Boston Common - Niche Media - A side of Boston that's anything but common.
Issue link: http://digital.greengale.com/i/460267
GAME THEORY The CEO of DraftKings shares his inspirations in sports and in business. Game niGht: "Boston Beer Works is my favorite place to watch a game. I was there when I watched the Celtics' epic comeback against the Lakers in the NBA fnals a few years ago. Now I'm superstitious and try to watch big games there as often as possible." SportS town: "When you look at Boston, it's pretty clear that the fans understand the teams and the sports more. Fantasy sports rank higher relative to the population in Boston than in almost any other city in the country." wordS of wiSdom: For business advice, Robins turns to The Founder's Dilemmas by Noam Wasserman, who writes: "Most entrepreneurs want to make a lot of money and to run the show. New research shows that it's tough to do both. If you don't fgure out which matters more to you, you could end up being neither rich nor king…. Founders' choices are straightforward: Do they want to be rich or king?" and the numbers you can look into are just end- less." Robins is making good use of this limitless f low of content. Beyond hosting daily games and leagues across a wide range of fantasy sports, he and cofounders Matt Kalish and Paul Liberman have created a bust ling dig it a l ma rketplace a nd entertainment provider. Robins wants DraftKings to be like Facebook: the first site people check after waking up and the last they check before going to bed. Wit h his players now averag ing some four hours a week on DraftKings, achieving that status may not be a fantasy. Bor n i n Ca l i for n ia a nd educated at Du ke University, Robins was an executive at Capital One and then Vistaprint, where—literally at the water- cooler—he, Kalish, and Liberman hatched the idea for DraftKings. In 2012, Boston became the team's base of operations, due to the Hub's thriving tech t a lent pool, wh ich Robi ns says is on a pa r w it h Si l icon Va l ley's. T he cit y a lso of fers a "pa ssion point" when it comes to fantasy sports. "Of every- where I've lived," he says, "Boston has by far the most knowledgeable sports fans." Robi ns h i msel f is a d ieha rd fa n of t he New England Patriots, but not for the reasons you might think. "Bill Belichick is incredible. Tom Brady is an unbelievable quarterback. Their whole team is world- cla ss," he says. "But it a ll st a r t s w it h t he vision the K rafts have in how they want to build that organization." Robins has good reason to sing t he pra ises of tea m ow ner Rober t K raft a nd his sons. Last October, he landed the Patriots as a part- ner, the first time a pro football team has aligned with a fantasy sports provider. Digital signage at Gillette Stadium and Draft K ings content on the team's social media feeds are part of the package. A month later, he signed the Denver Broncos to a similar deal. "The K rafts run a top-notch organi- zation," he says. "They're inspirational to anyone who's bu i ld i ng a busi ness." Just t hen, t he t able st a r t s v ibrat ing. Robins picks up one of his t wo iPhones. "Speaking of which, will you excuse me for a second?" He f lashes me the screen: Incoming call… Jonathan K raft. Robins retreats to a far corner of the bar to take t he ca ll f rom t he Pat r iot s' second-in- com ma nd. A lt hough he doesn't look t ired, t he young CEO hasn't slept more than a couple of hours in the last two days. Just before kickoff the previous Sunday, a bug in the code of DraftK ings' website caused it to go dow n. T hese t hings do happen. T he sa me k i nd of cra sh st r uck t he compa ny's nemesis a mont h ea rlier. But rat her t ha n hide behind t he Internet curtain, Robins took the error on the chin, appea r i ng on Dra f t K i ng s' YouTube cha n nel to answer questions and issue his mea culpa. He also pledged to ref und a ny losses t hat players m ight have incurred during the outage. Talk about cus- tomer service. Dra f t K ings ha s a lso become k now n for ma k- ing many of its players filthy rich. Dave and Rob Gomes, for instance, became the first Bostonians to w i n Dra f t K i ng s' week ly M i l l iona i re Ma ker. Twent y-seven bucks and their lucky selection of newly signed Patriots running back Jonas Gray in week seven turned the Gomes brothers into the toast of their mother's North End restaurant, where they received a giant million-dollar check. And the Gomeses are not alone. DraftKings pays out more than $13 million in winnings each week. W hen Robins w ill collect his ow n Draft K ings winnings remains unclear. He says there is prob- ably a n I PO in t he compa ny's f ut ure, a nd if t he confidence of his early investors is any indication, t he play w i l l ha rd ly be a ga mble. Mea nwh i le, Robins is content to continue playing the game he's in: a young tech entrepreneur turning his fantasy into reality, one click at a time. BC top: DraftKings player James Tran won this first-place trophy and $1 million in 2013. bottom: Robins and Philadelphia 76ers CEO Scott O'Neil, after they signed an exclusive partnership deal last year. "sports are evergreen. the content is constantly new, and the numbers are just endless." —jason robins photography by Ian travIs barnard (trophy); davId dow/nba (robIns and o'neIl) bostoncommon-magazine.com 53