#WNBALive: The FanDuel and Twitter Partnerships
Last week, the Women’s National Basketball Association announced their partnership with fantasy sports leader FanDuel. The “Official One-Day Fantasy Game of the WNBA” will continue throughout the regular season and into the playoffs. Both paid-entry and free contests are available, along with other challenges outside of the fantasy game.
“This partnership with FanDuel and our new one-day fantasy game will be a fresh, unique way for fans to further connect with their favorite WNBA players and teams throughout our season,” stated Lisa Borders, WNBA President.
This was not the only new venture that the WNBA entered into this weekend, as it also offered fans the first-ever live streamed game on Twitter. Users were able to watch Sunday’s game between Phoenix and Dallas, with Twitter even debuting an exclusive WNBA emoji anytime a fan tweeted #WNBA or #WNBALive. The live stream idea was actually suggested some months back by Seattle Storm guard Jewell Loyd when prompted for new ideas by Borders.
As to be expected, there were a few hitches during the otherwise strong opening weekend. During the first quarter of the game, the Twitter stream did not have the time or score posted. This was quickly resolved and taken care of by the start of the second.
FanDuel also had a few glitches with their eligible players for the contest. Many injured and overseas players were still listed as available selections. Chiney Ogwumike is recovering from Achilles tendon surgery and was listed on almost 31% of rosters. 38% of players had picked Kayla McBride, who was concluding her time playing in the Turkish League finals.
Some of the question marks going into the deal were how the deals would impact women and overall fan engagement with daily fantasy sports. While there has yet to be a demographic breakdown of contest players this past weekend, we can see from the numbers that both FanDuel and Twitter were successful with their starting efforts.
The Twitter live stream garnered over 1 million unique views, and had an average minute audience of 62,459 during the Dallas Wings’ 68-58 victory over the Phoenix Mercury.
FanDuel had about 36,000 fans playing WNB fantasy contests this weekend. 26,000 players were active during the free tipoff challenge and another 10,000 participated in the games on Sunday.
Regardless of small errors, there is no doubt that opening weekend was a success that will hopefully continue to grow. There are over 328 million active Twitter accounts as of April 2017, making the social platform invaluable in terms of exposure.
We will be interested to see if the FanDuel WNBA daily fantasy sports contests improve TV ratings during the 21st season of the league. DFS has been linked to an increase in ratings for the Golf Channel, however other sports, such as NASCAR, have seen ratings plummet. Still, the goal is growth and if WNBA viewership improves it is possible to attribute it partially to FanDuel and Twitter.
“It’s all about the fan base and growing the league. Twitter and Fanduel are two tools for us to grow. They are great partnerships. Having them so well received was a huge success all the way around,” said Borders to the Associated Press. “Those who were unfamiliar with the WNBA in FanDuel, would the fantasy community embrace us… it appears that they have done so and we’re ecstatic.”