The SEC network is banning fantasy football ads, as the league’s commissioner has declared daily draft games “a form of gambling”. This comes as a bit of a shock to DraftKing and FanDuel, since fantasy football has long been classified as a game of skill.
“Is it a form of gambling, is it a form of skill game, and I think there is some question about that,” SEC commissioner Greg Sankey told WVTM. “And I think the appropriate place for us to land as a conference on the SEC Network, again working with ESPN, is not to include that advertising on the SEC Network moving forward.”
The conference started working with ESPN to phase out the commercials at the beginning of summer, so by September the network had eliminated the commercials on their network entirely.
“Given there’s an NCAA bylaw related to sports wagering that picks up a lot including fantasy sports, we felt not including that was appropriate position for the league,” Sankey concluded.
DraftKings and FanDuel commercials have been pervasive across America as the billion-dollar startups compete for market share. They spent a combined $27 million for approximately 8,000 television spots during the first week of the NFL season, with Fortune reporting a combined $100m spent during the six-week span from August first to September fifteenth.
