Ranking the DFS Sites by Popularity

In my last post, I basically ranted about my displeasure with Fan Duel and their daily baseball game.  I posed the question, "How do they keep winning awards?" with a clearly inferior baseball product.  Having access to the internet, I decided to google the question.  I stumbled across a listing for the Alexa rankings for each of the DFS sites.  The article tabulated the data for each site in December, right at the peak of Football Season,  With a few handy taps on my keyboard I was able to recreate that list for today, smack dab in the middle of the baseball season.  Yahoo isn't in the mix, partly because it didn't exist back in December, but partly because it doesn't parse out Yahoo DFS from Yahoo proper, but for reference Yahoo is the 5th most visited website today.

US Alexa Ranking	December 2014	July 2015	Change
Fan Duel	274	1716	-1442
Draft Kings	668	1789	-1121
Victiv	14477	46388	-31911
Fantasy Aces	37718	52524	-14806
Draft Day	17779	67845	-50066
Fantasy Feud	67868	98546	-30678
Fantasy Score	60703	197433	-136730

Fan Duel
I love a good statistical table and the trends it can reveal.  Fan Duel's 274 ranking during Football Season is formidable.  And something that should be noted.  I mused that maybe their DFS Football is awesome.  Well, if people flocking to the site is any indication, and it probably is, their Football game is something I deeply look forward to playing come September.  Let this serve as a public apology to the good folks at Fan Duel for any thing I may have done to offend.

Draft Kings
During baseball season, second place Draft Kings basically runs neck-and-neck with the market leader Fan Duel.  I think this means that the typical DFS player knows what I generally have hinted at elsewhere on this site.  Draft Kings lays out a really good product for DFS baseball, arguably the best out there.  The 668 ranking during Football Season shows strong performance and hints at what I perceive to be the Draft Kings strategy:  To be strong across the board at all games.  As they have rolled out sports like Soccer, NASCAR, and Golf into the DFS world, all with very playable systems, I think this assumption is accurate.

Football Numbers vs. Baseball Numbers
The huge dropoffs for DFS baseball versus DFS football, may make me rethink my opinion on the importance of longer year long sports like Baseball and Basketball.  When Fan Duel jumps from 1716 to 274, it does not translate to 6.25x as many hits, but a number far greater.  And the drop off for baseball is pretty staggering across the board.  If this DFS football boost brings 10x the players to your site in the fall, then a 17 game season plays out function like a 170 game season.  In other words Football is probably more important than Baseball within the DFS universe.  Fan Duel's strategy of focusing on the Football Marketplace may not be visionary, but certainly is sound.

There's more to be gleaned here, but these the big ideas.

So who has the best DFS site out there?  I am reminded of a similar question I was asked a decade ago.  As a whiskey drinker, I was asked do you prefer Bourbon or Scotch?  Both of them being separate apexes in the domain of dark spirits, I was perplexed.  I finally answered, "I love them both, and I find myself more drinking Bourbon in the Summer and more Scotch in winter, as it just seems right to do it that way."  I don't know yet, but maybe Draft Kings is my Summer Love, and Fan Duel rules my Winters.  And maybe it will just seem right to do it that way.  And maybe my dabbling into other sites is my occasional romance with Tequila or Rum or Irish Whiskey.  I don't know how Yahoo fits this metaphor, It may very well be the more universally loved Beer & Wine of DFS.