Pro Football Doc, a subscription service that furnishes bettors and fantasy players with injury assessments, has announced the closing of $1m in seed round funding. To acknowledge the achievement, the platform spearheaded by Dr David Chao AKA the “Pro Football Doc” will offer full access to the site for free for the entire 2020 NFL season.
Chao served as head team physician for the San Diego Chargers for 17 years. Upon leaving the Chargers, the Harvard-educated doctor started tweeting his observations about real-time injuries as they were occurring during NFL games. His accuracy at diagnosing and assessing player injuries led to him becoming a regular in sports radio and television circles.
“I started this whole endeavor with a single tweet,” said Chao. “To see this grow to what it is today is humbling. With this new round of investment, we can provide real-time injury analysis to a larger audience without charging for the service. Also, our new partnerships offer wider exposure to core football fans. We think this is going to be a great season – definitely one of growth.”
In addition to raising substantial funding, Pro Football Doc has also secured strategic partnership deals with a number of big players in the NFL fantasy and wagering industry, such as FanDuel, Outkick the Coverage, Sports Grid, Fade The Noise and Fantasy Pros.
These partnerships, said the firm, will allow it to expose its unique insights to hundreds of thousands of football gamblers and fantasy players, and significantly broadening PFD’s visibility.
“If you are doing any type of betting, you need Doc’s insights,” said Clay Travis, CEO at Outkick the Coverage. “Doc’s real-time injury calls have been unbelievably accurate, which is a huge advantage to any gambler. We are thrilled to have the partnership with Pro Football Doc. The Outkick audience now has access to pre-game insights that will help with betting and fantasy play alike.”
Unlike other news feeds that simply report NFL injury news, Pro Football Doc not only identifies and diagnoses player injuries, but also assesses what that injury will ultimately mean for individual player statistics and team outcomes as a whole.
The firm’s proprietary Injury Index, which assigns letter grades to the relative health of every team, is distributed 48 hours prior game time. In addition, the Pro Football Doc team monitors all NFL games, identifying injuries as they happen resulting in real-time player updates.
Injury assessments are available to subscribers immediately, which allows for bettors to act prior to point spread moves. Videos are also posted on the website reviewing the latest injury information: pre-game inactive players, half-time updates, post-game wraps and news as it occurs.
