Nik Bonaddio is an American Internet entrepreneur best known for founding and serving as the CEO of the popular sports analytics site

numberFire numberFire is a privately held company that offers statistical analysis of data around sporting events and sports fans, targeting fantasy sports players, digital media, writers, teams, and leagues. The site boasts over 700,000 subscribers and pa ...

. In 2017, he was named Chief Product Officer at

FanDuel FanDuel Group is an American gambling company that offers sportsbook, daily fantasy sports, horse racing, and online casino. The company operates sportsbooks in a number of states including New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Indiana and West Virginia, as ...

, who acquired numberFire in September 2015.

Education

Bonaddio was raised in

Wexford, Pennsylvania Wexford is an unincorporated community in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, United States. The area known as Wexford is split among multiple municipalities, including Franklin Park, McCandless Township, Pine Township, and Marshall Township. It i ...

, a suburb in the North Hills neighborhood of

Pittsburgh Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Wester ...

, and graduated from nearby

North Allegheny Senior High School North Allegheny Senior High School (NASH) is a suburban high school in the North Allegheny School District and is located in Wexford, Pennsylvania, a northern suburb of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The current building was built in 1974. In 2013, e ...

. During his time at North Allegheny, he was featured multiple times in local newspapers for awards received for his online design collective, Lockjaw and was active in the soccer and tennis programs. He received a B.S. in 2004 from

Carnegie Mellon University Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. One of its predecessors was established in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie as the Carnegie Technical Schools; it became the Carnegie Institute of Technology ...

Information Systems An information system (IS) is a formal, sociotechnical, organizational system designed to collect, process, information storage, store, and information distribution, distribute information. From a sociotechnical perspective, information systems a ...

, followed by a M.S. in Information Systems Management in 2005. During his time at Carnegie Mellon, he was a two-time All-American athlete and record holder in

track and field Track and field is a sport that includes athletic contests based on running, jumping, and throwing skills. The name is derived from where the sport takes place, a running track and a grass field for the throwing and some of the jumping events ...

and a member of the

Kappa Delta Rho Kappa Delta Rho (), commonly known as KDR, is an American college social fraternity, with 84 chapters (35 of which are active) spread out over the United States, primarily in the Midwest and Mid-Atlantic regions. Kappa Delta Rho's open motto is "' ...

fraternity.

Career

After graduation, Bonaddio began work at

Yahoo! Yahoo! (, styled yahoo''!'' in its logo) is an American web services provider. It is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California and operated by the namesake company Yahoo Inc., which is 90% owned by investment funds managed by Apollo Global Man ...

as a software engineer. Bonaddio founded

in 2009, after a successful appearance on

ABC ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script known as the alphabet. ABC or abc may also refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Broadcasting * American Broadcasting Company, a commercial U.S. TV broadcaster ** Disney–ABC Television ...

's ''

Who Wants to Be a Millionaire ''Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?'' (often informally called ''Millionaire'') is an international television game show franchise of British origin, created by David Briggs, Mike Whitehill and Steven Knight. In its format, currently owned and ...

'' with

Regis Philbin Regis Francis Xavier Philbin (; August 25, 1931 – July 25, 2020)Archived aGhostarchiveand thWayback Machine was an American television presenter, talk show host, game show host, comedian, actor, and singer. Once called "the hardest working ma ...

. During the show's 10th anniversary run, Bonaddio won $100,000, which was then used to found numberFire. Since its founding, numberFire has grown to over 600,000 subscribers and has gained recognition in the marketplace for accurate predictions, including correctly predicting winners of the

Super Bowl The Super Bowl is the annual final playoff game of the National Football League (NFL) to determine the league champion. It has served as the final game of every NFL season since 1966, replacing the NFL Championship Game. Since 2022, the game ...

and the

NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship The NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament, branded as NCAA March Madness and commonly called March Madness, is a single-elimination tournament played each spring in the United States, currently featuring 68 college basketball teams from ...

. numberFire was purchased by

in September 2015. Terms were not disclosed. After spending three years as the Chief Product Officer at FanDuel, Bonaddio left in 2020 to start BigBrain, an online gaming company.

Awards

A prominent member of the emerging NYC tech scene, Bonaddio has been featured in a variety of publications and conferences. In addition to routinely contributing to

ESPN ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). The ...

, he has been featured in ''

Sports Illustrated ''Sports Illustrated'' (''SI'') is an American sports magazine first published in August 1954. Founded by Stuart Scheftel, it was the first magazine with circulation over one million to win the National Magazine Award for General Excellence twic ...

'' in 2011, ''

FastCompany ''Fast Company'' is a monthly American business magazine published in print and online that focuses on technology, business, and design. It publishes six print issues per year. History ''Fast Company'' was launched in November 1995 by Alan We ...

'' in 2012, and Under30CEO and ''Entrepreneur'' magazine amongst others in 2013.

References

External links

Official website

Company website
Living people American computer businesspeople Heinz College of Information Systems and Public Policy alumni 1982 births 21st-century American businesspeople {{US-business-bio-1980s-stub