Speaker 1: We do, in fact have Jason Robbins on the line.
Speaker 1: Jason is the CEO of DraftKings. Thank you so much
Speaker 1: for joining Fantasy Freestyle. How's it going there? You're getting
Speaker 1: ready for the season? Open or hot? Jason? Oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: today is an exciting day. I'm sure it is. I'm
Speaker 1: sure it is. It's gotta be a huge day on
Speaker 1: the Draft Kings calendar, right, I mean, that's my first
Speaker 1: question for you, Jason, Like, truly, how much of a
Speaker 1: spike do you guys see over at DraftKings for the
Speaker 1: start of football season. I mean, football has to be
Speaker 1: like your main you know, your main season. This has
Speaker 1: gotta be like waking up on Christmas morning seeing the
Speaker 1: beginning of football. Just how big is football relative to
Speaker 1: some of the other sports on DraftKings. You've pretty much
Speaker 1: nailed it. I've been watching the stats all day. I've
Speaker 1: been hooked on watching them, and numbers keep going up.
Speaker 1: It's a great day. The first Thursday in the first
Speaker 1: Sunday are usually the two biggest customer acquisition days of
Speaker 1: the year. We're gonna add about a hundred thousand new
Speaker 1: registrants today, um probably even more on Sunday. And you know,
Speaker 1: This is the fun time. This is when all the
Speaker 1: numbers are going up. Everybody's excited, and it's a good time.
Speaker 1: Because I'm a sports fan, football fan too, so I
Speaker 1: get double benefit of being excited about the football season
Speaker 1: and it being a big day for draft teams. Yeah. Absolutely, absolutely,
Speaker 1: Like who is your team, Jason, who's your team? Well,
Speaker 1: we're based in Boston kind of probably guess the Patriots.
Speaker 1: But fair enough. You know, I like all football and
Speaker 1: I'm a fantasy player, So whoever is on my fantasy
Speaker 1: That's what I was just gonna say. I like, that's
Speaker 1: what I was gonna ask you share more for the
Speaker 1: Patriots or for your fantasy team or for your lineup
Speaker 1: in Draft Kings, which which is your true allegiance? Okay, alright,
Speaker 1: fair enough. Let me ask you something. You mentioned that
Speaker 1: you guys are gonna add like hundreds of thousands of
Speaker 1: new users just in this weekend. Okay, so, as not
Speaker 1: only the CEO of DraftKings, but like you said, a
Speaker 1: fantasy football player yourself, what kind of advice would you
Speaker 1: give the first time player, someone who's just dipping their
Speaker 1: toe in the waters of daily fantasy, you know, should
Speaker 1: they started maybe like a cash game or a head
Speaker 1: to head or go straight to some of the g PPS,
Speaker 1: some of the big tournaments out there. What advice would
Speaker 1: you have for someone who's just getting started with Daily Fantasy,
Speaker 1: one of these new hundred thousand people that were just
Speaker 1: added today to your site. Oh, you're probably a lot
Speaker 1: better guy to be asking that than me, but I'll
Speaker 1: give it a shot. I think it depends on your goals.
Speaker 1: If you're looking to, you know, play it for a
Speaker 1: few bucks and try to win a big score, and
Speaker 1: you're gonna want to focus on the big guaranteed price pool.
Speaker 1: If you're looking to kind of practice and get to
Speaker 1: know the game and you know, maybe make you know,
Speaker 1: smaller kinda winds wins but bit more steadiness, then I
Speaker 1: would focus on playing the double ups or sit tifties
Speaker 1: or head to head. So it really depends on what
Speaker 1: your goal is, all right. I guess it depends on
Speaker 1: how risk averse you are as an individual. But if
Speaker 1: you're on DraftKings wage and you gotta have a little
Speaker 1: bit of action on it, and it sounds like this
Speaker 1: is good time of the year for DraftKings, let me
Speaker 1: ask you something, Jason, because I saw over on DraftKings.
Speaker 1: You guys are offering not a thousand, not even a million,
Speaker 1: but a billion with a B. I feel like dr evil.
Speaker 1: You know, it's even saying that you're offering a billion
Speaker 1: dollars to someone if they can get the perfect line up. Hey, Jason,
Speaker 1: why don't you tell us about that fun contest you
Speaker 1: guys are doing for a week one? Uh, this is
Speaker 1: the biggest contest far we've ever run. And you know
Speaker 1: the basic gist. It is totally free to enter, so
Speaker 1: no I go to use existing players common Wanter. It's
Speaker 1: no cost um. There's a hundred thousand and guaranteed prizes
Speaker 1: no matter what happened. So about a hundred thousand people
Speaker 1: are going to be getting something paid into their account
Speaker 1: for doing well. And then if you hit the perfect lineup,
Speaker 1: you went a billion dollars and it's fully insured. That
Speaker 1: don't worry, We're not taking the risk ourselves. We got
Speaker 1: number of different insurance companies to back it, so you know,
Speaker 1: it's pretty exciting. Obviously, it's very difficult, takes a ton
Speaker 1: of skill to be able to pick the perfect lineup,
Speaker 1: but if you do it, you get a billion dollars,
Speaker 1: which is I'm sure enough to stay. It's pretty amazing
Speaker 1: sum of money for anybody to win. Sure you said it,
Speaker 1: just it was free to enter that contest, right, so
Speaker 1: I like my return on investment, might as well going over,
Speaker 1: might as well going over to Draft Kings. Right now,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna throw in a lineup, and Jason, if you
Speaker 1: want to know the billion dollar perfect lineup, all you
Speaker 1: gotta do is tune into Fantasy Freestyle tomorrow, man, and
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be giving it out for you. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: be giving it out for you. Let me ask you
Speaker 1: this because we've heard so much in the fantasy community
Speaker 1: about the back and forth with UM all of these
Speaker 1: dfs and different states. I got a listener that asked me.
Speaker 1: His name is Taco and Alabama. He said he's been
Speaker 1: going through withdrawal from Draft Kings for like two years.
Speaker 1: You know, he really wants to play. Where are we
Speaker 1: right now in some of the different states as a
Speaker 1: state by state kind of thing. I'm here in New
Speaker 1: York and it was, you know, it was off the
Speaker 1: radar for a few months last year. Where do we
Speaker 1: stand right now? So that our players know what they
Speaker 1: can do, what they can't do, where they can deposit
Speaker 1: where they can play all that. Where are we standing
Speaker 1: right now, Jason, Well, right now, there's forty one states
Speaker 1: where you can play Draft Kings, and unfortunately Alabama is
Speaker 1: and one of them actually saw that. Guys, twea taco
Speaker 1: in Alabama? Yeah, I mean, how you gonna forget taco
Speaker 1: on exactly exactly I saw that, but unfortunately not yet.
Speaker 1: Now Abama, we're working on it. We have some legislation.
Speaker 1: It's active. So something you're passionate about you can help. Yeah, send, send,
Speaker 1: send a note and email will make it really easy
Speaker 1: to do your legislator, get your friends to do it.
Speaker 1: Let them know you care. Um, let them know this
Speaker 1: should be a priority for them in the next legislative session.
Speaker 1: We'd love to go back to Alabama. It was really
Speaker 1: disappointing for us that we ended up having to exit
Speaker 1: that state. It's great state, great sports fans, and looking
Speaker 1: forward to hopefully getting something done in the in the
Speaker 1: legislature and getting back up and running in Alabama. Yeah,
Speaker 1: absolutely said Hey, my last question because I know we're
Speaker 1: up against it, but um, thank you so much for
Speaker 1: joining Fantasy Freestyle. But Jason, what's next on the horizon
Speaker 1: for DraftKings. You know you got the billion Dollar Game.
Speaker 1: There any other fun contests out there? I know, my man? Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, Mayo is joining you guys and sometimes soon
Speaker 1: what about like DFS Bachelor or DFS Politics. What's next?
Speaker 1: What's next? One you guys branch out away from football?
Speaker 1: Oh man, I don't know, ye haven't you know? We've
Speaker 1: talked about doing different types of games like that. Right
Speaker 1: now we're sticking to sports, but you know it's in
Speaker 1: the future. The latest thing we did is we launched
Speaker 1: a new game called Pick Them. And the reason we
Speaker 1: want to pick them is we're getting a lot of
Speaker 1: feedback from people if they wanted to try it, but
Speaker 1: they didn't like be on with the salary cap and
Speaker 1: you put a player in and then you're over and
Speaker 1: you can't pick who you want. You got to take
Speaker 1: them out, and it's just annoying for people, and a
Speaker 1: lot of people like if it's something. So the pick
Speaker 1: them game by the same idea. You pick some players,
Speaker 1: you get to score. Team might think, but instead of
Speaker 1: having salary caps, we've created tears of players. So you
Speaker 1: just go and you have a list that I got
Speaker 1: to pick one of the ten guys I hat to
Speaker 1: one of the easy guys, and you go down the
Speaker 1: list and picking the group together players that would be
Speaker 1: a similar salaries, So you're picking from a similar set
Speaker 1: of people. Um, So it kind of effectively balances the
Speaker 1: salary cap for you and you don't have to worry
Speaker 1: with you going within tears than to play. But yeah,
Speaker 1: it's great because it involves just as much skill, but
Speaker 1: it's easier for especially a new player to be able
Speaker 1: to come in and figure out and play. It's just
Speaker 1: picking players, not worrying about the salary cap. Alright, awesome,
Speaker 1: And let me ask you this. You say your last
Speaker 1: question for you, Jason, and thanks so much for stopping
Speaker 1: by the cipher here on Fantasy Freestyle, you said you're
Speaker 1: a fantasy football player yourself. You're out there for Pat's chiefs.
Speaker 1: Which Patriots chiefs you have in your line of trying
Speaker 1: to win a billion dollars? Well, you know it's tough
Speaker 1: to play GROUNK today. Becaus got Eric Berry on him.
Speaker 1: I think he will. Um, I think Brady is gonna
Speaker 1: have a big game. It's hard to say that he's
Speaker 1: gonna throw it too, But who's gonna fill that? Julian
Speaker 1: Edelman role. Come on, Jason, we need your inside Who's
Speaker 1: filling that role? Is it? Mitchell is one of the
Speaker 1: running backs. Well, Mitchell just cut put on the I R.
Speaker 1: Not him. Ammon Dola, give me a little Danny, Ammon Dola.
Speaker 1: Emmon Dola is probably the best. You know, Hogan is
Speaker 1: more of a deep threat, thank you, am and Dola
Speaker 1: is probably the best bet to fill that. I also
Speaker 1: think they could lean on James White a bit in
Speaker 1: this game. He was cheap on DraftKings, and he's a
Speaker 1: guy that had an incredible Super Bowl and he won
Speaker 1: for the ages. He was arguably if Brady didn't do
Speaker 1: what he did the m v P at that game.
Speaker 1: And you know, he's a player that can catch a
Speaker 1: lot of passes the back field, So I think they
Speaker 1: might be leaning on him a lot without their slot
Speaker 1: guys a full strength. Alright, fair enough. This is Jason Robbins,
Speaker 1: the CEO of DraftKings, telling us about the billion dollar
Speaker 1: contest for the perfect lineup and all things going on
Speaker 1: on DraftKings, into including some of the little mini tournaments
Speaker 1: that he's got going on. Thank you so much for
Speaker 1: stopping by the show, Jason. After I win my million dollars?
Speaker 1: Can I invoice you directly? You mean you're billion? Right? Hey, listen,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna start small with the million dollar maker, and
Speaker 1: then I'll get to the bill, you know. Okay, baby, staff,
Speaker 1: you gotta crawl before you could. I thought you were
Speaker 1: going to give out the winning lineup tomorrow. Hey, listen, listen,
Speaker 1: I can still win a million dollars and not have
Speaker 1: the perfect lineup for the billion. You know. Listen, I'll
Speaker 1: take a million. I'll be just fine with that. Don't
Speaker 1: worry about it. I'll be happy winning my fifty fifty contests.
Speaker 1: You're getting me? Well, if you win a million or
Speaker 1: a billion, yeah, you can invoice me directly. I'll take
Speaker 1: care of it. Sounds good, Jason, thanks for stopping by
Speaker 1: the Fantasy Freestyle. Enjoy the season opener out there, and
Speaker 1: come on back on the show when you get a
Speaker 1: chance sometime, all right, anytime. I'd love to thanks guys.
Speaker 1: He's really opener.