Last year, we were inundated with advertisements for DraftKings and FanDuel, two daily fantasy sports sites that grew to be massively popular before drawing the attention of government officials concerned that they were online gambling organizations. This year it seems that we will be inundated with stories chronicling the downfall of DraftKings and FanDuel. Recently, ESPN ran a lengthy, well-researched piece all about the rise and fall of these two daily fantasy titans. Now there is a movie in the works that will also be dedicated to telling the story of these two infamous companies.
Technically, what has happened is that the movie rights to a book have been optioned. The book in question is The Big Game, which is being written by Sports Illustrated writer Albert Chen. It’s not coming out until next year, but clearly somebody thinks there is potential to get a worthwhile movie out of it. The phrase “The Big Short in the world of daily fantasy sports” is used to describe the story, and considering that movie was nominated for several Oscars it makes sense movie producers are hoping lightning will strike twice.
The daily fantasy sports industry is still dealing with legal fallout. Companies such as DraftKings and FanDuel can’t legally accept players from certain states, and only recently was daily fantasy made legal, and regulated, in New York and Massachusetts. Sure, this sort of wonky storytelling doesn’t appeal to everybody, but last year made basically every sports fan aware of the whole daily fantasy thing. People are going to be interested in this story.
(Via Deadline)
