Fantasy sports are online games where players assemble fictitious virtual teams of real players. These teams then compete against each other in a fantasy league, where the winners are determined based on the statistical performance of the players chosen in the actual league gameplay.
Fantasy sports are online games where players assemble fictitious virtual teams of real players. These teams then compete against each other in a fantasy league, where the winners are determined based on the statistical performance of the players chosen in the actual league gameplay.
According to statistics and facts from betting-sites.me.uk, over 59.3 million players in Canada and America now play fantasy sports. This represents 21% of the entire U.S. population and 19% of the Canadian population actively playing. It represents a huge demographic of the population and is often overlooked, even though it is now a multi-billion dollar industry.
Industry Value
The fantasy sports industry is worth billions. The average U.S. or Canadian player spends $556 annually on fantasy sports. This represents a total of almost 33 billion dollars generated annually and is rapidly growing. With some of the world’s biggest tech companies investing billions in the industry, the total generated from entry fees alone by 2020 is expected to reach 5.3 billion U.S. dollars.
Top Sports Played
Fantasy sports leagues are available in a multitude of sports, however, the largest sport participated in is football, with 90% participation rate among fantasy players. Basketball, at 23%, is second and baseball, with 20% participation, is third most played in general. Soccer is a distant 4th, and all other sports equate to 5% of total participants in fantasy leagues.
Top Fantasy Platforms
The very top of the fantasy sporting food chain isthree of the sector’s leaders. Yahoo, DraftKings & FanDuel. Yahoo, the smallest of the lot, has approximately 100,000 active users and was set up in 1999. FanDuel and DraftKings have a combined market share of over 90% of active users. FanDuel, with over 4.4 million active users and over 60% of fantasy sports platform market share, is the top platform with a market valuation over 1.2 billion dollars. FanDuel investors include Time Warner, NBC Sports Ventures and Google Capital. DraftKings do, however, have a 43% lead in market share when it comes to the highly lucrative daily fantasy sports (DFS) leagues and tournaments.
Daily Fantasy Football
There is a total of 10 million registered DFS players and 4.7 active users who exclusively play DFS. DFS is essentially a daily version of fantasy sports, where results are based on faster seasons and winners can be known much sooner. The average DFS player spends $122 per week compared to $27 per week on a conventional fantasy sports player. Furthermore, the top 10% of DFS players spend $2000 US dollars or more per week on entry fees.
Future Trends
DFS players are expected to spend $5.3 billion on entries alone by 2021. 80% of today’s players say they plan to play fantasy sports for the next 10 years and 40% state they will play for life. With over 34% of US players coming from generation Z, and only 18% of all players being adults, the future growth of the market is expected to be substantial and steady over the next half-decade.
As more of the younger generation becomes of legal age to gamble and sports fantasy betting becomes more widely and commercially accepted, the future of sports betting is all in the fantasy league.
For a fact-filled infographic on this subject, please click here.
Join the conversation!