Something I think football guys should consider if they haven't already is the seemingly growing contingent of their customers who are resentful of DFS and think that fbg is compromised in terms of trust with their customers given their relationship with the DFS sites.
The impression I have of this exchange over the past month or two is that fbg seems to think their advertisers are more of a customer than the users. These threads are a great example of staffers flat out ignoring their customers' view (right or wrong) that the service that fbg provides has now been compromised and seem to be dismissive and/or antagonistic with respect to the issue of DFS.
In the last 14 years or so here I really have not heard that complaint before, and is a pretty serious pr issue I think fbg may need to deal with at some point.
Again, I think this is a no-win situation for FBGs.
I will completely agree that there's seemingly a growing contingent of FBGs' customers who are resentful of DFS and think that FBGs is compromised. What percentage of FBGs' customer base do you think this represents?
On the other hand, what percentage of FBGs' customer base do you think plays DFS? I don't know the numbers, I'm just saying, if DFS companies have spent $250,000,000 so far this year on advertising, (and, including sponsorships of programming and such, I've heard estimates reach as high as $500,000,000), how successful do you think that campaign has been? How many people do you think play DFS nationally?
To me, it's silly to suggest that FBGs' advertisers are more of a customer than its users. The advertisers aren't clicking on pages and viewing all that DFS content that's being produced. The advertisers aren't paying good money for the right to reach other advertisers. The advertisers aren't downloading the Daily Crusher and paying for data every week. The advertisers aren't playing against Joe and David and Sigmund every week in the FanDuel Footballguys Championship. Real, honest-to-goodness people are doing that. People who pay Footballguys money for their services. FBGs' customers are, and always have been, the customers. And those DFS customers are every bit as much customers as the seasonal customers. Oftentimes, they're the same exact customers. And they have every bit as much of a right to FBGs information as the seasonal guys. The seasonal guys don't really have a right, in my opinion, to plant their flag and say "Look, this is our fantasy football resource, we had it first, and we refuse to share it." Though they absolutely have a right to say "we refuse to support you if you continue to support DFS".
DFS is, at the end of the day, a fantasy football product. Footballguys is a fantasy football website. Many of the people on staff have been playing DFS for years. Sigmund Bloom talks about how he got into fantasy football via the forerunner to DFS over a decade ago. So there's no real moral objection to DFS as a product or anything. And again, from a practical standpoint, other than the advertising blitz it's really not all that different from the FPC, which Footballguys owns a stake in and has marketed heavily for years.
So you've got DFS, which is played by millions, clearly falls under the umbrella of the site's mission, is enjoyed by most of the staff, (though not me), and to which no one here has any real moral objection to, (to the best of my knowledge). And you've got a portion of the subscriber base that is so vehemently against it that their view of Footballguys is reduced simply by the association between them, nevermind that Footballguys is still providing all the same non-DFS resources it's always been providing at a subscription rate that has risen at a rate of less than a buck a year, (well below market trends).
What is FBGs to do? By keeping DFS, they alienate those who want DFS banished from the site. By jettisoning DFS, they alienate the millions upon millions who enjoy DFS and play regularly. There's no option that keeps everyone happy. But at the end of the day, as I said before, businesses exist to give people products that they want. Businesses do not exist to not give people products they don't want. I can't expect a hat company to stop carrying turbans just because I'm anti-turban. They're a hat company. Selling hats is their job.
It seems to me that very, very little consideration is being given so far to the actual people who actually play DFS. I promise you that they exist, and that they subscribe to Footballguys, and that they consume all of this DFS content that FBGs is putting out that everyone seems to hate so much. You can think that FanDuel is an unethical unregulated gambling ring and still think that Steve from accounting deserves to get what help he can when he plays there just as much as Jane in human resources, (who is more an IDP dynasty fanatic).
I'm sorry if you feel like I'm ignoring the concerns of the anti-DFS crowd. I'm in this thread, (not at the behest of anyone), precisely because I know I'm one of the few staffers that are active on the forums, and so I'm making a huge effort to engage with an issue that I know is really, really important to a lot of people precisely so they won't feel like they're being ignored. I'm sorry if you feel like I'm being antagonistic. I'm just trying my best to be as 100% transparent and straight-up about the issue as I can possibly be.
It's a hard issue. There's a lot of nuance and shades of gray, as much as both sides want to paint it as black-and-white. I don't know what the right answers are. In fact, I don't think there are any right answers. I think FBGs is working hard to try to find the least-wrong answers, the answers that will alienate and upset the fewest people. And it's a hard road to reach those answers, but from everything I see behind the scenes, they are treating it as the single biggest, most serious problem facing the industry today, and they are devoting the full extent of their resources to address it in the way that is most respectful to their customer base. Their *entire* customer base, including the ones who play DFS.
Throw in MyFBG along with them.
