Background:  On June 13, 2016 Bloomberg News reported that daily fantasy sports juggernauts FanDuel.com and Drafkings.com were in the early stages of merger talks.  Over the weeks and months since this initial report many major media outlets such as USA Today, ESPN, Bloomberg, CBS, The New York Times, etc., have continued to report and speculate that this very well could become a reality.  It has been reported as well that a high profile NFL team owner and Draftkings.com equity holder had previously made a push to get both companies to the negotiating table.  Publicly, representatives from both companies have indicated an openness to the concept of the mega merger as well.  On September 24, 2016 the FantasyAlarm news team, citing sources familiar with the matter, reported that the transaction was nearing conclusion.  

As always, our goal here at Fantasy Alarm is to bring the latest, breaking news that would affect the fantasy sports player.  Most of the time, it is related to a specific player or team. However, in this instance this is the type of news that can affect the whole industry.   We will continue to report here with updated news and stories as things break and change.

-----

November 18th, 2016

11:04am ET -  Being described as a Merger of Equals. It is our understanding that this language was very important to both sides.

10:13am ET - Draftkings offers some additional information to it's customers regarding the merger here.

9:00am ET - Details are coming in fast and furious but in short the mega merger story that FA broke in September finally came to fruition today.  According to the Wall Street Journal, Jason Robbins will serve as CEO Nigel Ecles will serve as Chairman Of The Board.  Exciting and interesting times.  Follow here all day today and feel free to join the discussion in our forum.

October 31st, 2016

Bloomberg is reporting that Dratkings Co-Founder Jason Robbins will lead the newly formed company as CEO.  The story can be found here.  Our take: This comes as somewhat of a suprise as it has been assumed that FanDuel would be aquiring Draftkings.  More often than not this means the aquirees executive team stays in place with the aquired companies team sticking around only for a transitional period.  Looks like this quite possibly could go down as a genuine merger of equals. Overall, we see this as a positive as Robbins is as sharp as they come and the industry as a whole could only beneit from him having a contiued roll with the new company.

October 29th, 2016

They say where there is smoke, there is fire and the story that FantasyAlarm.com broke just over 30 days ago has finally been set ablaze. Virtually every major media outlet in the country is now reporting on this rapidly developing story. 

Mark Edelman at Forbes takes an interesting look at how antitrust issues may hinder the transaction here. Our Take: We do not believe there will be issues with the FTC as although the collective companies will have approximately 90% of the market, the overall market itself is not all that mature and their are dozens of other competitive businesses.  In other words, the consumer still has plenty of other choices to go find fantasy sports entertainment.  Moreover, FanDuel and Draftkings will contend they cannot survive as stand alone companies.

October 28th, 2016

ESPN is reporting that the merger is iminent and that terms are just being finalized.  Apparenlty finalizing an agreeement with the attorney general in New York was the final hurdle.  We are following this closely and will continue to report as information comes out.

October 12th, 2016

Draftkings today announced that they will be eliminating late swaps from their NBA platform sparking further speculation that this is evidence that they are moving towards the FD platform.  Rotogrinders, DFS Guru Elite and Fantasy Alarm all covered in-depth today on their respective shows on SiriusXM Fantasy Sports Radio.

September 24th, 2016

9:00am ET - Dave Gonos and our friends at Sportsgrid.com have a little fun here speculating on what the name of the new entitty will be.

2:57pm ET - FA has continued to research and check with sources and the bottom line is this rumor just will not die.  In fact, a popular thought is that a deal could be announced as early as this Tuesday at the conclusion of Week 3 NFL.  As to be expected, FD has denied there is any deal in place and DK has remained completely silent on the matter. It is assumed FD would be the acquiring company and would hence control the media cycle. One thing is for sure, pretty much anyone you talk to, even in many cases within both companies, acknowledge it is not a matter of IF but only WHEN.  Many feel like it would not be until the conclusion of he NFL season at the earliest.  Nobody is denying that there are active discussions taking place. These deals are highly complex and the two entities don't exactly have a history of getting along.  Time will tell.  Stay tuned.

-----

September 23th, 2016

1:08pm EST: FantasyAlarm.com is tracking a rumor attained through several high level industry sources that a mega merger between the two largest daily fantasy companies could come as early as this afternoon. 

1:37pm EST – DraftKings public relations denies having any knowledge of this.  Phone calls and email to several FanDuel sources have not yet been returned.

2:03pm EST - Rumor also being reported by Anthem Media and the Fantasy Sports Network.

2:33pm EST - We have received contact from FanDuel who says that there is no news on a potential merger with DraftKings. FanDuel denies that any announcement is imminent and that they will release a statement of their own later this afternoon. 

3:45pm EST - FanDuel informed us that they will not be issuing any kind of press release today related to this matter.

--------

We are tracking this development very closely and will be live blogging here and discussing with YOU in our Forums throughout the coming days as more information comes.  

(Disclosure: Both DraftKings & Fanduel are long-time valued partners of FA Media,LLC)