AlphaDraft took to email yesterday to inform its’ customers that it would no longer continue operations after the conclusion of the League of Legends World Championship.
The email, sent to customers read as follows:
“Two years ago, we set out to combine eSports with daily fantasy sports. In February 2015, our team launched AlphaDraft, bringing you daily and weekly fantasy eSports contests. What started with only a few eSports contests expanded along the way and we are very proud of the platform we built. However, as we continue to evaluate the eSports landscape, we are announcing today that we have made the difficult decision to stop offering fantasy eSports contests on AlphaDraft as of Friday, October 21, at the conclusion of the League of Legends World Championship. You can continue to play contests until this time.
As has always been the case, you can withdraw your funds at any time. Please contact [email protected] if you require any assistance. Thank you for being a part of this journey with us!
Best,
AlphaDraft Team”
It comes after Vulcun ceased their operations at the beginning of the year. Whilst DraftKings continue to offer esports contests, there’s few well established operators now in the esports space.
It comes as no surprise to some though, with Rahul Sood, CEO of esports bookmaker Unikrn taking to Twitter to emphasise the problems of even traditional sports fantasy offerings.
Well @AlphaDraft is shutting down. It's hard enough to build a successful real sports fantasy company.
— Rahul Sood ?? (@rahulsood) October 19, 2016
Esports Insider: the fantasy esports market remains an extremely tough nut to crack. As outlined by Rahul, the challenges in operating a traditional DFS company remain and with a smaller market in esports it’s no surprise that companies tend to struggle. The legal challenges surrounding the DFS market are well publicised and these predictably have spilled over into the DFeS industry.