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Ask any sports fan, and they’ll tell you that gambling has taken over nearly every aspect of the sports-watching experience. And if you ask why, two names will come up pretty quickly: FanDuel and DraftKings.
Like Macy’s and Gimbels, these two companies are often linked in consumers’ minds, and not just because they both favor the whole ‘compound word with a capital letter in the middle’ structure, though that is kind of interesting.
You can’t tell the story of the gambling industry’s rise without both brands, and you can’t tell the story of one brand without the other. Just look how closely their EMV has been aligned over the past five years:
After a slight divergence in 2021, FanDuel and DraftKings are back together in 2023, posting nearly identical totals for that year as a whole: $66.2M EMV for FanDuel, and $65.9M EMV for DraftKings. These figures represented respective 50% and 32% year-over-year improvements, underscoring the upward trajectory of the space as a whole.
While FanDuel and DraftKings might be going after similar consumers, they’re employing different strategies and working with different creators in order to win over these fans. Here’s your betting guide to what each brand is getting right.
I know, I know: as far headlines go, that’s not a particularly shocking one. It stands to reason that a sports betting brand catering mainly to young men would draw from the sports and esports markets. But compared to DraftKings, which favors creators across broader media sources (more on that in a second), FanDuel draws mostly from the well of its central industry.
And there’s no deeper well than Timothy John Betar, who’s ‘Betar’ known as TimTheTatMan, a video game streamer who boasts a #TatManArmy of 5.4M YouTube followers. Tim claims FanDuel alongside numerous other gamer-friendly endorsements, including Mountain Dew (gotta stay hydrated) and Herman Miller (gotta stay comfy).
While we’re not quite talking ‘Rick Ross for Luc Belaire’ numbers, Tim’s work with FanDuel from July 2023 to June 2024 was a sight to behold. The streaming giant powered $21.1M EMV of FanDuel’s $61.6M EMV total via 560 posts—that’s one-third of the brand’s haul across more than one post a day. Absolutely crazy. The #TatManArmy rolls deep.
Beyond its esports enthusiasts, FanDuel’s list of top EMV-driving creators reinforces how closely intertwined the gambling industry is with modern sports—particularly the NBA, though the NFL and NHL are also well represented. Stop me when you see a name on this list that’s even mildly surprising:
Yes, okay, FanDuel has tie-ins with USA Today—I wouldn’t have guessed that either. But apart from that, there’s plenty of representation across the world of sports, with storied championship franchises like the Boston Celtics and the New York Yankees, as well as the Memphis Grizzlies and Cleveland Browns.
Make no mistake: DraftKings has also made serious inroads within the world of sports. However, in looking at the brand’s top EMV-drivers from July 2023 to June 2024, a few things stood out:
Rather than gamers and esports, DraftKings has carved out a niche with not only the UFC, but comedians and podcasters. The Your Mom’s House Podcast, Kill Tony, and Kevin Hart are all prominent, highly visible sources of EMV that might not formally offer sports content, but nonetheless maintain notable links to professional sports. Additionally, DraftKings has become a fixture on various popular sports media outlets, including Barstool Sports (plus extra coverage from founder Dave Portnoy) and Pardon My Take.
Astute readers will note that several entities appear as top EMV-drivers for both FanDuel and DraftKings, including the Philadelphia Eagles, which claimed the No. 1 spot for DraftKings with $4.9M EMV. Clearly the team was taking cues from another local Philly icon:
Top-level athletes make a splash if they even look at the camera funny. So naturally, when they talk about your brand, or at least have their social media handlers craft a post on their owned accounts to make it look like they talked about your brand, the impact intensifies.
So when LeBron James tagged DraftKings in a pair of posts promoting Super Bowl betting, it was only natural that these posts ranked as DraftKings’ top pieces of content from the time period monitored. In all, LeBron inspired $645.9k EMV via seven posts for the brand. Just don’t get caught betting on yourself, Bron! In the literal, non-metaphorical way, at least. By all means continue to prove the haters wrong.
This LeBron guy was everywhere, because he also appeared in FanDuel’s top EMV-generating post, this time just as a topic of conversation, rather than as the author of the post. In this case, Overtime, a popular Instagram sports content aggregator, was commenting on LeBron’s dream of playing with his son, which came true when the Lakers drafted Bronny James. And talk about needing to prove the haters wrong, because hoo boy, good luck with that one.
The success of FanDuel and DraftKings highlights a common trend across influencer marketing more broadly: the success of any given industry has become increasingly tethered to participation from other industries. It’s not enough for either FanDuel or DraftKings to focus solely on professional sports: instead, each in its own savvy way, these brands have built foundations in esports, comedy, and media.
This trend is no different from how we’re seeing beauty brands team up with food and beverage brands, or increased cross-pollination across multiple fields of the entertainment industry. In today’s creator economy, winning brands recognize that their audiences are multifaceted, and go to wherever the digital buzz happens to be. Moving forward, expect to see not only continued momentum for sports gambling, but increased vertical mash-ups for creator-forward brands at large.
And that’s a prediction you can take to the bank. Easy money.
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