From Al Michaels to Brent Musburger, there is a long tradition of broadcasters coyly alluding to betting lines amidst staid telecasts of North American sports. The references always have been made via word play and done on the sly, so as not to upset the bedrock norms of sports, gambling, and the law.
That, of course, began to change a year ago when the Supreme Court ruling in Murphy v. NCAA permitted states to begin legalizing sports betting. Since then, every publisher has been scrambling to discern the best approach to the new billion-dollar industry materializing almost overnight.
“I like to joke that every large media company, team, or league has a conference room with 10 people in it with a code name, and they’ve been told to figure out sports betting,” said Patrick Keane, CEO of the Action Network, at last month’s SBC Betting on Sports America conference. “And if you don’t have that code name and that room set, then you’re going to fail.”
Keane’s Action Network and VSiN, which is run by Musburger’s nephew Brian, are among the new sports media companies arising to meet the need for betting-related content. Sinclair Broadcast Group acquired 21 formerly Fox-owned regional sports networks with an eye toward developing second-screen, betting-themed experiences. Turner Sports-owned Bleacher Report has a new studio at Caesars in Las Vegas. ESPN recently launched the Daily Wager on ESPNews, and on Tuesday the network announced it would follow B/R in opening a branded studio inside a Caesars-owned Las Vegas casino.
Legacy broadcast networks are taking varying tacks. NBC Sports has been using its RSNs as a laboratory to experiment with a heavy betting focus. CBS Sports runs subscription picks and projections site Sportsline.com, and began producing a betting show, SportsLine Edge, for streaming channel CBS Sports HQ in September. But CBS Sports chairman Sean McManus offered a tepid take on the involvement of its terrestrial network, “We don’t discuss gambling information.”
Fox Sports, meanwhile, recently announced an ambitious plan to operate its own sportsbook, joining digital media company theScore as the two North American entities “to participate at the core level,” as theScore’s CEO, John Levy has said.
British gambling company Sky Bet serves as a European case study into making the entanglement of media company and bookmaker work. Sky Bet has succeeded through a partnership strategy with Sky Sports, a prominent broadcaster of English Premier League soccer, cricket, rugby, and more.
“A lot of us are trying to take the playbook of Sky Bet and bring that to the United States,” said David Preschlack, NBC Sports’ EVP of content strategy. “Core to executing on that playbook is figuring out ways how to engage with the casual bettor.”
Fox Sports has had major broadcast rights for the NFL and MLB since the mid-1990s and a smaller deal with MLS since 2015. Its place in the sports media landscape will irrevocably change in the wake of last week’s announcement of a $236 million investment for a 4.99 percent stake in The Stars Group. (TSG acquired Sky Bet in 2018.) The resulting enterprise, Fox Bet, will offer sports betting in states where it has been legalized and free-to-play games everywhere.
A key learning from Sky Bet is that the media integrations with betting info needs to be “subtle,” said Robin Chhabra, who was The Stars Group’s chief corporate development officer until his appointment as CEO of Fox Bet. He added that Fox, as a rightsholder, will be “treading very carefully” and will follow the leagues’ lead on how much overt messaging to incorporate. More explicit betting content will be reserved for programs like Lock It In on FS1.
“We recognize that, by far, the majority of sports fans don’t bet, but what we do know—from all the research and all the work we’ve done in Europe—is that sports fans, even if they don’t bet, find that betting statistics add to the narrative of the sport and actually add to the enjoyment of the sport,” Chhabra said, adding:
“We want to be part of the game, part of the sporting narrative.”
TSG research indicates that 68 percent of its digital media consumers have said betting information enhances the programming even if they never wager. Point spreads and over/unders seeped into the U.S. sports discourse long ago as credible analysis.
“Content is a great way of acquiring users in a top-of-the-funnel way,” Keane said, noting that a good way to do that is by “building really differentiated technology that informs the bettor and allows them to do things like track their bets.”
Chhabra said more than one million people play Sky Bet’s free game each week in the U.K. and that the average bet is only about $5 to $10. Customer retention and loyalty has been strong. He said about 60 percent of Sky Bet users didn’t bet with any other bookmaker, even though the national average was for bettors to have at least three sportsbook accounts. That fan engagement is ultimately what every media company is after, and at stake is the massive risk/reward proposition of sports broadcast rights.
Finding the right formula for the presentation of material will be a challenge. Chhabra noted that Europe historically has split media rights into bet and watch categories and that Sky never held the rights to carry streams for betting purposes. FanDuel recently became the first U.S. sportsbook to stream live sports in its betting app, but Fox Bet won’t be doing the same. Instead of betting, Chhabra said the emphasis during broadcasts will be on free gamification.
Fox has an enviable distribution portfolio spanning its broadcast network and three cable channels (FS1, FS2, and Fox Soccer), as well as its digital properties. Betting content could appear across that whole range, rather than being focused on just one channel or one show. Such a cross-platform approach is shared by VSiN.
“I don’t think sports bettors are consuming content on just one platform,” said VSiN CEO Brian Musburger. “That’s why we’re putting content out in newspapers, we’re doing stuff on terrestrial radio, satellite radio, with some of the RSNs. You want to reach them everywhere they live.”
OTT feeds are ripe for either complementary or integrated content. NBC’s RSNs have begun deploying alternate feeds for betting-heavy telecasts. Monumental Sports Network has partnered with VSiN for analysis during Arena Football League matches. Shoulder programming has mostly been studio-centric thus far, replicating traditional sports shows, only with a new focus.
“Everybody who enters the landscape is doing it from the traditional, tried and true sports media [format]—set up a desk, put up some experts, and talk at your audience—whereas B/R has been all about talking in conversation with the audience and building our storytelling around that conversation,” said Bleacher Report’s chief content officer, Sam Toles.
After theScore launched a chat function in its app about seven months ago, Levy estimated that 50-to-60 percent of its use has been for discussing sports betting. But though betting is changing the sports media landscape, it won’t change everything. While emphasizing that the sportsbook—which will launch first in New Jersey—is the top priority, theScore’s founder also said it won’t be an all-consuming endeavor for users.
“Our view is that, rather than thinking about sports betting as a monolithic thing on its own, it’s really just one aspect of why people love sports,” Levy said. “Our whole approach is, since we’re doing all the tough stuff anyway in providing tons of content and tons of data—people are taking all this stuff and basically betting elsewhere—we’re going to give them the opportunity, in a comfortable environment, to do it right in their own home and under the brand of theScore.”