Fancode, the sports content platform owned by Dream11 parent Dream Sports, is shutting its sports merchandise business Fancode Shop by October this year, the company said on August 28.
A Fancode spokesperson stated that the decision to wind down the merchandise business was made in June this year and the company now intends to redirect all resources towards its core content product.
"At FanCode, we’ve always taken pride in building for sports fans. This will help us focus on what’s growing fastest and delivering the most value to our users," the spokesperson said.
"FanCode Shop will continue running till October and we will fulfill all orders placed during that time," the spokesperson added.
That said, this announcement comes at the same time that Dream Sports discontinued all paid contests on its flagship fantasy sports platform Dream11 and shifted entirely to free-to-play online social games. 95 percent of the group's revenues and 100 percent of its profits originates from cash-based contests.
This move was prompted by the country's new online gaming law that prohibits online money games, which are games where a user makes a deposit, directly or indirectly, with the expectation of earning winnings on that deposit.
Launched in August 2020, Fancode Shop offered official sports merchandise to consumers, including jerseys, T-shirts, hoodies, accessories, footwear, and home furnishings among others. The company had tie-ups with various IPL franchises, World Cup teams, ICC cricket tournaments, international football clubs, and racing tournaments among others.
In a recent interview with Moneycontrol, Dream Sports co-founder Harsh Jain said the company now plans to concentrate all its efforts on sports-related opportunities in India using artificial intelligence (AI), with a special focus on the creator economy. Fancode, which has 160 million users, is expected to play a key role in this strategy.
“We have sports content, commerce, fan engagement, analytics, sports performance, and merchandise. All of this is going to be disrupted by AI. And now I have 500 engineers whom I can allocate to solving these problems,” Jain said. “We will start again to solve these problems for Indian sports fans.”
Founded by Yannick Colaco and Prasana Krishnan in March 2019, FanCode offers interactive live streaming of major sporting events, including cricket tournaments, football, basketball, and badminton. It also provides real-time match highlights, live scores, statistics, analysis, and the latest sports news updates.
Fancode currently owns broadcast and streaming rights for several major tournaments such as Formula 1, MotoGP, LaLiga EA Sports and LaLiga Hypermotion, Carabao Cup, AFC Champions League, Intercontinental Legends Championship, and FIBA Asia Cup among others.
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