7 Tips on Running a Successful Fantasy Sports Contest Business

7 Tips on Running a Successful Fantasy Sports Contest Business

Fantasy sports are becoming big businesses. People all over the world love to join in, whether its fantasy football, baseball, basketball or any of the other top sports out there. When it comes to running your own contest business, you will need to think about a few things. This isn’t for everyone and to make it successful, you need the drive, determination and ability to follow set regulations.

One independently owned fantasy sports site is SportsDrafts. This site has fantasy drafts for football, baseball, basketball and golf. Drafts are offered frequently and stats are updated daily by noon. There are also many other commercially owned sites such as Yahoo, ESPN, MFFL and Fantasy Headquarters to name a few.

Here are seven tips to make your fantasy sports contest business a success.

Choose Your Sport

The first thing you need to do is choose the sport that you are going to offer. Some businesses offer a mixture but you want to narrow your target audience at first. Once you get a following, you could start to consider expanding. There is no wrong or right answer when it comes to the type of sport that you want to offer. It could be your favourite one or you could offer something with high demand and low competition.

Do your research. The idea is to get people to join your fantasy sport contest. If there isn’t the demand for the sport, it’s not going to be a good idea for you; even if you do love it. You could find that a sport you’re not that interested in or one that you know little about is more beneficial financially for you.

If you’re not interested in the sport, consider talking to a friend who is to join you in this venture. You can control the business side and he controls the sport side. If it’s one you know little about, get researching! You want to know the ins and outs to make this whole venture a success.

Get Friends to Join in and Support You

You could start off with a group of friends, co-workers and family. This is a great way to get the contest going and help start your marketing. If they don’t want to join, ask them to do some recruiting for you. You may be surprised at where your initial customers come from.

You will need to schedule the games so consider keeping the teams to an even number. This is just easier to start with. As you develop the skills and the knowledge, you will be able to offer byes when there are odd numbers.

Name Your Contest and the Teams

Now it is time to name your fantasy sport contest. Treat this like your business name. It needs to be something that is catchy, memorable and something that tells others what you do. People don’t want to try and guess. Once you have a name, you can think of logos and merchandising to help with the marketing. You will also be able to do some marketing online and offline to get people to join your contest.

The teams also need to be named. This is up to the people who own the teams. Encourage them to choose something that means something to them. The only time you really need to get involved in this is if two people choose the same name.

Select When the Annual Draft Will Take Place

Most contest businesses will do the player draft the weekend before the official sports league starts. Consider this as your date for the annual draft for the teams. This is when the teams get to choose their players, decide who will be “out on the field” and send all the information in.

You will also need to set a price for your fantasy sports contest. The price for entry will make up your business costs and the money that is offered to the winning team. This takes some time to think about. You want something that is reasonable for all the teams but will help you stay in profit. It may be worth doing your research to see the amount that other leagues charge for an entry fee—look at a mixture of start-up and long standing leagues.

You want to avoid overpricing your entry fees. This will just make people walk away. Make the cost clear as you are recruiting members, so they know upfront just how much they are going to have to spend on this competition.

Select a Commissioner

Most fantasy sports contests need a commissioner. There can be disputes in these leagues, no matter the sport, and the commissioner is someone who will decide who is right and who is wrong. It needs to be someone impartial, so try to hire someone who has no connection to the various team members. It shouldn’t be you!

With the commissioner, you can then set up the rules. You will find a basic set of rules online but you want to customise them for your own contest. The aim is to make sure as few disputes can happen as possible. Look for the loopholes and close them. Consider the different types of events that can happen and answer them within the rulebook.

Get the rules out to all those participating. You need to make it clear that they either follow the rules or you will need to disqualify them from the league. You could set up a warning system but avoid offering too many warnings to one contestant.

Tracking and Recording the Statistics

Before the league gets underway, you need to think about the statistics. How will you track and record them? How will you share them with everyone in the contest? There are a few different options and one of those is to manually do it. This is the way people have done it in the past but it will mean more work for you.

You may want to consider using some software for tracking the information. This doesn’t have to be expensive. You could set up an Excel sheet for tracking the software or invest in the free or cheap software online that people sell. When you do use software, make sure it does everything you need, is genuine and well worth the money that you are spending.

If you really want to keep the cost down, another option is to get someone to do it all for you. You could hire someone as part of your contest, so everything is kept in-house. This allows you to follow it all easily while concentrating on more important parts of the business. On the other hand, there is the option of outsourcing. Plenty of companies will do it for you away from your business and it will be cheaper than hiring someone in-house. However, you have less control over the way the statistics are tracked and it could lead to issues if they are tracked incorrectly.

Hiring a service is really beneficial for your first year. You can concentrate on other parts of your business, instead of the difficult side that is really important. Just make sure that you find a company that is worthwhile. Do your research and talk to other leagues about the services that they hire.

Marketing

You can market all year round. Many businesses will start just as the season ends for the new season but you could always do it throughout to get people ready for the next year. There are different forms of marketing and all offer their pros and cons. Online marketing is likely your best option. People can join up online straight from your email list, videos or articles that you post online and even directly through your website.

Don’t neglect the offline marketing but keep in mind that it is often more expensive. Do you really want higher fees in the first couple of years to match your business expenses?

Now Get Out There!

Successfully running a fantasy sports contest business takes time and planning. You will need to think about a lot of small but important things, like the rules, the fees and how you will track all the statistics. Once you have that sorted, you will be ready to start recruiting people!

The Mercy Rule is not affiliated, connected or associated with the Fantasy Sports Trade Association.


About The Author:

Phil Aye is the man behind The Mercy Rule, a blog solely focused on providing valuable researched tips related to sports.