DraftKings Now Includes Fantasy eSports Category

Matt Kalish, co-founder of DraftKings, said: “eSports is one of the worlds most popular spectator sports, and we are excited to add League of Legends to our industry leading fantasy platform as a way to bring fans worldwide closer to the game. AlphaDraft took $5 million in venture capital money back in May from a slew of investors.

It is getting so big, that the world’s largest technology companies all want a piece of the pie.

As we pointed out in our story yesterday about DraftKings’ esports ambitions, this acquisition by FanDuel is likely a move to ensure its revenues have a market that it can grow into. This partnership marks the first time FanDuel will have a product for the eSports community. “This is sports for a new demographic, with very little crossover with what are considered traditional sports fans, and this acquisition gives us the ability to leverage the expertise of AlphaDraft’s team, while helping their efforts in customer acquisition and building awareness of this new industry”.

The daily fantasy sports operator made its name through partnerships with the likes of the National Football League, Major League Baseball and Major League Soccer.

The six esports organizations-believed to be a multi-million dollar deal brokered by the esports talent agency IMG-are Cloud9, Team SoloMid, Counter Logic Gaming, SK Gaming, CompLexity Gaming, and Mousesports. The company has purchased the daily-fantasy startup AlphaDraft, which debuted earlier this year to provide a FanDuel-like experience for multiplayer online arena battlers and shooters.

AlphaDraft is a daily fantasy game for eSports. You can play for free, or compete against other players in cash prize leagues – with a $3 entry fee contest having $25,000 in prizes. That, of course, was before DraftKings and FanDuel started putting their collective weight behind the nascent fantasy eSports market.