BOSTON, Mass – The PGA TOUR and DraftKings Inc. have announced a new multi-year content and marketing relationship that designates DraftKings as the first-ever “Official Daily Fantasy Game of the PGA TOUR.”
“We are excited to partner with DraftKings, an industry leader in innovation and fan engagement, in this groundbreaking step for the PGA TOUR,” said Luis Goicouria, PGA TOUR Senior Vice President Media. “The partnership with DraftKings provides the TOUR with a unique opportunity to innovate in a new industry and to further engage our fans.”
DraftKings will activate the partnership by branding its daily fantasy golf contests as “PGA TOUR DraftKings Fantasy Golf.” By playing these contests, fans will have the opportunity to win cash prizes as well as an array of PGA TOUR prizes in the future. The offerings include Classic contests where fans choose six players each week on the PGA TOUR for their fantasy team all while staying under the designated salary cap. Showdown contests are also available, which requires players to compile a team of six while staying under the designated salary cap for a single round of a tournament. Players have the option to compete with other PGA TOUR fans or in private, fully customizable contests with friends and colleagues.
As part of the new relationship, PGA TOUR DraftKings Fantasy Golf players will have the ability to receive real-time video highlights for players in their respective lineups. Other elements of this partnership will create expanded Draft Fantasy Sports specific content offerings, as well as allow for brand integration into both the PGA TOUR and DraftKings platforms. Lastly, the PGA TOUR and DraftKings will collaborate on a variety of real-time product enhancements via the PGA TOUR’s proprietary ShotLink data feed.
“Golf continues to grow in popularity among DFS players globally at DraftKings and is our fourth-largest sport in terms of engagement, out of 15 total offerings.” said Ezra Kucharz, chief business officer of DraftKings. “Our partnership with the PGA TOUR signals a mutual commitment to excellence in customer experience along with a new era in golf fandom and engagement.”
Fans can access PGA TOUR DraftKings Fantasy Golf on July 22, in time for the World Golf Championships-FedEx St. Jude Invitational, by visiting www.draftkings.com or by downloading the DraftKings app via iOS and Android.
In February 2019, the PGA TOUR changed its policy to allow Official Marketing Partnerships and title sponsorships with companies in the daily fantasy sports related category, which allowed the DraftKings relationship to come to fruition.
Data provided by DraftKings reflects the impact this category can have on fan engagement for the TOUR. For instance, golf is the fourth-most popular daily fantasy game on the DraftKings platform behind only the NFL, NBA and MLB. In fact, 30 percent of DraftKings’ entire customer base in excess of 11 million have played in at least one golf contest demonstrating the crossover appeal of the sport. DraftKings has seen steady growth in daily fantasy golf entries each year, including a new peak of 20 million golf entries in 2018 to coincide with payouts of over $450 million for golf contests historically. Since 2015, DraftKings has also crowned 16 golf contest millionaires as these winners earn life-changing prizes for their respective skills and knowledge.
The PGA TOUR will continue to run its free-to-play fantasy games, including PGA TOUR Fantasy Golf, PGA TOUR One&Done, and PGA TOUR Champions One&Done. These games and related content can be found at https://www.pgatour.com/fantasy.html
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