Arlington Resident Gives a Spin to Fantasy Football

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(Updated at 3:55 p.m.)An Arlington resident has created a new way to play fantasy football.

Rishi Nangia is the CEO of Syde, an app that gives people a new, simpler way to play daily fantasy sports by providing the teams for the players instead of making them create each side from scratch.

“We want to give people a vehicle for people to have fun with fantasy sports without being bogged down by needing to have a full team or roster,” Nangia said.

Traditional season long fantasy sports require people to build up a fantasy sports team and follow athletes over the regular season. With daily fantasy sports games, like Syde, players are responsible for single games.

“We offer the same excitement that you get over 22 weeks in one day,” Nangia said.

Syde makes fantasy sports simple, Nangia said, so that anyone can use the app.

The app provides the two fantasy teams for each game, or “sydes.” Each “syde” is equally-matched and can consist of a full team or just a couple of players, Nangia said.

“We present you with two sides of the equation, A or B, and we ask you which side you think will win,” he said.

Nangia has a team dedicated to coming up with the different “sydes” so that each “have the look [and] feel of [equality],” he said.

“I don’t think its a process that is repeatable by anyone else,” Nagia said.

The team also works to make sure that matchups are not repeated.

“We don’t repeat in any week and we try not to repeat in any consecutive week,” Nangia said. “So if we play Tom Brady and Peyton Manning, you probably won’t see that for the rest of the season.”

Players made a $5 bet for each game and can win $9. In the future, Nangia said he hopes to give more options for bets in the app’s future.

By providing the teams for the players, Syde makes fantasy sports easier to play, he said, adding that people don’t have to worry that they have all the required athletes for a team if they are handed the two options.

“We want to keep this open to everyone,” Nangia said. “And we’re finding more and more that people are playing with less knowledge about NFL.”

Syde offers a new game every day, but games might not always be resolved in a day, he said.

For example, if one “syde” was Tom Brady and the other Peyton Manning, the game would be resolved after each quarterback played that week.

Currently the app can only offer one game, regardless of how many sports are in season. In the future, Nangia said he would like to offer at least one game per sports and offer games that would combine athletes from different sports for games.

Nangia would also like to give players the option of customization, he said. Once that is added, players would be able to set up the two “sydes” and offer the games to their friends or any app users.

“If a user creates a game, for another person to accept the other side, it has to be even,” Nangia said.

The company is mostly Arlington based, with the app “created, so to speak, out of my garage,” he said. Living in Arlington has contributed to the app’s success because of the strong talent pool that lives in and around the county.

“I think the talent pool is second to none in Arlington,” Nangia said.