DraftKings cofounder Matthew Kalish left his role as company president in March 2026 after 14 years, but before he walked out the door, the company he helped build agreed to route as much as 30 million dollars in marketing spending through a firm he owns entirely himself. The company, called HardScope, brokers promotional deals between DraftKings and podcast hosts and influencers, and it earns a commission on every dollar it places, meaning the more DraftKings spends through Kalish's company, the more Kalish's company makes.
A deal signed on the way out
The arrangement did not appear out of nowhere. DraftKings and HardScope first signed a modest agreement in June 2025 capped at 600,000 dollars, at a point when Kalish was still serving as president. He launched HardScope that December, while still holding his executive role at DraftKings. By January 2026, the relationship had scaled dramatically, with a new agreement authorizing up to 30 million dollars in payments over three years. Kalish's formal departure followed two months later, in March. The whole arrangement only became public knowledge in August, once DraftKings disclosed it in a regulatory filing, well after the terms had already been locked in.
How the commission structure works
Under the deal, HardScope can collect a commission of up to 14 percent on the marketing dollars it places on DraftKings' behalf. That structure ties HardScope's earnings directly to how much DraftKings spends through it, an incentive that sits uneasily next to the fact that the firm's owner helped run DraftKings for over a decade and negotiated at least part of this arrangement while still on the inside.
A governance expert calls the setup a red flag
Jesse Fried, a corporate governance scholar at Harvard Law School, pointed to DraftKings' ownership structure as the reason a deal like this can move forward with limited friction. Chief executive and cofounder Jason Robins controls roughly 88 percent of the company's voting power through a dual class share structure, concentrating decision making authority in a way that leaves little room for outside shareholders to push back on transactions that benefit people close to leadership. Fried described that concentration of control as a big red flag, the kind of setup where insider deals can clear internal approval without the scrutiny a more evenly distributed shareholder base might apply.
