As part of their effort to hook tens of millions of Americans on gambling, sportsbooks have spent billions of dollars on splashy bait. They flooded last season’s NFL broadcasts with commercials. Caesars transformed a fleet of Ubers in Arizona to look like chariots. BetMGM claimed to have received the first bet placed from space — relayed from a SpaceX shuttle to a proxy in Las Vegas. In the fight for sports bettors, astronomical spending — from those incessant broadcast ads to enticing sign-up deals — is part of a considered gamble, based on projections indicating that sportsbooks will clear several thousand dollars over the lifetime of their average customer. It’s a heady proposition, but not all shareholders and top executives have the stomach to endure years of losses.
ESPN said ESPN BET, the sports betting service run by Penn Entertainment, will launch Tuesday, Nov. 14. Teaser spots for the sportsbook feature SportsCenter anchor Scott Van Pelt receiving alerts from the ESPN and ESPN Bet Apps. A full ad campaign will be rolled out closer to launch and also feature SportsCenter’s Elle Duncan. ESPN Bet will provide the odds used in ESPN content.
Since 2018, many states (and Washington, D.C.) have passed legislation to approve regulated sports betting and have either launched or are planning to launch soon. Sports betting in the U.S. has taken over the sports world, with everything from professional leagues partnering with sportsbooks to athletes being sponsored by legal sports betting entities. Sports betting continues to be a major fixture in the country. TVB set out to discover how sports betting entities like DraftKings, FanDuel and others are reaching potential players, and to identify the importance of media platforms in influencing online sports bettors’ decisions.
Barstool Sports has been sold to Penn Entertainment Inc. Penn paid about $388 million for the remaining stake in Barstool Sports that it doesn’t already own, the sports and entertainment […]
Sunday’s game will be the first NFL championship played in a state with legalized sports betting and more than 50 million Americans are expected to place bets.
Exclusives
With 2022 not yet over, U.S. mobile sports betting has seen an eye-watering $80 billion wagered so far as consumers embrace the activity. Looking at the monthly totals for 2022 to date, it’s clear the NFL exercises a magnetic pull upon gamblers, given the spikes that occur for the regular and postseason.
NBC Sports Philadelphia, NBC Sports Philadelphia Plus and PointsBet are partnering to present a series of sports-betting presentations – titled BetCast – covering the Philadelphia 76ers this season, and expanding upon the […]
Californians have been inundated with a blast of advertisements as backers of two propositions seek to legalize sports gambling by allowing it at tribal casinos and racetracks or through mobile and online wagering. Still, preelection polls showed both ballot measures faced an uphill fight to win a majority. Should both be approved, a provision in the California Constitution calls for the one with the most votes to prevail.
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.
MSG Networks said it will be showing 12 wagering-oriented BetCast simulcasts of New York Knicks and Rangers games this season on MSGSN, presented by DraftKings. The first BetCast of the season aired Wednesday night with the Knicks playing the Atlanta Hawks.
NBC Sports Chicago and PointsBet are again partnering to present a series of BetCast presentations of Chicago Bulls games during the 2022-23 NBA Regular Season, expanding the collaboration that launched the alternate […]
Walt Disney Co.’s ESPN is nearing a large new partnership with sports-betting firm DraftKings Inc., according to people familiar with the matter. The agreement would pave the way for the media giant to capitalize on the growing wave of legalized sports betting, according to the people, who asked not to be identified because the talks are private. The structure and details of the partnership couldn’t be immediately learned.
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.
FuboTV is upping its sports betting game, adding on Thursday SportsGrid — an OTT platform dedicated to content related to sports wagering. SportsGrid offers detailed statistics across the major U.S. sports leagues like the NFL, NBA, MLB and more — including betting options for tennis and golf sporting events. Its analytics platform considers factors like daily odds, lineups and injury reports.
As states across the country legalize sports betting and online sportsbooks flood sports television with celebrity-backed advertisements, Americans are growing more accepting of the practice, a Washington Post-University of Maryland poll finds. Four years after the Supreme Court overturned a law that limited sports gambling mostly to Nevada, 66% now approve of making betting on professional sporting events legal. That’s up from 55% who said the same in 2017, before the Supreme Court decision, and 41% in 1993.
FuboTV is integrating its sports betting service into the virtual MVPD’s live TV streaming platform, with free-to-play games and FuboTV Sportsbook for real money wagers going live this weekend for select users. The new free-to-play games are called “pick’ems” and show up ahead of select Sunday games.
On May 14, 2018, the United States Supreme Court issued a ruing that, on the surface, the NFL hated. Four years later, the NFL is loving it. More than 30 states and the District of Columbia have legalized sports betting since then.
Can Sports Betting Continue On Its Pandemic-Fueled Roll?
TV and radio stations had to contend with large losses during the pandemic, between the absence of political revenue and the nearly non-existent live sports and automobile categories. Then, sports betting came along, offering salvation for many broadcasters. But will state-by-state regulations and other issues hamper its promise of replenishing local broadcasters’ coffers lost during the pandemic?
How TV’s next emerging categories are shaping the future.
TVNewsCheck‘s Michael Depp talks with Hadassa Gerber, head of research at TVB, about the organization’s recent survey on sports betting and how television wields enormous influence over sports bettors’ decisions.
Fox Corp.’s plan to be a major player in sports betting has hit a snag with the fledgling sports betting site Fox Bet struggling and the company failing to resolve ongoing ownership issues with its partner Flutter Entertainment. The 3-year-old site, heavily promoted on Fox TV networks, is only available in four states, and Fox CEO Lachlan Murdoch said he’s unhappy with the progress.
Sports betting in the U.S. has taken over the sports world, with everything from professional leagues partnering with sportsbooks to athletes being sponsored by legal sports betting entities. Sports betting continues to be a major fixture in the country. TVB conducted a study to discover how sports betting entities like DraftKings, FanDuel and others are reaching potential players, and to identify the importance of media platforms in influencing online sports bettor’ decisions.
New York Attorney General Letitia James is warning consumers of streaming and social media to beware of ads from “deceptive online sports betting companies” during the Super Bowl.
Produced by Gray’s Tupelo Honey; the fast-paced program originates from KVVU Las Vegas with host Dave Hall.
Wynn Resorts is looking to unload its online sports-betting business at a steep discount as the fledgling niche faces painful losses from stiff taxes and costly promotions needed to lure customers. The Las Vegas-based casino giant is quietly shopping its Wynn Interactive unit — operator of the WynnBet online gaming app — and has slashed the asking price to $500 million after floating a $3 billion valuation less than a year ago, a source close to the situation told the New York Post.
Three Media Trends To Watch In 2022
Sports betting will continue its meteoric rise in spot TV, Nielsen’s measurement footing will remain shaky and NextGen TV may finally deliver on new revenue streams for broadcasters in another challenging year ahead.
Sports betting is a vital and growing piece of U.S. sports media. Broadcasters and publishers started taking ad dollars from gambling operators and dabbling in betting content a few years ago, as the U.S. regulatory tide turned in favor of the industry that had long been viewed as a vice. The ties between media outlets and gambling operators have deepened since, and in 2022, the lines between sports media and gambling will continue to blur.
Legal sports betting in the U.S. — once confined to Nevada — has gone mainstream. As betting expands, the boundaries that once separated gambling from sports media and professional sports leagues are disappearing. Digital apps make sports betting possible on mobile devices, which gives it a foothold across America and threatens the business of brick-and-mortar casinos. And this is only the beginning; the industry is poised for explosive growth.
Commercials featuring an emperor addressing the masses, a woman urging bettors to “make it rain” and companies enticing gamblers with the chance to turn a few dollars into a fortune are blanketing the airwaves. Concern is starting to grow over how much is too much.
The growth potential in the nascent market for American sports betting is huge. But for now, operators are still losing money — a lot of it. Sports betting is taking a page from the playbook of tech giants like Netflix, Amazon and Twitter, sacrificing profitability in the early days in the hope of engraining themselves in customers’ lives.
ESPN, Fox and other networks are ramping up their sports betting efforts.
More Americans than ever will wager on NFL games during the 2021 season as states continue to adopt legal sports betting and operators such as Caesars Entertainment, DraftKings and MGM Resorts make further investments. An estimated 45.2 million Americans plan to wager on the NFL season in some form, up 36% from last year, according to research from the American Gaming Association. At least $12 billion will be bet on the NFL this season, according to sports betting market tracker PlayUSA.
The FanDuel Sportsbook at the downtown Phoenix arena where the Phoenix Suns play and temporary betting windows just down the street at the Arizona Diamondbacks’ Chase Field run by Caesars Entertainment are set to take in-person bets beginning today.
With growing activity and legal sports gambling in states, NFL-related sports betting could see rising revenue — as well as higher TV consumption. The American Gaming Association has estimated 45.2 million Americans could bet on the NFL this season (which starts today) — 36% higher than a year ago. Of that 45.2 million, 19.5 million bettors — legal and illegal — could place wagers online — up 73% versus a year ago.
Three years after the Supreme Court overturned the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act and allowed states to legalize sports betting, the NFL has embraced gambling as part of the landscape. Nowhere will that be more apparent than during pregame shows, the occasional mention during games and commercials as the point spread is no longer a taboo subject.
Major sports booking operations have been boosting national TV marketing efforts — paid-advertising and promotional — in August, largely to promote sportsbook operations for the fall. In total, some $2.8 million in national TV advertising was spent from July 31 through Aug. 29 by the casino/gambling category, according to iSpot.tv. A year ago over the same month-long period, a total of $129,429 was spent on national TV by the gaming/casino industry. In August 2019, the total was $234,497.
