FanDuel
FanDuel is a web-based fantasy sports premium game created by Hubdub that falls under the banner of the relatively new Daily Fantasy Sports concept. The model consists of traditional season-long fantasy sports leagues being compressed into a daily, and occasionally weekly, game.[1]
Background
After taking in $1.2 million in venture capital funding from Pentech Ventures on January 14, 2009, Hubdub did an internal review and decided to shift focus from its web-based prediction market game to a web-based daily fantasy sports premium game.[2] On July 21, 2009, Hubdub launched FanDuel[3] while the Hubdub website was officially shut down on April 30, 2010.[4] FanDuel received $4 million venture capital funding from Piton Capital in September of 2011[5] and currently has offices in New York and Scotland.
Controversy
The company's radio advertisements, featured prominently during many local and national sports radio programs, has been criticized by a leading blog. Says Timothy Burke of Deadspin.com: "It's clearly intended to mislead listeners into thinking it's a) not an advertisement (it opens with "Okay, we're back") and b) being read by Jim Rome." However, this point of view is contested vociferously in the numerous comments on the same article.
References
- ^ DiFino, Nando. "Instant Gratification in Daily Fantasy Sports Over Traditional Leagues". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 18 March 2012.
- ^ King, Bill. "FanDuel delivers daily dose of fantasy. games". SportsBusiness Journal. Retrieved 18 March 2012.
- ^ Butcher, Mike. "FanDuel turns fantasy sports betting into a social game". TechCrunch. Retrieved 18 March 2012.
- ^ Butcher, Mike. "HubDub closes news site to focus on fantasy sports spinoff FanDuel". TechCrunch. Retrieved 18 March 2012.
- ^ Butcher, Mike. "Daily fantasy sports FanDuel closes $4 million series B investment". TechCrunch. Retrieved 18 March 2012.