PlayON was a daily fantasy sports platform that offered football contests using a simple team-building process combined with live Opta-powered scoring.
The platform was designed to be accessible for newcomers while still providing enough depth for experienced fantasy football managers to enjoy competitive contests.
Competition Lobby
PlayON’s contest lobby provided a clean interface with a range of useful filters to help managers quickly find suitable competitions.
Users could filter contests by:
- Sport.
- League.
- Entry fee.
- Prize pool.
- Contest type.
- Tournament start time.
- Field size.
Each contest displayed key information including fixtures, entry fees, prize distribution and the number of entrants.
Team Selection
Managers selected an 11-player squad using a fixed 4-4-2 formation and a $100 million salary cap.
Unlike many fantasy football platforms of the time, PlayON placed no restriction on the number of players that could be selected from the same club.
The intuitive pitch view made building a team straightforward, while player filters allowed managers to search by:
- Position.
- Club.
- Player name.
- Salary.
- Ownership percentage.
Once the squad had been finalised, managers simply saved their team and entered the contest.
Scoring System
PlayON used an Opta-powered scoring model based on players’ starting positions and a wide range of statistical actions recorded during each match.
Points were awarded or deducted for numerous positive and negative contributions throughout the game, rewarding well-rounded performances rather than simply goals and assists.
Unlike some competing platforms, there was no requirement to nominate a captain or choose from multiple formations.
Live Scoring
Once contests began, managers could follow their teams through PlayON’s live scoring centre.
Real-time Opta data allowed users to monitor every statistical contribution as the leaderboard updated throughout the matches.
PlayON Today
Although PlayON is no longer active in its original daily fantasy football format, it was one of the platforms that helped popularise DFS in Europe by offering a straightforward user experience backed by detailed statistical scoring.
Many of the concepts it introduced remain common features of modern fantasy sports platforms today.
