NEW YORK – A panel of media notables sounded some familiar concerns about the prospect of oversaturation and audience alienation while maintaining a note of optimism about the growth of programming geared toward sports betting.
“I think everyone realizes that this is a marathon, not a sprint,” Jim Mattson, Fox Home Team Sports vice president told the Sports Betting USA conference Wednesday in regard to advertising. “We don’t want to do too much, too fast.”
“Look at the European model,” BetGenius Vice President of Business Development Andrew Patterson said. “In Italy and Sweden, there’s no sports betting advertising at all. They’d had enough.”
Patterson said he doesn’t feel “inundated” by sports betting advertising, even though he lives in Las Vegas.
“But you fly into Newark and you open Twitter, the first ad is a sports betting ad,” he said.
Moderated by Bloomberg Senior Gaming & Lodging Analyst Brian Egger, the panel, in addition to Mattson and Patterson, included Vegas Sports and Information Netork (VSiN) CEO Brian Musburger and CBS Sports Digital General Manager Jeff Gerttula.
While care needs to be taken not to overwhelm the casual viewer with sports betting content, Gerttula said the overall prospects for sports betting content within the U.S. media landscape continues to grow.
“We engage the audience through our content,” Gerttula said, citing 80 million users per month on the CBS digital platform. “We provide eyeballs. We need alliances that allow us to monetize those eyeballs.”
Mattson said Fox’s partnerships with regional sports networks allows the network to target sports fans “on a state or regional level” for sportsbooks.
“We’re the only ones that can do that,” he said, “so it’s going to have a big impact on our business. We’re seeing a tremendous amount of integration across the industry.”
Fox is considering going “all the way” by combining live streaming sports with a means of wagering live, all within an operator’s app. FanDuel has begun doing so with tennis and Bundesliga soccer.
“We’re probably a while away from being able to do that with the larger sports like MLB or NFL,” Mattson said.
In time, Gerttula said, he expects the betting experience will integrate into the television experience in some way. At the same time, people are now intrinsically connected to their phones.
“Go to a sports bar, people are watching on the TV – and staring at their phones,” Gerttula said. “You don’t want to alienate audiences that aren’t placing bets. The phone is still going to be the key piece. I don’t know if there’s going to be platform convergence.”
Musburger said there’s no reason to overwhelm fans with betting content.
“Not everyone bets on sports, and you don’t want to inundate young kids,” he said. “I think the leagues should keep the primary broadcast feeds pure.”
Musberger said that VSiN is currently looking for partnerships in many different areas – betting providers, leagues, and other media companies. Through the partnerships, he said VSiN is looking to build awareness and make greater connections with a desirable demographic.
Musberger wants VSiN’s audience to hear from the people “responsible for setting” the lines. The network is less interested in handicapping or a “personality-driven format” than looking at the numbers themselves and staying in a “CNBC/Bloomberg kind of lane.”
Gerttula said that he believes there will eventually be a wide range of options for fans. CBS Sports is more focused on news and stats, such as “basic content that’s mass-reach.” But he mentioned the prospect of offering more in-depth betting content on an opt-in basis on a side channel.
Some of Fox’s regional sports networks are beginning to broadcast feeds dedicated to sports betting, Mattson said. He called it a “great way to educate” sports fans about the nuances of betting while keeping them from being inundated with unwanted information.
“You’re not beating them over the head with content. If they’re interested, they can go to that feed.”
Mattson said the NHL has been the most welcoming league regarding the prospect of advertising and alliances with betting providers. He said NBA is the most outspoken, and MLB has not allowed sports betting ads “pre-, in-, or postgame.” He said the expectation is that is will change eventually.”
In response to a moderator question about the importance of data and data partnerships, Musberger emphasized openness. Las Vegas-based VSiN, which operates out of a studio adjacent to the sportsbook at the South Point Hotel-Casino, is “constantly working” with operators on sharing real-time data about wagering.
“I think a lot of operators still want to keep this information hidden,” Musberger said. “It’s interesting content. People want to know.”
He pointed out that, historically, a sizable portion of sports betting data was untrustworthy and “had an agenda,” which was a fact that initially made a network like VSiN seem feasible.
“More data, and less tolerance for getting it wrong,” Gerttula said.
Justin Martin is the associate editor of CDC Gaming. He can be reached at jmartin@cdcgamingreports.com
