Learn how to get and keep a seat at the table by being brave and proactive with management with FanDuel’s Chris Jones, Vice President of Corporate Communications at FanDuel. With more than 25 years of diverse experience in the communications field, Chris has a unique view on what it takes to be successful.
Five things you’ll learn from this episode:
Quotables
If you enjoyed this episode, would you please share it with others and leave us a review?
About Chris Jones
Our episode guest is Chris Jones, Vice President of Corporate Communications at FanDuel. With more than 25 years of diverse experience in the communications field, Chris has a unique view on what it takes to be successful. He has a track record of delivering go-to-market strategies in not only communications but in marketing, media, crisis response, and business. He embodies what it means to go the extra mile in order to elevate a company.
Guest’s contact info and resources:
Additional Resources:
Episode recorded Sept. 24, 2021
Sponsored by:
Learn how to get and keep a seat at the table by being brave and proactive with management with FanDuel’s Chris Jones, Vice President of Corporate Communications at FanDuel. With more than 25 years of diverse experience in the communications field, Chris has a unique view on what it takes to be successful.
Five things you’ll learn from this episode:
Quotables
If you enjoyed this episode, would you please share it with others and leave us a review?
About Chris Jones
Our episode guest is Chris Jones, Vice President of Corporate Communications at FanDuel. With more than 25 years of diverse experience in the communications field, Chris has a unique view on what it takes to be successful. He has a track record of delivering go-to-market strategies in not only communications but in marketing, media, crisis response, and business. He embodies what it means to go the extra mile in order to elevate a company.
Guest’s contact info and resources:
Additional Resources:
Episode recorded Sept. 24, 2021
Sponsored by:
- [Announcer] Welcome to "On Top of PR" with Jason Mudd, presented by ReviewMaxer.
- Hello, and welcome to "On Top of PR". I'm your host, Jason Mudd. Today I'm joined by Chris Jones, VP of communications with FanDuel. Welcome to the show.
- Thank you for having me. Happy to be here.
- Yeah, Chris, I'm glad to be here too and glad you're here. Well, this has been an episode that's been a while in the making, so we're excited to be here recording it. As you told me before we connected NFL season at FanDuel is like tax season for the tax accountant, and so we appreciate you making the time to be here and joining us and share some of your smarts with our audience today.
- Thank you for having me, and it very much is. You know, the entire company certainly pivots as we move into August. So when training camp opens for football players to get ready, you know, sort of a similar training camp begins for folks with FanDuel and maybe even a little bit sooner to make sure that our product and our promotions are in a good place when that first kick-off happens in late August and early September. We're often running, we've had a great start to the season, both the actual NFL season, and then our first year as an official NFL partner this year with the company.
- Yes, congratulations on that partnership. I'm sure it's gonna be very lucrative for both you and the NFL, of course.
- We hope so, we hope so.
- So Chris, tell us, speaking of, I know you guys have had significant growth at your company. Kind of describe that both culturally and perhaps even financially.
- Sure. So yeah, to your point. The company has enjoyed, you know, dare I say a meteoric rise since 2018, when the US Supreme Court struck down a law that, in fact, allowed our product and mobile sports gaming to be legalized on a state-by-state basis. Currently, there are 11 states in the union that have legalized mobile sports betting, the most recent one being Arizona on September 9th, which coincided with the official kickoff of the NFL. So that was kind of-
- [Jason] Nice, yeah.
- Fun day. Obviously, that's had a tremendous impact on our business, moving it from what was a- So moving back up for a moment. FanDuel's owned and operated by our parent company, Flutter Entertainment out of the UK and Ireland. So there were other elements of the business that make up FanDuel Group. I think it would probably be helpful for the audience to understand that. So obviously, what we're known for, our history, is our daily fantasy sports business. Upon 2018's ruling in the Supreme Court, we added the Sportsbook business to that, which is effectively putting the ability to gamble on games or events inside the palm of your hand from our mobile app. We also have the preeminent racing network TVG and it's, you know, racing enterprise that goes with it. So a leader in the racing space. And then also we operate a host of leading iGaming casino products in partnership with the iconic brand Stardust. And then you're starting to see the retail or what we would call the fifth leg of the stool, the retail business really explode. It obviously had slowed a bit due to the pandemic. We're starting to see a rebound where we are launching and building FanDuel Sportsbook lounges in and around the United States to a lot of fanfare and popularity. So the business has evolved and because it's evolved, financially, we've seen significant growth in places. We are the largest market share sportsbook in the country. This past quarter, we delivered, you know, $900 million in revenue, which was $300 million more than our nearest competitor. So FanDuel, as a portfolio of companies, has really put together a very compelling package for our shareholders, but more importantly, it gives us the ability to offer some really innovative products for our customers across a whole slew of different types of iGaming, wagering and racing products.
- Perfect. So Chris, you mentioned legislation earlier. I gotta imagine that while it's a very competitive space, you're probably operating collaboratively with some of your competitors to get what you all are desiring. Is that true, and what does that look like?
- Sure. So the answer is yes, and, you know, certainly not gonna get into too many details into how we work with our competitors, but yes, in regards to the regulatory environment, we all have to live and operate within the same regulatory environment. So in certain areas, it does make sense to work together. We have and continue to do so in states where there's opportunity to potentially show and bring the benefit of our product and what it does for creating tax revenue, what it does for bringing the sports wagering world out of the shadows of the illegal markets and into the light of what we believe is a very regulated and safe market where companies spend a lot of time trying to protect their customers as opposed to run them down for payments. So yes, we do work with them, have worked with them, continue to do so to help create the necessary regulatory frameworks in whatever states, you know, are asking us for them. And, you know, I know you sit in Florida, Jason, and we are actively doing that in Florida as we speak.
- Nice. Well, I've always felt like, you know, sports gaming, gambling is very similar in my mind to, you know, playing the stock market. The exception is you can actually see the players and how they perform on the field, as opposed to guess how they perform behind closed doors, right? So I mean, when it comes to team sports, at least there is all this data out there of the performance of the individuals, the performance of the team overall. And I've always just felt like that is the most level and open playing field I can imagine, you know, to make investments and see, you know, what you think is gonna happen and be a little bit predictive. Tell us, Chris, how did you get in the industry?
- Sure. Well, to your point about predictive and how it relates to the stock market, we very much don't see it that way. We want it to be a form of entertainment for customers that enhances the sports experience and not in any way becomes a form of investment or a way to make money.
- [Jason] Sure, that makes sense, yeah.
- So that's a road to a place, frankly, we don't want our customers to go. We could talk about responsible gaming and safer play and the intense amount of energy we place in that area later. But there is an element of what we do that is similar and not surprisingly, on Superbowl Sunday this past February, the three most downloaded apps in the United States were Robinhood, TikTok and FanDuel in that order. So, you know, we are in some pretty heavy company. We take that very seriously and want to make sure that we're delivering the most markets, the most data opportunities for our customers to evaluate what they want to make, whether that's a fantasy league or whether that's, you know, taking the money line on the Packers versus the Vikings. So, that's part one of your question. And part two is how did I get here? I have spent the better part of 25 years in the communications field in a variety of industries, but mostly the media space. I spent 15 years at some of the largest media and creative holding companies in the world. So Interpublic Group, Havas, MDC Partners. So it's given me a really unique look at what our clients or the clients of those agencies at the time we were there did to be successful in building their brands as the, you know, world of social media and the world of content erupted where it was far more than just your TV ad or your radio ad. And so, I think I come to FanDuel with a unique perspective. I also spent some time on the, you know, what we would call the client side, you know, at some major financial brands, Marsh McLennan, who, you know, wanted to get in front of customers at times and in spaces where maybe they weren't thinking about insurance, whether that be commercial or personal. And then lastly, I started my career at ESPN. So I've always had a bent for sports. The Jones household is a very athletically-minded home. And so the chance to blend my love of media, obviously, some of the brand building experience that I had in partnership with, you know, a passion point in sports, and I'm not a wagerer myself, but this was a really cool opportunity about a year ago, and I'm very excited that they offered me the job and I'm very excited to do it today.
- Yeah, it does definitely sound like a great opportunity. And I think you're right about it, you know, should always be focused on entertainment first. So tell us, walk me through a typical day. What is your role at the company and what is your typical routine?
- So I, as you said, run communications here, which is what you, the standard things you would think. So public relations. We obviously employ a few PR firms to help us in a variety of different ways. Interfacing with our government relations team. Obviously working with management. Every morning starts with some form of communication with our CEO and our CMO, our head of brand, who I report to directly and making sure that, you know, the overnight news cycle was a healthy one. That's one of the things I think that is makes this job both exciting and challenging at the same time is that you're never off, right? So sports is a 24 hour thing. Casino properties are open until late at night. So there are challenges both good and bad that can arise that you want to take advantage of when you're promoting your business. Some of the other things I touch, you know, in a given week or a given day, I am very responsible for our safer gaming and responsible gaming activities, which is, I think an existentially important aspect of growing the business. Building procedures and policies to make sure that we're in the right places at the right times both from a business perspective, but also from a consumer perspective. So what I'm, you know, what we're looking forward to, 'cause in effect, the company is, you know, roughly seven, eight, nine years old, but it's really only three years old in the sense that the legalization of sports gambling changed the trajectory of this company in such a way that now, you know, we've put things in place. And so my colleagues are working very, very hard to build HR and financial strategies that are commensurate with, you know, a company of our size and scope because we've grown massively both from a revenue perspective, but also from a people perspective. And then at the same time, building the maturation and maturing our comms marketing functions to do the same. So that's everything from where people appear or how we work with vendors and what our policies are. And you'd be surprised, we have lots and lots of vendors as a tech company. So it was a bit of a wild wild west. So, you know, every day is a little bit different, but that's what keeps it interesting and exciting. And I'm allowed in my role to be involved in a lot of different aspects. We do a very good job here of getting comms and communications and marcom at the table in the front of the discussion. So if we're gonna move into a state, I mentioned Arizona earlier, my team and our firms that we employ to assist us are very much at the table with the go-to-market group as we're moving towards the legalization in Arizona on September 9th. So we're not playing catch-up. We're not, hey, write us a press release 24 hours before we go live. We've been part of those meetings since the beginning. And it led to, in that example, us dominating the marketplace that first day. Our sportsbook was open. We were the lion's share of the coverage. We had the most people attend and our competitors were just not as, you know, kind of tied up as we are, and I attribute that to, when I took this job, I told our CMO, Mike Raffensperger, I said don't hire me if you don't want me to be at the table. I said I don't want to be just the off the shelf resource that you pull off the shelf, blow the dust off of and ask to do a few PR-related things, the old pejoratives. And he has granted me that ability, so it's made for some really strong performance.
- That's great to hear. Chris, believe it or not, we're already at halftime and we need to take a quick break. We'll come back on the other side with more from Chris Jones.
- [Announcer] You're listening to "On Top of PR" with your host, Jason Mudd. Jason is a trusted advisor to some of America's most admired and fastest growing brands. He is the managing partner at Axia Public Relations, a PR agency that guides news, social and web strategies for national companies. And now back to the show.
- Welcome back to "On Top of PR". I'm your host, Jason Mudd. I'm joined today by Chris Jones of FanDuel, and Chris, welcome back. We were just starting to talk about the importance of being at the table throughout the entire process of what the company is doing and growth and expansion, and you were mentioning during the break, you know, how important it is not to just bring the PR people in or the communications people at the last step of the process. So how does one, maybe that's how they're currently being positioned in their corporate communications or organization today where PR is being brought in at the last minute and new to the process. One, what would you share with that person and kind of give them some guidance and recommendations of how to get that seat at the table earlier and be involved earlier? And then two, how do they stay there?
- Sure. So quickly, first you have to be brave. I knew that this would be a great opportunity for me, but during the interview process, I was just very honest and said, I don't want a job if I'm gonna be that off the shelf resource or the end of the line type of PR pejorative that we all to try to avoid. The second thing is you have to build bridges to a lot of different people inside the organization, and that's gonna require, you know, a public relations professional to have a complete understanding of the business. I pride myself on, the joke I make is that I have an MBA in finance, I'm the PR guy who likes math. And I think that's an important distinction because I will deep dive with groups at every job I've ever had, but particularly this one, into the nuts and bolts of their respective departments. And I think you develop a respect and a rapport, and the ability to advise in a way that maybe you wouldn't had you not taken the time to do that. So I think it's a couple of things. One, you have to be brave and you have to be willing to look at management and say, this is not gonna work in its current construct or in the construct that maybe they envision it. And two, if they give you that opportunity, which my bosses, who are wonderful, did, you have to prove it, and the way you prove it is by building bridges and rapport into all the different key aspects of the industry. So you can advise throughout the entire process, beginning, middle, and end, and not just be giving comm strategy at the end, which is often when everything's already baked or, you know, kind of out of the oven.
- One thing our colleagues, I think, mess up on is they talk about strategy when they really mean tactics. And I think what you're describing is true, that you can't come in at the last minute and be strategic. At that point, you're already being tactical. It's hard to be proactive if you're being hit up with information at the last minute versus being along in the process, giving you time to ideate, plan and get creative, as opposed to just, you know, working off the fire. So I really appreciate what you shared there.
- Thank you, some of the best emails I get are from people that come from honestly, out of the blue, but certainly come, "Hey, Chris, can you be a part of this meeting?" And it is a very kind of deep in the weeds meeting related to a part of the business that normally, you know, I would not have access to, but it's because they value my opinion and they want me to be in the meeting. And most of the time I might just be listening, but that awareness helps shape the strategy upfront more than at the end.
- Yeah, that makes sense. I remember a consultant used to say years ago that the reason why PR people work in PR instead of advertising is because they don't like numbers and math, and your comment, one, reminded me of that, which is why I chuckled. But two, you know, I remember early in my career, I was involved in a fundraiser and, you know, I wasn't smart enough to be thinking or aware enough, or maybe even just ignoring the math behind it. But, you know, somebody pointed out in the media, "Hey, these numbers in your release about how much money you raised don't really add up. Have you really looked at that closely?" And of course, that was egg on my face. And so, as I looked at it, I went to the leadership and I just said, "Hey, this doesn't make a lot of sense." And you know, what they were doing was, unfortunately telling a story the way they wanted it to be told instead of what was real. And I had to have a real talking-to with those folks and, you know, make it- You know, journalists aren't foolish. They cover people's news all day long. If they can figure this out from release, you know, what else are we doing wrong? And so that was really a good wake up call for me both to be a trusted advisor. I need to be looking at things cynically and not just taking things at face value and two, you know, as a PR professional, I have an ethical obligation to make sure the information we're distributing is accurate and not misleading.
- I agree on both counts. I think it's critically important to be challenging your management team because, you know, they're under a lot of pressure and of course, they want the narrative to go in a way that works for them or promotes a sale or a positive image of the company. But they oftentimes, and this is why we get paid, oftentimes don't understand how the media or how journalists specifically work. I think we've all been there when an executive will say, "Well, can I read the article before it comes out?" And then having to try to explain to them that that's not how it works, right? Yeah, it's part of the education and the rapport-building I mentioned earlier. If they trust you, and if they know that you've taken the time to understand the business, they're likely to give you more rope and more involvement than maybe they would otherwise.
- Right. And you know, a smart PR, trusted PR advisor, can help you navigate those waters and stay out of trouble and know, you know, especially what's newsworthy versus not what's newsworthy. When a company doubles down on something that just doesn't seem newsworthy outside those four walls, right? Then it really comes back to bite them if they're all in on that topic and not involved in other topics that might seem more newsworthy.
- Again, similarly, we've all been there when we've had to explain to a client or to a, you know, an executive inside of a company, if you're in an in-house council, that the launch of a new feature in an app is not worthy of a press announcement. Maybe it's an email to the reporter and say, "Hey, did you see this? Did you check this out? This is kind of a unique trend." But you know, "No, we have to do a press announcement on this." and you have to be willing and again, brave, to stand your ground and kind of advise in a way that you think maybe short term, they don't want to hear, but longterm will help the business, you know, be better positioned with the journalists and the writers that cover the area.
- Yeah, I totally get that. I often ask clients, you know, are we writing this for the boardroom or for the living room? Are we writing this for the boardroom or for our target audience? And, you know, I've toured one of our client's offices, and they had actually news releases that we had written about their, you know, milestone accomplishments framed on the walls. And I thought, "Okay, that's great, but what about the actual coverage that that announcement, you know, generated? Wouldn't that be more frameworthy?" And so I think it's important that we ask ourselves, why are we doing this? And if we're writing a news release just to put it on the website, sure, that's one thing. That makes sense to me, but if we're actually trying to put it in inboxes of reporters so they might in turn write something about it, you know, then certainly it's gotta be, you know, something they're interested in covering and that's interesting beyond the four walls of the company and not more of an internal, you know, communication person.
- I couldn't agree with you more, and I would go one step further. And this is kind of where my agency background really helps me, because it was a media and advertising firms, and they're always storytelling. You have to tell a story and I don't mean a fake story. I don't mean a weaved, spun-up kind of classic PR pejorative story. I mean, if you're going to present something to a reporter, here's the news and here's FanDuel's news, but here's why it matters for the industry. And here's why it matters for the customer. And here's the data that supports the story. I think one of the things that I'm really digging deeper into and quite frankly, being pushed by my own management to do is data-driven storytelling. This idea that we talk to customers every day, they place bets on our platform every day, we have more than 12 million customers, and on any given day, there's 2 million of them that were active in the platform. What are they telling us when they're in there clicking? And so, and trying to extract that information and turn that into, you know, trends and stories that reporters care about, that are interesting, and that ultimately help position FanDuel as a leader in the space. When you get a little myopic and you're only wanting to talk about yourself from the point of view of a press announcement, you're probably gonna see a diminishing return.
- I love, love, love when companies can take their data and turn that into trend stories and provide that data, you know, at a macro level to the news media and start becoming part of the trend and part of the news cycle, as opposed to just sitting on it and wasting it. Because that's something very valuable that they can definitely leverage, Chris.
- So we're trying to do that. So I'll give you a perfect example. Our insights team is growing and a wonderful partner of mine, yet another example of digging in and building rapport with different groups, particularly ones that live and breathe math or analysis. We polled recently. So we believe that our daily fantasy sports players are probably the smartest football fans in the country, because their passion is to win fantasy sports games. So understanding what players and what coaches and what teams are that are doing it right drives their success in our platform. So we polled 2,000 of them before the start of the season, and we asked them a litany of questions, and we didn't just ask them gambling questions or fantasy sports questions. We asked some things like, who's your favorite announcer? or what pregame show do you like? Or, you know, what team's uniform redesign was the best? And we got all this wonderful data back that told a story about what mattered this year to football fans as we were entering kickoff, and one of the number one things that mattered is how long was Tom Brady gonna play? Is Aaron Rodgers gonna be a part of the Green Bay Packers? You know, for our business, those were important narratives. And we went with this data report out to the press and it got picked up everywhere. And so now we're gonna replicate it with the NBA tip-off soon and the NHL puck-drop soon, and we're trying to maybe think about ways of, maybe not exactly the same way, but trying to figure out ways that we could do it for the college football playoff and ultimately, the Super Bowl and then March Madness. So it's this ability of going into the platform and taking the data out and making a story out of it that is real, not, you know, not inventing it, but trying to find those info nuggets that really matter to reporters.
- How did you go about getting them to redeem or to participate in that survey? Were there any incentives offered and how long do you think it took them to answer all those questions? 'Cause it sounds like you asked them a ton of questions.
- So we asked them 35 to be exact. We offered them, I think, a $10 credit to their next daily fantasies play. So it wasn't an enormous amount of money. And when you build good brand equity and loyalty with your customers, and from a fantasy perspective, we certainly have that, they want to answer, they want to be a part of it. And when we communicated to them, which came in the form of a push notification email inside the app, we told them that your responses will probably be used in a variety of press coverage. So while not all 2,000 people responded to the survey, I don't know what the exact percentage was, but it was certainly enough to make it relevant. And we have seen in social media where some of these infographics have been used, you can see in the comments, "Hey, that's the survey I participated in." And so Jason Mudd sees that and knows that he answered the question, and so now he feels a sense of ownership and pride to how he handles promoting the business. So again, we're growing in that space, we're dabbling and moving in, you know, expeditiously towards more data-driven storytelling. But I wouldn't say that we're fully hatched there just yet.
- Yeah. Well, it sounds like a great opportunity, Chris.
- We're trying to turn it into something. It's a kind of a pillar of our comm structure and strategy going forward, yeah.
- Chris, you are clearly in what I would perceive to be a male-dominated industry. So how do you start thinking about expanding your reach and being inclusive to additional audiences, including perhaps females, who I know from experience, once they get into fantasy football, they get hooked very quickly and become big fans, and I think women are definitely, you know, have a high representation of fans, but my perception is, and correct me if I'm wrong, that the sports gaming and gambling industry is a very male-dominated world.
- Historically it has been a male-dominated world, but I'm happy to tell you that at FanDuel, we put a tremendous amount of emphasis on exactly what you just said, which is marketing to more than just guys and expanding it so that it's palatable and interesting to women. I mean, in fact, our CEO, Amy Howe, is, you know, constantly driving that and four of the nine people that run this company at the C-suite level are in fact women, including our chief product officer. So we are putting a lot of time, energy and effort into that and making it so that way women can be a part of it and sit with their husband or their boyfriend or their friends and enjoy our product in the same way that men do. And a lot of that has to do with where you are, where the product is. So we're certainly partners with the WNBA, we're partners with the GIST, and, you know, we're always looking for those endemic opportunities elsewhere.
- Excellent. Great answer, yeah. Thank you for sharing that. Well, Chris, believe it or not, we've run out of time. This has been a great episode. If our audience wants to get a hold of you, what are the best ways to reach you?
- Sure, they can email me, which is really simple. It's chris.jones, spelled the way it sounds, @fanduel.com Can always find me on LinkedIn. Many people do, it's Chris Jones. I'm a graduate of Pace University because there's a lot of us on LinkedIn, so that's probably a good way to locate me. Or you could go to our press site and click the press site button, which is a general email box. And everyone on my team, you know, gets those emails from reporters or people when they're inquiring, and it'll find its way to me as well. So any one of those three will work.
- And for our audience, I'll do you the favor of putting a direct link to Chris's LinkedIn bio in the show notes so you don't have to worry about trying to find one of the many Chris Jones out there, for sure. So, yeah. Chris, any closing comments you want to share?
- No, I would just say that our space more than ever is becoming an important part of the marketing continuum. It is not the end of the line and it shouldn't be, and, you know, keep fighting those battles to get yourself at the necessary tables or on the necessary Zooms in today's pandemic-driven media world, meeting world, excuse me. But as long as you're doing that, and you're being a little bit brave, you're probably gonna have more success in your career longterm and a little bit more longevity as well.
- Also in the show notes, I'll put some resources to the audience to help the audience with those types of topics. You know, how do you get a seat at the table? How do you keep it, and what are some strategies, you know, to help you while you're there that we have available that I think would be interesting as kind of a follow-up resource to our recording today? So speaking of recording, we're recording this on September 24th of 2021. Chris, appreciate your time being here and sharing some insights of what you've done and what you're doing at FanDuel. It's been a real pleasure. Thank you for joining us.
- Thank you for having me.
- Yeah, for sure. All right, that's been another great episode of "On Top of PR". Special thanks to Chris for joining us, and thank you for listening or watching on your preferred platform. Do us a favor. If you found this episode beneficial and you know someone who would benefit from Chris's smarts and what he shared with us today, please take a moment and share this episode with a friend or colleague. I'm sure they'll thank you for doing that, and we thank you for tuning in and staying on top of PR.
- [Announcer] This has been "On Top of PR" with Jason Mudd presented by ReviewMaxer. Be sure to subscribe so you don't miss an episode and check out past shows at ontopofpr.com.