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 partnerships with

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 ...

, NFL,

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 ...

USA Today ''USA Today'' (stylized in all uppercase) is an American daily middle-market newspaper and news broadcasting company. Founded by Al Neuharth on September 15, 1982, the newspaper operates from Gannett's corporate headquarters in Tysons, Virgini ...

, and

SB Nation ''SB Nation'' (an abbreviation for their full name ''SportsBlogs Nation'') is a sports blogging network owned by Vox Media. It was co-founded by Tyler Bleszinski, Markos Moulitsas, and Jerome Armstrong in 2005. The blog from which the network ...

History

The company was founded in 2010 by

Nik Bonaddio Nik Bonaddio is an American Internet entrepreneur best known for founding and serving as the CEO of the popular sports analytics site numberFire. In 2017, he was named Chief Product Officer at FanDuel, who acquired numberFire in September 2015. ...

, who launched the initial version of the product following a successful appearance on ''

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 ...

''; the winnings from that show were used to found the company. Later that year, Bonaddio successfully pitched the company at the DisruptNYC conference held by

TechCrunch TechCrunch is an American online newspaper focusing on high tech and startup companies. It was founded in June 2005 by Archimedes Ventures, led by partners Michael Arrington and Keith Teare. In 2010, AOL acquired the company for approximately ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

, gaining an initial PR buzz and investor interest. The team quickly expanded in February 2011 with the hiring of Keith Goldner as chief analyst. Goldner has worked in the sports analytics industry with the

Oklahoma City Thunder The Oklahoma City Thunder are an American professional basketball team based in Oklahoma City. The Thunder compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the league's Western Conference Northwest Division. The team plays i ...

Philadelphia 76ers The Philadelphia 76ers, colloquially known as the Sixers, are an American professional basketball team based in the Philadelphia metropolitan area. The 76ers compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the league's Eas ...

, and

among others. In late 2011, the company announced

venture capital financing Venture capital financing is a type of funding by venture capital. It is private equity capital that can be provided at various stages or funding rounds. Common funding rounds include early-stage seed funding in high-potential, growth companies ( ...

from

RRE Ventures RRE Ventures is an American Venture capital, Venture Capital firm based in New York City. The firm primarily invests in Seed money, seed, Series A round, series A and series B rounds and focuses on companies operating in the software, internet, c ...

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then-Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, the ...

, and several other investors. numberFire was acquired by

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 ...

in August 2015. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Methodology

Unlike traditional media analysis, the company aims to use statistical modeling and data mining to help consumers and businesses make smarter decisions in the

fantasy sports A fantasy sport (also known less commonly as rotisserie or roto) is a game, often played using the Internet, where participants assemble imaginary or virtual teams composed of proxies of real players of a professional sport. These teams compete bas ...

handicapping Handicapping, in sport and games, is the practice of assigning advantage through scoring compensation or other advantage given to different contestants to equalize the chances of winning. The word also applies to the various methods by which th ...

, and digital media markets. This is done through the generation of specific, proprietary formulas that analyze statistics in an unconventional, scientific manner. The company has received notable press coverage for correctly picking the winner of

Super Bowl XLV Super Bowl XLV was an American football game between the American Football Conference (AFC) champion Pittsburgh Steelers and the National Football Conference (NFC) champion Green Bay Packers to decide the National Football League (NFL) champi ...

and successfully outpredicting

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 ...

, and

CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainm ...

in the fantasy markets.

References

External links

numberFire
{{Fantasy sports Internet properties established in 2010 American companies established in 2010 Companies based in New York City Fantasy sports websites 2010 establishments in New York City 2015 mergers and acquisitions Daily fantasy sports