Daily Fantasy Sports enters the 2016 Presidential Race at GOP Debate

A few years ago, daily fantasy sports didn’t exist.  Now the debate over the DFS boom, and the legality therein, has spilled over to the presidential race. Tonight in the closing moments of Republican Presidential Debate, Jeb Bush got the first opportunity to weigh in on the issue on the national stage as Carl Quintanilla asked if daily fantasy sports equates to gambling and if the federal government should regulate it.

Makes you wonder what type of league Bush is in where he could be 7-0 with Tannehill as his quarterback, right? Other pressing questions that stick out:

– Live draft or online?

– Do people in his league also need to be hounded to pay their league fees?

– ESPN league or Yahoo?

Bush eventually weighed in that he would like to see daily fantasy regulated, which is a position gaining a lot of momentum although he asked for the NFL to distance itself from the industry where other leagues have direct ownership stakes in FanDuel and DraftKings opposed to the NFL (although the majority of NFL teams have deals in place).

I was generally interested to see what other candidates were going to jump in here but the discussion dissolved pretty quickly as noted football aficionado Chris Christie questioned the merit of the issue.

Okay then. Given there’s been quite a bit of fluff questions and issues in all of the debates, it was somewhat odd that Christie blew a gasket and derailed any substantive discussion on the issue given he’s a candidate with noted noted ties to an NFL owner.

All in all, Bush is now on the record on regulation and Christie thinks the topic is below the threshold of signficance a topic should have at a presidential debate. They’re probably both right, but and either way it was fun to hear Bush brag about his Tannehill led fantasy team.  At least he has that going for him.