Fox won the right to buy an 18.6% stake in sports betting company FanDuel Group from its parent company Flutter, but not at the valuation, according to a ruling Friday from a New York arbitrator. Should Fox exercise its option to take the stake, it would be at a price of at least $3.72 billion.
Kay Adams is getting ready to roll the dice on a new opportunity. The former NFL Network host is launching a new morning program that will rely heavily on chatter about betting, all on a cable network operated by one of the biggest facilitators of betting in the business: FanDuel. She might talk about the over and under on her getting a speeding ticket in Los Angeles or on the types of things that might show up in HBO’s new House of Dragons series. But she also stands ready to mix it up with knowledgeable guests and experts on odds making and wagering on upcoming sports games.
Gambling operators have been pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into the pursuit of new customers as more states have adopted online sports betting. Now, those companies are under pressure to rein in spending because they have said they plan to turn a profit sometime next year. The college football and NFL seasons — a prime time to advertise and entice more people to gamble — will be a balancing act on the path to profitability for companies such as FanDuel Group, DraftKings and BetMGM, the market leaders. Other competitors also are scrutinizing their bottom lines.
When NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell spoke to the media after the league announced its new broadcasting contracts last month, he said the league would “find ways we can engage fans through legalized sports betting” during the life of those deals. That continued a major shift in attitude for a league that had long worked to avoid any connection with gambling and that shift grew even larger on Thursday. The NFL announced its first sportsbook partnerships with Caesars Entertainment, DraftKings and FanDuel. The multi-year agreements make the three companies official sports betting partners of the league and give them the ability to use NFL marks.
TVN Focus On Advertising | Sports Betting Skyrockets For Broadcasters
Sports wagering has invigorated station groups’ core revenue, climbing to the second-biggest ad sales category for many of them and angling to knock automotive from its top spot in the next few years. Note: This story is available to TVNewsCheck Premium members only. If you would like to upgrade your free TVNewsCheck membership to Premium now, you can visit your Member Home Page, available when you log in at the very top right corner of the site or in the Stay Connected Box that appears in the right column of virtually every page on the site. If you don’t see Member Home, you will need to click Log In or Subscribe.
Bud Light will be the sponsor of the first-ever branded bet made on a U.S. sports book. Announced today, FanDuel has partnered with the light beer brand to sponsor a bet during the Dec. 19 game between the Denver Broncos and the Buffalo Bills. Fans who bet more than $25 will get an extra $3 for every extra point and field goal scored by the Broncos.
Exclusives
FuboTV signed a new agreement with fantasy sports provider and bookmaker FanDuel to integrate sports betting data with the FuboTV streaming service. The companies said this agreement is FanDuel’s first strategic partnership with a third-party OTT internet television service. FanDuel’s betting data will be integrated on the Fubo platform in the coming weeks.
The Federal Trade Commission said on Monday that it will seek to block an attempted merger between two fantasy sports betting websites, DraftKings and FanDuel. The FTC said that it has authorized legal action to prevent the merger between the two companies, which are the two biggest platforms in the online sports betting market.
The daily fantasy sports companies DraftKings and FanDuel have agreed to merge after a turbulent year in which both of their values plummeted as several attorneys general questioned the legality of their games in their states. The merger was one of necessity: Lobbying and legal costs had damaged both companies’ bottom lines to the extent that representatives of the companies last month asked the New York attorney general’s office to allow them to pay a combined $12 million settlement in installments after claims that they employed false and deceptive advertising practices, two people familiar with those negotiations said.
The end of 2015 saw an uptick in lobbying related to the controversial daily fantasy sports industry, according to disclosure forms. Daily fantasy website DraftKings spent $80,000 in the last three months of the year on outside lobbying help, according to its filing. Rival FanDuel spent $50,000 on lobbying services from law firm Steptoe and Johnson. It was the first full quarter in which the firms lobbied in Washington.
Maryland Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller may have pushed to legalize casinos in Maryland, but he will not champion fantasy sports-betting websites. Miller said Monday commercial fantasy sites like DraftKings and FanDuel need to stop operating in Maryland or propose legislation to make their ventures legal in the state.
Another state has bet against fantasy sports sites FanDuel and DraftKings and moved them into the illegal gambling column. On Wednesday, Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan told state legislators that the sites are breaking the laws of the Prairie State.
In the latest blow to the beleaguered daily fantasy sports industry, a New York judge has ordered DraftKings Inc. and FanDuel Inc. to shut down in New York while the companies fight Attorney General Eric Schneiderman in court. The ruling by Manuel Mendez is a victory for Schneiderman, who ruled last month that the companies’ contests are a form of illegal gambling.
As industry leaders FanDuel and DraftKings fight to protect their lucrative enterprises, other companies offering daily fantasy sports are taking different approaches to how they operate as their new industry faces increased scrutiny.
The legal chaos that imperils the daily fantasy sports (DFS) industry now officially threatens the professional sports leagues, media companies and financial institutions that have become partners with the two leading DFS companies, DraftKings and FanDuel. Two Florida-based DFS customers e-filed a class action lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida against approximately 50 companies and individuals that have either invested in DFS companies or facilitated DFS gaming. Among those named are Turner Sports, Time Warner, NBC Sports Comcast Ventures, 21st Century Fox and Fox Sports Interactive Media.
The ripple effects in media from New York State’s crackdown on fantasy sports sites DraftKings and FanDuel might be bigger than many industry watchers imagined, according to two reports out today. Analyses by MoffettNathanson Research’s Michael Nathanson and Bernstein Research’s Todd Juenger show that ad outlays by the fantasy sports firms noticeably lifted TV networks’ financial results in the third quarter.
Fantasy-sports websites DraftKings and FanDuel are fighting back against the New York attorney general’s order to cease operations in the Empire State. On Friday, the two companies separately filed appeals to stop the motion by New York attorney general Eric Schneiderman, filed Tuesday, that DraftKings and FanDuel are illegal gambling outlets subject to criminal penalties.
A decision by New York’s attorney general to ban FanDuel and DraftKings from offering daily fantasy sports betting threatens to cascade across the country — and trigger legal and lobbying wars in other states that might ultimately draw Washington into the fray.
Nothing seems to fluster CBS chief Les Moonves, including New York’s new attack on two of his large sports advertisers: fantasy sports powers FanDuel and DraftKings. He said Wednesday morning that while New York’s attorney general issued a cease-and-desist order yesterday, “they are not out of business … yet.” And they “are not in the top class of advertisers” led by pharmaceutical and auto companies. “We like their money. We like their advertising. We want them to succeed. But this is not a monumental event for us.”
New York’s Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said Tuesday that after a one-month investigation, his office had concluded that the daily contests operated by DraftKings and FanDuel are essentially games of chance, not skill, constituting illegal gambling. He ordered them to stop accepting bets.
Won’t somebody think of the children? That’s one of the common concerns in written complaints to the FCC about the massive advertising campaigns of daily fantasy sports companies, Boston-based DraftKings and New York-based FanDuel.
Don’t expect to see daily fantasy sports leagues posting wall-to-wall advertising in next year’s NCAA March Madness event. The NCAA has banned all sponsorship/advertising activity in televised college sports championships for DraftKings and FanDuel.
About 8,000 television spots by DraftKings and FanDuel in the NFL’s opening week raised awareness of daily fantasy sports games, but critics still question their legality.
Two big fantasy sports platforms — DraftKings and FanDuel — are in an all-out turf war ahead of the NFL season, quadrupling their ad spending this year in an attempt to sign up sports addicts willing to bet big bucks their sports know-how is greater than the fan’s next door. Together, the companies are expected to have shelled out $110 million just on TV ads this year through Sept. 2.
