UFC DFS is the Perfect Post-NFL Pivot
With the NFL season behind us, many of us will have a major unscratched DFS itch for the next six-plus months. While there are daily sports (NBA, NHL, and MLB), the weekly event that is NFL Sundays stands out as the premier DFS experience.
I’m here to tell you why you should look into playing MMA DFS instead.
Like the NFL, it’s a once-a-week event, so there’s no scrambling for news every night. It’s also one of the best sweats around. Finally – and most importantly – the edges are still massive. MMA is harder to model than most team sports, and the strategy hasn’t been “solved” the way that it has in other sports.
That means you aren’t competing with hundreds of identical lineups in cash games, nor do a handful of players with the best projections dominate the lobby.
Like a lot of people, my interest in UFC DFS was reinvigorated during the early days of the pandemic, when they were the only (non-electronic) game in town. DraftKings has also changed their MMA scoring since then, which has led to a much better project. While I’ve always been an MMA fan (and a former professional fighter), it wasn’t until recently that I decided to take UFC DFS seriously.
I’m glad I did, as I won a seat in the DraftKings World Championship. I’ve also had a ton of fun along the way and figured out some strategies that can benefit the casual fan. Here’s some of what I’ve discovered.
The Timing
This is a big factor for me. While I’ve played some NBA – and a ton of MLB DFS, nothing beats getting a full week to research and build lineups. Most of NBA DFS these days is centered around waiting until inactives come out just before lock, and frantically building lineups to react to breaking news. That gives a huge edge to professional players (and those on the west coast). For the average player, blocking off 6:00-10:00 p.m. every night isn’t worth the effort.
That’s where MMA (and other weekly sports, like golf and NASCAR) come in. Fight cards are announced weeks or months in advance, giving you ample time to research and build lineups. While there are late scratches – particularly due to COVID – there are no backup rotations to worry about. You simply replace that fighter with someone from a different fight and move on.
This is also huge for people with regular lives. It’s a lot easier to spend an hour a night getting ready for the weekend’s card than it is to spend all day figuring out NBA rotations or batter vs. pitcher matchups.
For those looking to invest even less time but still have an edge: we have you covered. There’s a full breakdown of the best fighters to target, which can be found at our MMA Homepage. We have a full suite of projections, including floor and ceiling, in our MMA Player Models.
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Of course, we also have a Lineup Optimizer if you’re interested in multi-entering, with some tips and tricks on how to get the most of it available here. Along with that, we have a Lineup Builder if you want to hand-build your lineups.
The Sweat
If you enjoy sweating your DFS contests, the UFC is one of the best experiences you can have. Unlike other sports where games overlap, each fight happens one after the other. That means you can watch every point your roster scores in real-time.
You also get something to root for with every fight. When you have a fighter competing, you obviously want to see them win as quickly as possible. Even when nobody from your lineup is going, you’re rooting for other fighters to not score many points.
Hoping for a slow-paced decision admittedly isn’t the most fun way to watch MMA, but it beats not having anything on the line.
The Edge
Like poker before it, much of DFS is trending towards solved. Advanced models and algorithms are getting increasingly efficient, making it difficult for most people to find a significant edge. That’s not so with UFC DFS though. There are still big edges to be had in roster construction, and understanding a fighter’s range of outcomes.
From a roster construction standpoint, the biggest leak right now is in understanding five-round fights for cash games. For the uninitiated, most UFC fights are three rounds. However, all main events and title fights are five rounds. It’s equivalent to two NFL quarterbacks getting to play seven quarter games. If you could roster them both with no positional restrictions, wouldn’t you?
Much of the field hasn’t figured that out in cash games though. For example, Robert Whittaker and Israel Adesanya at UFC 271 combined for 107.9% rostership in the $25 double up. We’ll touch more on the five-round strategy in a future article. For now, though, using both fighters (for cash games) is a dominant strategy.
The range of outcomes for UFC scoring is incredibly wide, which makes most projection systems less efficient than they are in other sports. So much of the DFS scoring is from winning fights inside the distance, that basing lineups on median (or even top 20%) range of outcomes doesn’t work well. This gives the intelligent player a chance to beat those who blindly follow projection systems.
While the UFC prize pools are typically much smaller than they are for the NFL, there’s still serious money to be won. It’s also possible to produce a far higher return on investment than in the major sports. That’s ideal for people who want the fun and challenge of DFS, without devoting a significant chunk of money.
It’s Time!
Hopefully, you’re sold, and willing to give UFC DFS a shot. If that’s the case, your FantasyLabs subscription will go a long way for you. Besides our industry-leading projections and optimizer, we have coverage for every event, and evergreen pieces breaking down the strategy.
I hope to see you at the top of the leaderboard soon!
