If I Ran The SBNC: 5 Things I Would Implement For The Next DraftKings Sports Betting National Championship

As I write this, I am on a plane, one day removed from being bounced from the inaugural DraftKings Sports Betting National Championship (SBNC). My partner (the incredibly talented Gill Alexander) and I ponied up the $10,000 entry fee for our shot at winning the $1 million top prize. We fell short of our goal, but had a blast and learned a lot. I’ve always been extremely competitive. Sports. Poker. DFS. Sports betting. Scattergories. Whatever. The SBNC takes sports betting — which is usually always you versus the book — to a peer-to-peer battle that really makes things fun. Before this starts to look like I’m getting on my high horse, I’d like to say that the event was incredibly well run. The makeshift sportsbook was awesome. The DraftKings Sportsbook app worked nearly flawlessly. The food was hot; the booze was plentiful; good times were had by all. This article is not an attempt to bash the event, but just some thoughts on how we could really crank up Version 2 of this interesting concept.

The timing of the event

The first thing I would do is change when the event occurs on the sports calendar. Without question, the SBNC needs to happen earlier in the football season, when we have a full day of college football on Saturday and a full day of NFL football on Sunday. The atmosphere in the room was undoubtedly fun, but if we had several football results hitting all day long, the walls would have been rocking in that place. Further, I think with several more football games on the betting slate; the event would attract a lot more entries. A group of buddies that share a love of football may split up the entry fee for a shot at a million. But with only three football games (you could only bet before the kickoff of the fourth game), I think it detracts from the appeal to the masses.

Betting cutoff

Even if we change the timing to allow for more football games, I would definitely push back the cutoff for bets. The easy fix here is to push the cutoff back to the third-quarter kickoff of the afternoon games — at the latest. Then you could place bets pregame, in-game, second half, props and whatever you want up until the second half of a game kicks off. There would need to be a formal announcement, e.g., an email, a tweet, a push notification, an IG post, a Facebook post — you get the point, as to which game happens to be on the slate. When the final third quarter on the slate begins, there’d be no more bets. This window gives time for all the morning games to pay out and allows people to get that money back into action — even if it has to be making in-game bets to any afternoon games that had already kicked off.

ALSO READ: $2.5 Million DraftKings Sports Betting Championship Ends With Controversy

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Bet grading

I would make sure we had uniform bet grading across the board. In no way would any player get paid out earlier or later than another player on the same form of a bet. So, player props would pay out uniformly. Game props would pay out at the same point for everyone. There has to be a plan in place for bet grading that definitively ensures that no entrant in the contest has any competitive advantage by having a similar bet scored before another player’s bet.

Payout structure

I am and have always been, a huge fan of flatter payout structures. I’ve always felt that if more people can leave with a positive (in this instance, financially) experience, it’s better for the product. I completely understand that slapping a $1 million top prize on the first event was needed for PR and to get everyone’s attention. As we move into the second version of the SBNC, do we really think people would balk at a $500k or $600k top prize? It’s still a massive amount, and it allows for a deeper payout than the 25 entrants that made money in this contest. Pumping $400k back into the prize pool would allow you to pay at least 15-20 more spots while dropping some extra cash into the 25 spots you were already paying. ALSO READ: The DraftKings $2.5M Sports Betting Championship Controversy: Where It Goes From Here

Double it up

The final thing I would do for the next SBNC: Pair it up on the same weekend with one of the big DFS events. I already mentioned the benefit of increasing entries. You’re getting a couple hundred (there would be some overlap) fantasy players into town with the DFS event, and naturally, you’re going to get some of those guys to fire into the SBNC. Then — from an atmosphere and experience perspective — we move from every quarter of football producing some drama to every single play holding some value for someone. The room would be electric. One big catch would equal amounts of joy and misery. Isn’t that what gambling is all about? All in all, this type of contest is only going to get bigger. As sports betting expands into other jurisdictions, we potentially see them pop up all over the country in the coming years. Innovation within the sports betting realm has an open invitation, and let’s be honest, it was a pretty amazing sweat. With a few small adjustments, this event could be a solid product that grows into something that will be on every level of sports bettor’s bucket list. For more on the inaugural Sports Betting National Championship, including an interview with the $1 million winner, check out the SBNC live blog here at TheLines.com.