Dribble, the London startup founded by Nicholas Wright and Daniel Qu (whom I’m told met at TechCrunch Disrupt) and Rupert Brenninkmeijer, kicks off today with the launch of a daily fantasy app for soccer.
The new model, which is already popular in the U.S., opens up fantasy sports to more gamers as they can dip in and out rather than be required to make a season-long commitment.
“Football fans love their players, clubs and fantasy, however, many of them lead busy lives and cannot get the experience they need from football,” says Dribble co-founder Rupert Brenninkmeijer. “To make matters worse, the fantasy products out there are mostly desktop based, complex and too time consuming. Dribble addresses all three issues”.
To that end, Dribble is mobile-first, designed to be quick and easy to on-board via a mobile phone. Its ‘daily’ model means that you don’t have to build one team and stick with it the entire season — instead you can build a new team every week, or once a month depending on how deep you want to dive.
“There are no season long commitments, no intense statistical analysis on who to choose, just pick up and play whenever,” adds Brenninkmeijer.
Other features of Dribble include the ability to go head-to-head with friends, build 5 aside teams turn-by-turn (so you don’t pick the same player), and ‘trash talk’ other players via chat. In addition, there’s no salary cap so you can build your dream team without the frustrating limitations imposed by many sports fantasy games. Gamers also have the option to play for free or for cash.
Regards the latter, Dribble says it plans to avoid the legal backlash that U.S. daily fantasy companies, like Draftkings and Fanduel, have faced. That’s because the startup is operating under a licence from the U.K. Gambling Commission.
