SBJ Betting: Bring on football

Seeing fantasy football expert Matthew Berry offer up a FanDuel-sponsored, same-game parlay recommendation during NBC’s "Football Night in America" pregame show, I immediately texted a photo of my TV screen to Eric Foote, who was chief commercial officer of PointsBet when the NFL first opened its arms to sportsbook advertising in 2021.

"Good," Foote texted back. “It’s trending more aggressive.”

Earlier in the day, Foote recounted the frustration PointsBet encountered beginning in 2021 as one of the first four sportsbooks to hold the NFL’s approved operator designation, which allowed those who were not league sponsors to join sponsors FanDuel, DraftKings and Caesars as advertisers on NFL programming

Then the official sportsbook of NBC Sports, PointsBet paid the NFL a low seven-figure price mostly to get access to integrate its brand into "FNIA," where it would sponsor a minute-long, betting-themed segment featuring analyst Drew Brees, who the sportsbook had signed as an endorser. PointsBet also would put its brand on a pre-game show ticker that occasionally would include odds.

Operating in only eight states, it would make no sense for PointsBet to buy national "Sunday Night Football" spots. But it could use some of the $400 million it had committed to spend with NBC to buy "SNF" spots on network-owned affiliates in key markets in which it was taking bets, including Chicago and Philadelphia.

As it turns out, the exposure on NBC wasn’t enough to counter the far larger advertising and promotional spend of its competitors, who already were far better known brands. PointsBet made both noise and headway early, but exited the U.S. through a sale to Fanatics last year.

A year earlier, it had dropped out of the NFL’s approved operator program, unable to justify the cost as it trimmed expenses. “It’s pay-to-play, frankly,” said Foote, who now operates sports betting and media consultancy VIG Partners from his Maui home. “There’s nothing that comes with it, other than the opportunity to spend more dollars across the NFL. That fee is high to begin with, and the cost of those 30-second ads or billboards or whatever is available is premium inventory. So you’re paying to get in and around the NFL.”

Once again, the 800-pound gorilla flexes its muscle

The requirement to join an authorized or approved-operator program in order to advertise is common across the leagues. Along with providing a revenue stream, it gives them control in a category that was initially worrisome. In order to advertise, you have to be in the program, which in the case of the NFL, NBA and MLB also means you have to purchase official data -- another new revenue stream that has come from sports betting. Rules on how many spots can air, what integrations look like and when they can run vary by league.

What makes the NFL different is that its national spots are far pricier than those of other leagues, and there are no in-game options on RSNs as alternatives. That’s the model and the market, and Foote can’t fault the league for either of those. But he does call the NFL out for charging a higher fee than other leagues while imposing tighter restrictions than them.

The reason I texted Foote after seeing Berry promote a FanDuel parlay pick went back to something he said earlier in the day when I asked him what PointsBet got for the seven-figure fee. He said the league made it difficult for PointsBet to recoup its spend through anything beyond branding, barring the sort of integration Berry did on behalf of FanDuel and refusing requests to put the segment at the close of the show, when viewers were most likely to bet.

“And then, once the game started, there was nothing,” Foote said. “We pushed extremely hard for halftime because we thought it would be a nice, fruitful middle ground with the NFL and media partners. Nope. Denied, denied, denied. They said we could do something postgame, but that’s worthless. No one is watching it and no one is betting.”

Foote gave the NFL and NBC credit for allowing the sportsbook to test and iterate as the seasons went along. Though it couldn’t tie a call to action to betting, it was able to pitch signing up, which it tracked through a QR code that drove viewers to its app.

PointsBet analyzed the signups tied to the segment and the lift in betting activity that came during and shortly after it. It monitored search activity to see the impact on brand.  “We definitely saw a spike,” Foote said. “But was it considerable enough to be worth the investment? No. So we pulled back.”

Next steps

Though it was nearly an hour before kickoff on Thursday night, Foote saw FanDuel’s same-game parlay integration as progress. The next step, he said, would be opening the door to similar drop-ins during breaks in the game, as other leagues do. Those have become increasingly valuable to sportsbooks as they work to expose U.S. bettors to in-game betting.

It’s clear that some sportsbooks remain willing to pay for access to spend on NFL ad inventory. BetMGM is the only one of the original approved operators still in the program, but it’s also the only one still taking bets in the U.S. ESPN Bet and Hard Rock Bet are in, with the latter taking the same market-by-market approach to linear TV spots that PointsBet did.

But the sportsbooks continue to push for the NFL to loosen its restrictions, as other leagues have. And the networks, who can command more for deals that include integrations than those that don’t, are likely to push increasingly hard alongside them.

The structure of the category puts the NFL in a powerful, but prickly position. You have to be a sponsor or NFL approved operator to spend money with the networks during games. And you have to buy official league data from exclusive distributor Genius to be a sponsor or approved operator.

Genius wants to recoup the $100 million-plus it pays annually for exclusive data rights. The networks want to recoup the $10 billion they pay annually for the most expensive rights package in sports. And the sportsbooks want to recoup the $150 million-plus they pay annually for sponsorship or approved operator status.

Friction in any of those areas can create sparks for the NFL -- and not the good kind, like in a rom-com -- the bad kind, like from the power lines in "Godzilla." If clearing DraftKings or FanDuel to drop an odds update into a halftime show or the start of the second quarter reduces that friction, that may be where this all lands -- and sooner rather than later.

“I don’t get the hesitancy,” Foote said. “Every league has its own policy. It’s very nuanced. It’s hard to understand and challenging for operators, who are spending big dollars. [Sports betting is] legal in 30-some states now. Just go two feet in.”

FanDuel, DraftKings and BetMGM all are likely to advertise heavily across the networks that air NFL games. All three had spots in Thursday night’s season opener on NBC and figure to be all over NFL telecasts from tonight through Monday night.

BetMGM, for example, plans to air spots tonight on Peacock for Eagles-Packers, during Sunday’s national window on CBS and on the Monday night game on ESPN. DraftKings was prominent throughout the pregame show on NFL Network before the NFL Kickoff game, and it returns as presenting sponsor of NFL RedZone (also look for integrations on Amazon’s Thursday night pregame show and on NBC's "Sunday Night Football").

ESPN Bet needed the approved operator designation to run spots during "Monday Night Football." But the centerpiece of its strategy remains its integration into the network's studio shows -- "Sunday NFL Countdown," "Monday Night Countdown" and its daily show "NFL Live." 

This season will bring an uptick in betting-focused segments that will feature ESPN analysts Erin Dolan (Dog of the Week) and Rex Ryan (Rex Factors) and the "Monday Night Countdown" desk (Monday Playbook). "NFL Live" will feature same-game parlay selections on Mondays and Thursdays. ESPN Bet also will be the presenting sponsor of "Get Up" and "First Take" on Monday mornings.

The lone newcomer this NFL season, Hard Rock Bet, is the only operator that doesn’t plan to use its newly purchased status to advertise nationally, opting to make buys market-by-market, which is a more cost-effective strategy considering its eight-state footprint.

Hard Rock will air spots on linear TV in every DMA in Florida, where it is the lone legal operator. Its only other planned linear buys are in New York and Philadelphia, targeting New Jersey bettors. But it plans a presence on streaming telecasts the other states in which it operates: Arizona, Illinois, Ohio, Indiana, Tennessee and Virginia.

Odds are good that if you’re reading this you’ve seen the latest round of sportsbook spots, which rolled out in time for the NFL season (including several airing Thursday night during the NFL Kickoff game). But just in case, I've curated links of what’s new on the creative front from the five sportsbooks expected to air spots during NFL games this season.

You’re welcome.

• DraftKings has Kevin Hart poking fun at LeBron James' age, as well as Hart performing a touchdown dance.

• FanDuel also pushes for comedy in its spots, with using Jon Lovitz and Eric André in another.

• BetMGM brings back spokesman Jamie Foxx, with one spot highlighting the "second chance" opportunity and another pushing the "feeling" you get with BetMGM.

• ESPN Bet utilizes Stephen A. Smith in a pair of spots, with one in a deli and another in a pool hall.

• Hard Rock Bet utilizes Post Malone for a pair of Florida-focused ads.

And since we’ve got you mashing that play button, here’s a walk down (recent) memory lane through the previous six commercial spots ESPN and Penn have aired since breaking the seal on ESPN Bet in November: 

• It’s The Playoffs, with Scott Van Pelt

• Big Man, with Kendrick Perkins

• Delivery, with SVP and Stanford Steve

• The Elements, with Mike Greenberg

• As Long As We All Had Fun, with SVP

• You Had to Be There, with Elle Duncan

When Hard Rock Bet released a county-by-county Florida map tracking the wagering on last Saturday’s Florida-Miami game, it reminded me of something that I’ve asked oddsmakers about since states began to open: The balancing act required to set odds nationally, in a nation in which residents of some states can bet legally and others can’t, on a sport that is notoriously parochial.

Rarely do we get a look inside the role fandom plays in betting patterns. We’ll hear that 70% of bets are on one side, but not where those bets came from. The map below from Hard Rock, with Florida bets in blue and Miami in green, looks a lot like the breakdown of the fan base -- with the exception of Tallahassee, where those loyal to the Seminoles chose the lesser of two evils.

Florida, a 2½ point underdog, lost by 24.

Three states left before we close the book on Summer Swoon 2024 -- which was a swoon from the perspective of the month-to-month dropoff that comes each year, but not so much when you compare year-over-year.

July is on pace to be up 26% over last July when comparing states that were open a year ago. 

• The third iteration of the product Genius Sports markets as “BetVision” makes a giant leap this season toward the “watch and bet” experience that the NFL and other sports leagues foresee as a way to get viewers back to watching more of each game.

• While there was some movement on other NFL ownership committees, the Jaguars' Shad Khan remains in charge of the league's Legal Sports Betting committee, notes my colleague Ben Fischer.

• Oilers center Leon Draisaitl, who inked an eight-year, $112 million contract extension this week that carries an NHL-record salary cap hit of $14 million per season, counts Canadian betting operator Sports Interaction among his sponsors, notes SBJ's Alex Silverman.

• Former NBAer Randy Livingston shares the story of a gambling addiction that followed him from college through 11 seasons in the NBA as part of a responsible gambling resource hub that FanDuel has launched.