a16z Podcast | When Fantasy Football and Crowdfunding Collide | Summary and Q&A

TL;DR

ESPN partners with Tilt, a crowdfunding platform, to provide a seamless way for fantasy football leagues to collect and manage funds.

Key Insights

• 😥 ESPN and Tilt's partnership leveraged Tilt's crowdfunding software to address a specific pain point for fantasy football leagues.
• 😒 The use of crowdfunding software allowed online communities to come together and organize offline experiences, such as draft parties.
• 🙈 ESPN saw the importance of personalization and identity in their community and worked to enhance the user experience based on individual preferences.
• 👤 Rewarding users for personalizing their experience and focusing on seamless integration with native environments has driven engagement for ESPN.
• 🚗 Mobile devices are becoming the primary access point for ESPN's audience, leading to a focus on optimizing mobile experiences.
• 🎮 ESPN's approach to monetization involves leveraging personalized content and videos to drive increased consumption.
• 🙈 Tilt sees their platform as part of the next layer of the web, enabling communities to come together and pursue offline activities.
• 🥰 Tilt aims to encourage natural adoption of their platform by creating products that users love and minimizing intrusive advertising.
• 🚙 The idea of crowdfunding campaigns for contributions to sports-related events, like Magic Johnson's offer for LeBron James to participate in a dunk contest, was exciting but not pursued due to compatibility concerns.

Transcript

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Questions & Answers

Q: How did ESPN and Tilt's partnership come about?

ESPN and Tilt met at an executive briefing event hosted by ESPN, where they discussed potential partnership ideas. Tilt's focus on crowdfunding campaigns and ESPN's large fantasy football community made it a natural fit.

Q: What made fantasy football a good fit for ESPN and Tilt's partnership?

Fantasy football is a popular and highly engaged activity for ESPN's audience, and many groups already use Tilt to collect money for their leagues. Tilt's platform tools and crowdfunding software complemented ESPN's existing fantasy football offerings.

Q: How did ESPN address the scale and timing challenges of integrating Tilt's crowdfunding software into their fantasy football platform?

ESPN worked to ensure that their infrastructure could handle the intense influx of users and data during fantasy football season. They also synchronized their product roadmaps with Tilt to ensure a smooth launch and user experience.

Q: How did Tilt and ESPN handle the challenge of working together as a startup and a large organization?

ESPN showed courage in working with a two-year-old startup like Tilt. Tilt, in turn, ensured that their platform was compliant and reliable, which helped alleviate ESPN's concerns. The partnership took around 16 months to launch, with ESPN taking a risk on the startup.

Summary & Key Takeaways

• ESPN and Tilt partnered together to create a project that allows fantasy football leagues to easily collect and manage funds for their leagues.

• Tilt's crowdfunding software, which focuses on consumer-side campaigns, was a good fit for ESPN's fantasy football community.

• The partnership resulted in a simple and user-friendly experience for groups of 10-12 people to pay together for their fantasy football league.