Verizon Prepares to Unveil New ‘Draft Together’ Chat Feature, Yahoo Fantasy Plus Product

Verizon Media has announced two new creations to further enhance the sports fan experience and bring fans closer to their passions: Draft Together, a new video chat feature, and Yahoo Fantasy Plus, anew subscription product.

The launch of the two new offerings advances Yahoo’s mission to shape the future of sports and fandom on mobile by offering compelling content, products and user experiences that make it easy for fans to engage and watch what, how and where they want. Alongside Yahoo Sportsbook, a platform offering sports betting content, analysis and insight that seamlessly allows users to place bets on the BetMGM platform, the new features and products further Verizon Media’s revenue diversification strategy.

“At Yahoo, we are continuing to innovate live experiences and accelerate innovation to evolve with the consumer and reimagine the experience of what bringing fans to connect and create community around their passions really means,” says Joanna Lambert, Head of Consumer at Verizon Media. “A first of its kind experience, Draft Together will provide our consumers with the ability to engage and interact with the draft in a completely new way, creating an experience they can only find on Yahoo Fantasy Sports just in time for the 2021 fantasy baseball season.”

Draft Together
Draft Together, a feature in the fantasy sports industry, will enable multiple fans to uniquely experience and interact with each other through video chat as they draft their fantasy baseball team on yahoo.com/fantasybaseball and create a personalized community of friends and family. Draft Together will be available on Yahoo Fantasy Sports. Draft Together showcases Yahoo’s spirit to deliver next-gen experiences that create connection and community and leverage Yahoo’s ecosystem, technology and streaming capabilities, providing the unique ability to create powerful and immersive entertainment experiences of the future powered by 5G.

The experience is now available for live drafts and to private leagues with 12 teams or less. At launch, Draft Together will offer support for 12 rotating video frames to be displayed alongside the Yahoo Fantasy draft interface for the 2021 fantasy baseball season. For the first time, users can virtually smack talk, taunt their opponents, bond over all the action and more through video chat while drafting fantasy leagues in real time.

Draft Together will be available to private baseball leagues via web at launch, with additional features and league support available in the coming months.

Draft Together continues to evolve the consumer experience of Yahoo’s first to market co-viewing product Watch Together, that debuted in September 2020 and connects audiences to live news, sports and entertainment by providing them with the ability to video chat, interact and immerse themselves in top cultural events. The NFL was the first launch partner for Watch Together.

Yahoo Fantasy Plus
Yahoo Fantasy Plus, a brand new premium subscription product, will give users access to advanced research tools, trade insights, easier lineup management, advanced stats and more for all season-long fantasy games. Yahoo Fantasy Plus will offer the following features and tools that enhance the fantasy experience and improve the user’s quality of play at launch, with additional features to rollout in the future:

• Research Assistant: Quickly compare players with an easy-to-use interface and make informed decisions on who to sit/start and add/drop with the help of premium data & exclusive insights from Yahoo Fantasy Diamond level players.
• Start Optimal Players: Upgrade the Start Active Players tool by making sure the best players are in your lineup each day or for the entire week with the click of a button
• Trade Insights: Unlock strengths and weaknesses at every position for each team in the league to help facilitate trades.
• Advanced Stats: Take player analysis to the next level by unlocking advanced statistics

Yahoo Fantasy Plus will be available on March 23rd at an introductory offer of $8/year on the Yahoo Fantasy Sports app and the Yahoo Fantasy website. Yahoo will offer a 7 day free trial for all fantasy players and will be giving $5 worth of Rewards Points for a limited time, which can be used to enter any paid fantasy contest.