeeded. We kept coming across successful turn based games (words with friends, draw something, quizup, dice with buddies, etc etc). It quickly hit us that a draft is a turn based game, so what we set out to build was essentially words with friends with fantasy. If we succeed at this, we're not only going to be a lot of peoples first time playing real money or daily fantasy, but we're going to be a lot of peoples first time playing fantasy.
2) I think Fanduel and Draftkings are going to continue to have tremendous success. I have so much respect for both of them as companies, and both their founding teams. The things they've been able to do to grow the market in such a short time have been so amazing to witness from up close. That said, I do think the skill gap and onboarding of new players is a constant challenge that comes with salary cap daily fantasy. You need to look through longs lists of players, find that undervalued player at the bottom of the list who may be staring this week, and you're playing against lots of people who are doing it full time. Playing salary cap daily fantasy effectively takes a lot of skill. I was lucky enough to work with Peter Jennings (CSURam88 in the DFS World) at StarStreet for about a year, so I got to sit next to one of the best players in the world every day and see what went into playing at such a high level. I certainly think it's a better experience for a first time player to be playing a friend than the Peter's of the world.
3) Yes. The division certainly did get a lot better and I think the Bills have the best D in football, but I've got faith in our boys. Bill and Brady in F U mode certainly doesn't hurt our chances.
This is by far my favorite DFS app. I'm a casual but serious fantasy football fan and don't have an army of quants to help me win a FanDuel tournament so for me, Draft is the best of all worlds. Easy to get going, no long term commitment, and the best part of any fantasy season being the draft.
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