The British Open has had loads of wild weekends in its existence. However the 144th version of The Open Championship, performed over the weekend at golf epicenter St. Andrews in Scotland, outdid itself.
Wind delayed the Open’s closing spherical till Monday, scores had been traditionally low, a golfer made a run at historical past, and a three-way playoff ended with Iowa’s Zach Johnson holding the Claret Jug.
The drama-filled main championship produced its personal drama with DraftKings’ USD3 million Millionaire Maker contest. DraftKings has run almost 20 contests wherein the highest prize was USD1 million — together with three in golf — and for the primary time the competition resulted in a tie.
Millionaire not made at DraftKings
Meaning the Millionaire Maker contest didn’t really produce a millionaire. As an alternative, the winners (utilizing names Dr_Cash007 and jrazajr) cut up the primary and second prizes to share USD550,000.
Hardly a end that DraftKings would think about excellent, however it was hardly surprising both, Matt Kalish, DraftKings CRO and co-founder, advised Authorized Sports activities Report.
“We all the time like to present out that USD1 million examine to a single individual, however it was considerably inevitable with giant subject sizes that ultimately we might see a tie,” Kalish mentioned. “On this case, the gamers put out two very completely different lineups and simply occurred to place up the identical big rating.”
DraftKings nonetheless comes out a winner
Much less shocking was that DraftKings as soon as once more offered out its Millionaire Maker contest, representing greater than 171,000 entries, earlier than the primary tee shot was taken in Scotland. That’s the third consecutive sellout in DFS for golf since DraftKings launched its first Millionaire Maker contest in April for the Masters.
This British Open did make for an attention-grabbing stream to the sport. The unpredictable climate in Scotland delayed the ultimate spherical till Monday, and at one level play lasted simply 32 windswept minutes in the course of the second spherical.
Kalish, although, mentioned that the climate didn’t have a lot of an impact on the Millionaire Maker. In actual fact, the delay is only one motive why golf continues to develop as a vertical, Kalish mentioned.
“If something, I believe the climate delay created a barely longer sweat expertise, which on the whole we might view as a superb factor,” Kalish mentioned. “One of many nice issues about golf is it offers large worth. You place up an entry payment, and in change get 4 days of pleasure. It’s actually unparalleled in that regard, no different sport offers you fairly that lengthy of a sweat for the entry payment.”
What’s subsequent?
When DraftKings introduced that the Open Millionaire Maker was offered out, it additionally introduced that the competition for the PGA Championship. Maybe not shocking is the PGA Championship recreation will as soon as once more replicate development in DraftKings’ golf vertical.
Asserting a sellout and a fair bigger recreation for golf’s subsequent main championship has change into a convention of types for DraftKings because it experimented with its first golf Millionaire Maker earlier this yr.
The PGA Championship, which shall be performed Aug. 13-16 at Whistling Straits in Wisconsin, will function a assure of USD3.3 million. The competition shall be restricted to almost 189,000 entrants and pay out 45,840 locations.
That represents regular development from DraftKings’ Masters contest earlier this yr, which was restricted to 125,000 entrants and a assure of USD2.2 million. DraftKings has upped the scale in every main championship since, topping out on the PGA Championship.
There shall be a change to the sport, although, considerably lowering the multi-entry limits from 500 to 100 for the PGA Championship, “which ought to enhance the expertise for many everybody and guarantee there may be extra capability within the recreation the place anybody who desires to get into it could actually get in late within the day,” Kalish mentioned.
The regular development in its showcase golf contests has been the results of a mixture of things, together with rising curiosity in DFS for golf and DraftKings nonetheless looking for the height of the vertical, Kalish mentioned.
“We actually acknowledge that we’ve crammed the primary three golf Millionaire Makers a bit early, and we like to ensure individuals who wish to play our promotions can get into them late within the recreation,” Kalish mentioned. “We wished to deal with that by rising the capability. We may also be driving numerous new engagement as properly, so it goes past simply supporting the present participant base in golf in that regard.”
Some numbers from The Open
In all, 69,361 particular person gamers entered the competition, and 46,105 of these gamers entered only one staff, in keeping with Homefield Labs, which tracks golf and fantasy golf analytics. Six contestants entered the utmost 500 groups.
To virtually nobody’s shock, two-time main winner Jordan Spieth (who completed only a shot out of The Open’s three-way playoff) was the preferred decide amongst all of DraftKings’ contests, touchdown on 32.5 p.c of all groups. Johnson was the seventh-most widespread decide, showing on 17.5 p.c of all groups.
Based on DraftKings, solely 8.8 p.c of groups within the contest had all six of their gamers make the 36-hole lower (together with each winners), giving these groups a definite benefit in DraftKings’ bonus scoring system. A heftier 32.1 p.c had 5 of six gamers advance to the ultimate two rounds.
Photograph by Christine Olson used underneath license CC BY-ND 2.0.