In this week's P.O. Box:
The future of DFS and Draft games
Content roundup
Book Club: I’m back in…
Unfortunately, I spent most of this week thinking and talking about the recent layoffs at Underdog.
Over 20% of the company was let go last Friday, including two recent hires to the draft games team—TJ and Brett—as well as a few other behind-the-scenes people I’ve worked with over my nearly six years partnered with Underdog.
I shared some initial thoughts on the subject at the end of Monday’s Best Ball Breakfast (2:17:00 mark), so no need to fully rehash it here, but I feel awful for all of those who lost their job last week.
There’s been a lot of concern (and anger) from the Draft community about the future of the games we love on Underdog after these moves—which I get—but I do think it’s important to put in perspective that this wasn’t just a Draft games decision. At least 125 jobs across the company were cut as the company pivots its entire strategy.
I share many of the same frustrations as everyone else after we’ve repeatedly been told more resources were going to be poured into making these Draft games bigger and better. I don’t think we were lied to by those people, I think leadership suits with big titles and big salaries made executive decisions with complete disregard for what had previously been communicated to us by team members further down the chain of command.
It’s worth noting that Underdog isn’t the only place where these shifts are occurring. Companies across our entire space are cutting jobs and trying to re-position themselves as things change rapidly with both A.I. and prediction markets.
We talked with industry OG Dan Back—the former Senior Vice President at RotoGrinders—for over two hours on this week’s LOLz about these topics, including his recent layoff from Better Collective and where he sees things headed in the DFS space.
It’s certainly easy to feel pessimistic right now, but I also agree with many of the things Dan pointed out—namely that there is still plenty of room for passionate DFS players and drafters to build successful communities and businesses around these games.
That’s certainly how I feel right now.
We’ve been assured that the Draft games are not going away and Neumy and Hope deserve all the patience and support they can get as we weather this storm.
I’m not going away—I enjoy all of this far too much to be deterred at this point. This setback stings, but I remain bullish on people and our community.
We’re a resilient (and stubborn) bunch. We somehow found a way to draft Kyle Pitts for five straight years, so we can clearly do anything.
Content notes:
For Fantasy Life this week, I broke down the David Montgomery trade, spotlighted a few of my favorite rumors from Matthew’s Combine column, and tried to make heads or tails of Mike Washington Jr.’s prospect profile. Btw, the Fantasy Life NFL Draft Guide is now live and completely free. Check it out here.
The ADP Chasing crew covered a ton of ground on this show, including post-Combine risers and fallers. There is an extremely funny exchange about the small, fast WRs in this one.
You know it’s the Swolecast offseason when we spent a good chunk of the show debating which four fast food chains we’d keep if the rest got wiped off the map.
If you want to dip your toes in the NBA Playoff Best Ball streets, we did a high level primer for The Dance contest (50k up top) on Tuesday’s OOTC.
I recorded After Dark last night with the BBM6 champ Sam Sherman and got the lowdown on what life is like after winning $2M.
I also hopped on the Business of Betting podcast with Jeff Edelstein for a “candid conversation on creativity, monetization, best ball growth, and the realities of building a media career in betting and fantasy sports.”
Alright, I’m off to LA for the NBA Dawg Bowl. We’ll have a live stream on Saturday afternoon (PST) if you want to follow the action and I’ll be posting some photos/videos on X.
🧱 Book #2 for February (30%): Lincoln In The Bardo by George Saunders
I’m glad I pressed on with this one. I’m still not in love with the ghost chorus, but I am finding Lincoln’s mourning of his son to be very impactful. It took me getting a quarter of the way through before I finally had a grip on the cadence, so we’ll keep rolling…
🧱 Book #1 for January (COMPLETED): The City and Its Uncertain Walls by Haruki Murakami.
Got a question for me? Reply to this e-mail and I’ll get back to you…