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A daily podcast delving into the biggest stories of the day throughout the sports betting and igaming sector.
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When we're talking about prediction markets, it's not only prediction market platforms and operators who want in on that space, right? Like calcium polymarket is providers. Which kind of companies are going to become crucial to prediction markets if they continue to get sort of legitimacy? Data providers. Which is, you know, who is one example of a data provider that has explicitly expressed an interest in stepping into supplying data to prediction markets? Genius sports. The NFL is by far the most bet on sport in the US, and the Super Bowl is a standout event in the sporting and betting calendar. So why doesn't the league have an active partnership with the US Sportsbook? Reports have emerged that FanDuel, DraftKings and Caesar's deals with the NFL all expired, with no renewals agreed as yet. So what's happening with the NFL's Sportsbook deals, and will this impact the industry heading towards the next season? Welcome back to iGaming Daily, supported by Optimove, the creator of positionless marketing and the number one player engagement solution for sports betting and iGaming operators. I'm Charlie Horner and today I'm joined by SBC America's news editor, Tom Nightingale and SBC America's reporter, Justin Byers. Tom, how's things? Yeah, not too bad. Thank you. Like, I mean, don't want to use a cliche right off the bat, but never a quiet week, really. um So, and this one's particularly interesting. think NFL obviously huge, huge betting business. So yeah, let's get stuck in. Fantastic. And Justin, I don't think we would have planned to be talking about uh NFL in April, but here we go. It's great to have you back on the show. How are you doing? I can't complain one bit, especially being able to talk ball, particularly the NFL during the off season. Any opportunity like that, I'll take it. Fantastic. All right. Well, let's dive into this one. Tom, how about you give us sort of the overview of what's happening here? What operators had NFL betting deals and I guess why haven't they decided to renew them? Yeah, so I mean, March 31st, think, multi-year deals with Fangel, DraftKings and Caesars expired. As far as I'm aware, the deals, they were like rights bundles. So I think it allowed them to sort of promote online and retail sports betting included at like substantial commitments to certain level of advertising spend. And obviously gives these sports books, know, the opportunity to say they are direct partners and affiliate and, know, affiliated with the NFL. They can use their intellectual property, right? That sort of stuff. I think when looking at why, you know, why they've decided not to renew yet, In my opinion, at least it's kind of a bit important to realize that Fanjul, DraftKings and CSES, like one of these is not hugely like the other two anymore. think CSES, what would have been more surprising is if CSES had renewed, to be honest. They've really wound down their ad spend um when it comes to NFL and also may kind of just in general relate to sports betting, I feel like over the last few years, being a bit more prudent. And obviously Fanjul and Draftkings in the years since these deals were initially struck, um Fanjul and Draftkings have not only continued to set the pace as the two biggest sports in the US, but obviously have diversified to say the least. um So I think nobody should necessarily have expected Caesars to renew. um Fanjul and Draftkings, according to reporting, including Sports Business Journal, um There's been a bit of a price hike from Genius Sports' official, you know, the official data that they use. And that's to all reports been the main sticking point, really. It's worth noting that unlike the NFL, an NFL spokesperson came out and said that they are, you know, in discussions with, you know, sports books and various parties. So it's not necessarily like a dead end, all change here kind of situation, but it's clear there's, there's, are friction points that there weren't before. Yeah, absolutely. We need to give a massive hat tip to Bill King and Ben Fisher in Sports Business Journal on this one. But Justin, Tom mentions Genius Sports in his answer there and the fact that they are sort of hiking prices and that might be a bit of a stumbling block. There is a relationship between the NFL and Genius Sports, Could you just give listeners an idea of what that relationship is and tell us a little bit more about how that might be a stumbling block. Yeah, it's interesting how Genius Sports has been able to kind of solidify its footprint in American sports. As they're a data distributor, they've been teamed up with the NFL now for almost six to seven years, and in doing so, they've been the league's exclusive distributor of data, which is a huge, huge, huge deal. and the ability for sportsbooks to leverage the trademarks in the official data of the NFL through Genius Sports. So it's not only a deal that's trickling down to operators in the NFL itself, but also to consumers and how we're able to take advantage of the NFL when it comes to a betting platform. And so it's interesting, the NFL's data has been somewhat of a hot topic due to its price, because there there's an arms race right now between some of the major data suppliers. If you look at sport radar and sports, they've kind of been fighting for market share when it comes to sports leagues. And what the NFL being what it is, America's most popular sports league, it has a unique opportunity to kind of take the rights of data and put it nationwide at a high price. So that's what's really at the core of this issue. Absolutely. think that is right at the core of this issue. think another thing worth mentioning is that think the NFL has around a 9 % stake in genius sports as well, which is the largest share, single shareholder, think, aren't they? Correct. Correct. Yeah. Yeah. So Tom, I'll bring you back in here on this actually. Do you think that this is a sign then that sports books are sort of no longer willing to throw around marketing dollars? like this sort of going out of fashion, like they perhaps have in recent years? Or do you think that this is just a deal that has got a bit too expensive to do in isolation of everything else that's happening in the industry at the moment? suspect that it is more for Fanjul and Draftkings, again, separating kind of Caesars, I think here. I think it's more the latter, I would say, for Fanjul and Draftkings that this particular deal I mean, nobody likes price hikes, do they? We could talk about gas prices, couldn't we, for 30 minutes, I think, at the moment. you know, nobody likes price hikes. I think that there is possibly an element of, given the way that things have progressed into these deals were initially struck, the ones that have just expired, I think there's an argument that the power balance has shifted slightly from league to sportsbook. uh So maybe that's a little bit, I wouldn't necessarily go as far as to say that sports books are going to be looking to like hold the NFL to ransom over deals like this, but I think that there is probably a level of well, how much are you willing to spend on a direct affiliation with the NFL when everybody knows that you can go to DraftKings and FanDuel and bet on the NFL. Like whether or not you have the intellectual property rights or the direct affiliation or whatever, like how much, it'd be interesting to see a cost analysis, which I haven't seen, I expect there probably is one out there by now, of how much, know, what the projected revenue effects would be on Fandual and DraftKings for not having this direct part, you know, not having a direct partnership with the NFL. I imagine that in terms of dollar amount, it's pretty big, but in terms of percentage, you know, much is it really going to be? And so when you start talking about those questions, it's like how much are you willing to spend when particularly Fandl and DraftKings, you've got a whole lot of other things going on now. You're effectively a sports book, US wide in a way that you just were not at the time that you signed these initial deals. So I think there's lot of factors that play into it and maybe they're just not willing to... Everything's a negotiation as well, right? So it is to say that we don't... Um, you know, some big news to the country doesn't come out in the next few weeks. Actually everyone's been able to agree and it's all happy families again. Yeah. The art of the deal. I believe the of the deal. But you raise a good point. Um, you know, these, these deals were agreed, I believe in 2021 and you know, that's, that's, know, ages and ages ago in sports. is a different era, isn't it? So much has happened, know, 2021 that was the, you right in the height of the golden boom, if you like, of new sports betting states coming into play, oh the rapid growth of FanDuel and DraftKings. And then you mentioned Caesar as well. They were vying for that third spot with BetMGM and a few other brands at that time. And that's just something that's completely changed in the industry landscape at the moment. Tom, you've touched nicely on how the sports books might be impacted there. Just in, I'll bring you back in. How do you think the NFL will be impacted by not having a deal with sports books and, and as a result, you know, their intellectual property, perhaps not appearing on, on some of these huge nationwide or so-called nationwide sports book apps. Yeah, that's a, that's an interesting question. Like you guys mentioned with time changing, so do priorities. And I think that's sort of a moment of time that we're seeing right now with the NFL. The NFL's king here in North America, and that's not going to change. The NFL is going to be perfectly fine if they do not have a sports book partner. But I think what it does for the league is kind of solidify a footprint in the gaming industry as well, kind of bring some peace of mind that there are some protections in place and there there are some agreements that A lot of these things, if you look at the general public, when it comes to betters, they're not happy that the NFL is teaming up with sports books, but they just don't know the crux of these deals and what that really means. It's not just betting lines and markets. It's marketing, it's compliance. It's a lot of different aspects. And I think if the NFL does have a sports big partner, they are kind of in a position to have a little bit more relaxation when it comes to attacking and gambling. gaming industry. But if they do not have one, and I'm sure they eventually will. But if they do not have one, I think the leak will be okay. But there will be concerns, especially from the key stakeholders in the business about whether the NFL is attacking this industry in the right way, especially as emerging verticals kind of come to the forefront of things. It's interesting as well, because I mean, like another aspect in this that I'm sure isn't directly related, but is something to bear in mind is like, A, the NFL are involved in at least one, there's a one particularly high profile lawsuit that was reported on recently where NFL, Genius, Fanjul, DraftKings and others are all defendants. There's also bills, various bills about uh really, really curbing, know, like in-play betting, micro betting, all of this sort of stuff. Another way that things have changed since 2021, as you mentioned, Charlie, when these deals were struck originally, sports betting doesn't really look the same. Now, as it did in 2021, like you're hearing a lot of state legislators and people say, well, when we legalize sports betting, thought, oh, know, somebody's going to be able to bet on the New York Jets to win the game. Now it's like, you're going to bet on not only what happens on the next drive of a football game, but you, you know, you can pretty much bet on every aspect of an NFL game now. Uh, I think we've seen enough from not just the NFL, various other sports leagues, things like the NCAA come to mind. We've seen a fair bit of. cautionary kind of second thought like is this really the association that we want like do we want to be putting our name to a form of sports betting where it is you know it's so relentless and you can bet on anything and it's more conducive to impulsive gambling and this sort of stuff like the whole I would say that the mood and the tone around sports betting has certainly somewhat shifted in the US in recent times. And I think that you have to look as much as this is an isolated thing with the deals, you have to put everything in context, don't you? Like the whole landscape, five years, as we said, that's an era in online sports betting. Yeah, absolutely. It remains to be seen whether the NFL does get a sports book partner for the new season. I think we're perhaps all in agreement that they probably will, but you can never rule anything out, particularly in these times. m Before we go over to a break, I will just give a quick shout out to Patrick Colleen, our colleague on SBC News. He's done a really interesting piece about Genius and their market capitalization dropping below the valuation of its deal to acquire Legend. And that might be a little bit of a driving force for some of the reports that we're seeing on this. So we'll leave a link to that in the show notes. But Tom, Justin, we'll take a quick break and then we'll come back and we'll talk a little bit more about the NFL. just in a little bit of a different context. Welcome back to iGaming Daily. Now we've got to that part of the show. I think it's been a little while since we've mentioned prediction markets properly, Tom. Correct me if I'm wrong. But in this day and age, I feel like we're talking about it, not even on a daily basis, but just on an hourly basis. So let's... I think we did very, very well to get through half of an episode without saying that term. let's be honest, we refer to it very heavily. We just didn't say the term. Look, the NFL has written to prediction market platforms and I think this is something that is definitely worth highlighting. So Tom, why don't you give us the overview again? What's happened? What's the NFL asked of these prediction market platforms? I will say is it sounds like the request is basically, as far as I understand it, broadly similar to what they ask of their... partner sports books, formerly partner sports books. also they have not only does the NFL have partner sports books, but obviously it's of as an authorized, know, upraise and that sort of stuff. It seems to be the general same thing, like, you know, for the prediction markets don't offer trades on events that can be easily manipulated or determined in advance. You know, this stuff is the kind of thing that you would think is common sense, but obviously we're all in different, we're in nowhere in new territory here. There's various other things, uh things that can be manipulated by a single person is key, things that are knowable in advance. Anything related to game officiating, I believe, was also on that list. A uh phrase that I always enjoy, inherently objectionable topics. How can you define that? To some people, the entire prediction markets model is entirely objectionable. Tom, what do you think that that term means? In terms of sports and NFL, think it's stuff like player injuries, you know, don't go slapping a bunch of money down on somebody to break their leg mid game. Things as well, like think fan safety was mentioned. To me, it's just it sort of boggles the mind because like who's, you know, who's who's opening up the app and thinking in a place again today on a fan's being in danger. You know, it's just... This is why I mentioned common sense. Like you would think it's common sense, but then I suppose you look at some of the markets that are available on certain platforms and you perhaps understand why notes like these are coming out. What's really interesting, know, particularly interesting is stuff like, ah obviously things that can be easily manipulated by a single person. That ties in, doesn't it, very closely to the whole player props debate that's going on in state regulated sports betting currently. But things that can be known in advance, because we've seen multiple examples on platforms like Cal-Chu and Polymarket of, you know, there's this whole mention markets thing. Will this person hosting an award show say this? And it's like, well, that is entirely within that one person's control. That's so... open to manipulation? know, like will a certain celebrity attend the NFL draft? That's something that it would be quite easy for certain people to get insider information about that. Yeah, they're going, they're invited, they're going, there's a seat booked for them. So how can you then offer a market on that? You know, it seems to me like common sense stuff, but... It does, it does. But I think we're, you you read some of the stories that come out and you sort of think what would kind of pass the point where common sense has to come in. Justin, I'd love to hear your thoughts on this because I think the whole manipulation and integrity issue comes to the real core of the problems that a lot of people have with prediction markets. are your thoughts on this and what do you think the NFL means by an objectionable bet? Yeah, it's interesting because We've seen a couple of the professional sports leagues here in America have to deal with betting related scandals, but the NFL really hasn't had an issue come up recently when it comes to that. And I think that's the nature of the game. And I think the NFL is kind of taking note of what's happening around them and trying to get ahead of it and be proactive. And I think that's kind of what we're seeing here. I don't know if this would have been. a part of the NFL's thinking if we hadn't had some of the political issues related to prediction markets that we've had over the past couple of months when it comes to allegations of insider training. But I do say the NFL is one of those leagues, football is one of those sports that if there are opportunities for manipulation, it's going to be drastic. And it can also impact player well-being. So I think this is a way for the NFL to kind of take a step in a big picture to kind of look at the whole thing and how they want to attack it and just really being proactive about it. It seems like the NFL is being much more hesitant on prediction markets than perhaps some of the other major leagues in the U S I think, you know, The NHL, for instance, has gone all in on prediction markets and has done a deal with polymarkets. Correct me if I'm wrong there. Why do you think it is? Tom, I'll bring you back into this one. Why do you think the NFL is so hesitant? Yeah, I mean I What do you think he is, Hesitant? It's hesitant compared to some leagues. Yeah, it certainly has to compared to the NHL, that was ages ago, wasn't it? And they dived in. It was interesting, know, leagues are framing it the way that you would expect the leagues to frame it. And they start to say that there's no truth to it. But like they, for them, it's been about sort of control. They say, we will never know if we don't see the deals, but they say that the NHL and MLB, that these deals with prediction markets have given them a certain level of control over the markets that are offered. judging by that argument, it's maybe easier to ensure that the kind of markets that the NFL is now asking calcium polymarket to not offer. If you're illegal, you're partnered with these companies, then presumably the theory is it's easier to ensure that they're not offered rather than having to ask companies that you have no working relationship with. I would be stunned if the NFL is not in. In fact, think that the key NFL figure came out and said that they've been in, I don't know, constructive conversations or something like that with prediction markets for months, which doesn't surprise me. Whether those conversations about partnerships or deals or whether they're just conversations about the integrity side of it and that sort of stuff, I don't know. They've definitely taken a more hesitant stance. But, you know, I think there will come a time where, you know, pending everything that's happening in the courts, the classic disclaimer, I'd be very surprised if the NFL doesn't end up with some kind of alignment with a prediction market partner in the same way that I would be very surprised if the NFL doesn't end up with a partner sportsbook in time for the next season starting, you know. You can only sort of... resist the tidal wave and stay away from the heat for so long, think, in something like this. I think a really good comparison is to cast our minds back to the repeal of PASPA, right? The NFL and the other sports leagues were dead against, they were directly opposed to sports betting and gambling being ingrained in those sports. And then as soon as they got approval, they were very happy to do deals and make those agreements in 2021 that they did. Justin, do you see any similarities there between what happened at the beginning of sports betting and what's happening now in prediction markets? And do you think we can rule out the NFL having a prediction market partner for the next season? There are definitely some similarities between that era and now. And we're kind of seeing it play out with Michael Selig, the head of the COTC in the agency's approach to handling prediction markets and derivatives. I think over the past couple of months, we've seen the COTC kind of have more clarity about their stance and approach to prediction markets. And I think that's gonna directly translate to the NFL jumping in into the business. I think when we saw... the nation's sports betting markets kind of appear and pop up one by one on a state by state basis. Once we saw that kind of take over, the NFL got more comfortable about doing business within the sports betting business. Now, with it comes to prediction markets, it's sort of more of a nationwide federal issue. But I think that kind of helps because there is a little bit more clarity about how they approach it from a nationwide standpoint. And with the CFTC, jumping into lawsuits involving prediction markets and and kind of getting themselves really involved in what's happening. I think that's going to provide a little bit of the avenue for the NFL to kind of do business. Now, will that happen soon? We'll see, because things are kind of still taking shape with the CFTC. And there's going to always be debate about this topic as as long as there's not a nationwide federal authority that everyone's willing to. Adopt and that's including regulators. Now, when it comes to who I think the NFL could team up with, that's that's going to be interesting to see because we've seen some of these prediction markets kind of take a different approach into who they do business with. But we will see the NFL team up with one eventually. The NFL has got to have its footprint in everything. If the NFL is having its footprint in the UK, where you guys are all the way down there, Shalya. There's not only a matter of time before they have a footprint in the prediction market sector. I would also say as well, one final point on that. agree. I agree entirely with what Justin's saying there. And also when we talk about prediction markets, it's not only prediction market platforms and operators who want in on that space, right? Like calcium polymarket is providers. Which kind of companies are going to become crucial to prediction markets if they continue to get sort of legitimacy? Data providers. Which is, you know, who is one example of a data provider that has explicitly expressed an interest in stepping into supplying data to prediction markets, Genius Sports, the NFL, know, so NFL, Genius Sports, largest shareholder. um That the ties between the NFL and Genius Sports in terms of NFL data for state-regulated sports wagering, those ties aren't being severed anytime soon. That's become an integral part of the experience for NFL. There, that seems a logical path to follow, doesn't it? You know, if you're looking, if you're the NFL and you're looking at that. Um, so again, I mean, there's, this is sort of a web that is becoming increasingly more tangled, I think, but I there, that's another reason I can't imagine at all that the NFL, you know, entirely abstains from the prediction market industry because they kind of have, you know, ready-made players there for them already. Well, Tom, you say a tangled web. I say a perfect narrative circle, brilliantly brought back to where we started. thanks ever so much, Tom, Justin, for taking the time to join me today. And we'll put some links in the show notes so listeners can take a read further of what we've discussed today. Thank you to Optimoo for supporting the show as always. And thank you to our listeners for tuning into today's episode of iGaming Daily. and join us again tomorrow to keep up to date with all the latest global gambling news. you