Molson beer, Boston Pizza offer Stanley Cup fantasy draft on mobile

Brief:

Molson Coors partnered with Canadian dining chain Boston Pizza to give mobile users a chance to win prizes during the National Hockey League's championship playoffs this month, according to a press release. The Molson Canadian Fan Draft is a daily fantasy game where hockey fans can visit a microsite on their mobile devices to assemble a team of players and collect points during the real-life playoff games.
Mobile contestants accrue points based on the performance of players in each night's games. Participants can win daily food prizes at Boston Pizza and entered drawings to win gift cards for the NHL's web store, a mini fridge and a grand prize for two people to attend Game 4 of the Stanley Cup Final next week.
The NHL has annual attendance of 250 million and more than 151 million followers among league, teams and players on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat and YouTube.

Insight:

Molson and Boston Pizza's sponsorship of an NHL fantasy draft aims to engage the most ardent hockey fans during Stanley Cup playoffs that kicked off this week. By setting up their own fantasy draft promotions during the playoffs, both companies can strengthen their association with hockey, especially in Canada where it's the national sport, and attract dedicated sports fans each day for the weeks-long tournament.

This points to how fantasy sports services are embracing mobile tech and interactive content to keep apace with consumers who are migrating away from desktop browsing to follow sports news and manage their teams on mobile devices while on the go or even at games.

Fantasy leagues that let people pretend to be the owners of imaginary professional teams online is a major business that engages millions of fans with entertaining and competitive content. For the National Football League, the growing fantasy league industry attracts 59 million participants in the U.S. and Canada and is estimated to be valued at more than $7 billion a year. The market includes free leagues on sports sites like Yahoo Sports and ESPN, in addition to daily fantasy sites like DraftKings and FanDuel that offer weekly payouts during the season. DraftKings even offered players a chance to win as much as $1 billion during the first week of last year's season alone.