Daily fantasy sports consumers have been participating in the fantasy activities on all the major professional sports, including basketball, football, baseball, and hockey. Daily fantasy has now appended Mixed Martial Arts (MMA), which is widely regarded as the most popular extreme sport by many. Darren Heitner, a Forbes contributor wrote, “Daily fantasy MMA may have the potential to eclipse the more traditional American sports with regard to consumer attractiveness.”
Last week, DraftKings, Inc., the largest U.S. online company for daily fantasy sports, proclaimed that MMA has attached into the DraftKings’ marketing partnership with one of the greatest fighters in MMA history, Jon ‘Bones’ Jones. According to reports, DraftKings becomes the first major daily fantasy sports organization to announce and publicly promote the MMA daily fantasy product to its global audience. The fantasy marketing partnership with the MMA’s biggest star is most likely drawing its consumers to engage in the daily fantasy services.
Brian Knapp, co-founder and chairman of Kountermove, the online fantasy service for all major MMA associations, has competitors in all of fantasy sports, but he acknowledged that fantasy MMA can reach the same level as fantasy sports including football, basketball and baseball. Since MMA associations have become one of the most popular extreme sports in the United States, Knapp believes fantasy sports participation can lead to demographic growth.
“We think that fantasy MMA can be as large as fantasy football and baseball, and perhaps even larger because of its global audience, year-round schedule, single event games and the demographic,” Knapp said. “The 40 million folk they tend to talk about in the fantasy space who play the old style of season-long fantasy football hasn’t existed in MMA. We are literally making the market as we go, because there is no prior fantasy MMA market out there.”
Sports marketing research from Repucom revealed that MMA’s worldwide fan base is far more superior to the fan base of Major Baseball League. MMA has expanded a fan base of around 300 million. It becomes apparent that the brutal entertainment industry is appealing to its consumers effectively. Sports fan research firm Scarborough Sports Marketing indicates that young consumer is the target audience for fantasy MMA. Heitner wrote, “MMA fans are of the ideal demographic for playing fantasy sports – skewing younger and more tech savvy than the average participant.”
There is more than one reason why consumers become massive fans of MMA. There is no question in mind that sports fans enjoy the thrill of MMA fights. As brutal as it appears, MMA sells not only emotional experience but also sells competition experience to its consumers. They often view the gladiator fighting as a part of such an exhilarating game. Thus, when the money is involved in a sporting event, they discern that online fantasy gambling on all major MMA leagues is highly imperative.
As successful as the “sports combat” entertainment industry is, the daily fantasy sports owners are passionately investing in fantasy MMA that allows its consumers to compete with others on any given day and night of competition. The fantasy MMA may not yet reach the same rank as other major fantasy professional sports, but it has the potential to dominate all mainstream fantasy sports market in the near future.
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