Yahoo reimagines the fan Experience, launches Draft Together and Fantasy Plus

Verizon Media, a leader in innovation, content and commerce, announced at Yahoo Build It Forward, the launch of new video chat feature, Draft Together, and new subscription product, Yahoo Fantasy Plus, to further innovate the sports fan experience and bring fans closer to their passions.

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,” said 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 first of its kind feature in the massively popular 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 innovative 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.