Restaurants have become increasingly popular spots for fantasy sports parties. So it was perhaps inevitable that a restaurant operator would acquire a fantasy sports company.
Latitude 360, the New York-based entertainment and sports operator, has agreed to acquire Major League Fantasy, a quickly growing daily fantasy sports network, for $8.5 million in cash and stock, the company said Thursday.
With the acquisition, Latitude plans to start offering live, on-site fantasy sports contests in its restaurants.
“With the potential acquisition of Major League Fantasy, we’re excited to incorporate the best fantasy sports experience into Latitude 360’s unmatched entertainment and dining experience,” Latitude 360 CEO Brent Brown said in a statement. “We at Latitude 360 see it as something our sports fan patrons will definitely enjoy when they come to visit our locations. They’ll know we’re giving them the best daily fantasy sports experience available anywhere.”
Major League Fantasy, or MLF, has tripled in size in the past two months, according to Latitude 360, and has partnered with the NBA’s Golden State Warriors basketball team. It also has an endorsement deal with Warrior player Draymond Green.
Under the deal, Latitude 360 will integrate live fantasy sports throughout each of its facilities. It will also add VIP rooms, known as the Latitude “Black Room,” for high rollers who spend $250 to $25,000 to play fantasy sports on site. Casual players will be able to play the games in Latitude’s sports theater.
MLF founder and CEO Jesse Merl will remain with Latitude 360 as president of the company’s “360 Fantasy Live” division.
“Together with Latitude, we are creating a new way to play,” Merl said in a statement. “We are confident that along with the ability to interact socially through our product, the ability to join in the energy of live group viewing experience is going to be a differentiator that matters when people decide where to be during big games.”
Latitude 360 is a three-unit operator that develops large-scale entertainment and casual-dining restaurant complexes ranging from 50,000 square feet to 70,000 square feet. Locations include a full-service restaurant, live entertainment, bowling alley, high-definition sports theater, arcade, cigar lounge and dine-in movie theater. The company says it plans to open another six units in the next 18 months, including a 100,000-square-foot location on Wall Street in New York.
Fantasy sports is a rapidly growing hobby, with the number of players increasing from an estimated 500,000 in 1988 to 41.5 million last year, according to the Fantasy Sports Trade Association. Players typically draft teams of professional players and score points based on their performance over a full season.
An entire industry has quickly emerged around daily fantasy sports, which compresses fantasy football, baseball, basketball and other sports into daily contests that often promise winners cash prizes. Latitude 360 estimates that the daily fantasy sports industry could approach $10 billion next year.
Latitude 360 said it has recently added new board members, including Tim Gannon, the founder of Outback Steakhouse; Michael Norris, chief operating officer at Sodexo Inc.; and Mike Simon, an agent for NFL players with Vantage Management Group. The company, which is a publicly traded, over-the-counter stock, recently hired former Revel Entertainment Group LLC executive Alan Greenstein as chief financial officer.
Among Latitude 360’s shareholders are NFL players Cliff Avril of the Seattle Seahawks; Rashad Jennings of the New York Giants; Derek Wolfe of the Denver Broncos; Uche Nwaneri, formerly of the Jacksonville Jaguars; Garin Patrick of the Miami Dolphins; Chris Ivory of the New York Jets; and Tyson Alualu of the Jacksonville Jaguars.
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