iGaming Daily

Anaya McDonald (00:01.978)
Hello, welcome to our Gaming Daily brought to you by OptiMove. I'm Ted Orme Clay, editor of Inside of Sport, and I'm here with SPC's media manager, Charlie Horner, where we're gonna have a chat about something that's quite big and wide-ranging topic, think. Something that goes back quite a few years, but we really think has been increasing in prominence lately. So the relationship between betting and sports, it's been facing a lot of pressure in a number of different markets in recent years.

If you look at it, it still remains as close as ever. And we've recently seen it kind of incorporating new elements that are going beyond the traditional ones of just wagering lines and sponsorship and marketing visibility. We've seen some of the most prominent sports books try to hand that sports media and streaming. They're moving into a world that's traditionally dominated by a lot of the more established broadcasters. Then on the other hand, we're also seeing a lot of these broadcasters and outlets trying

trying their own hand at operating their own betting platforms as well. So there's a real interesting convergence going on here. Before we get into the conversation, I guess I should ask, how was it going, Charlie? How was your weekend? Yeah, yeah, it was good. It was good, thanks. know, ruined by football once again. Sunderland getting beat off Sheffield United. But no, a good weekend. How was yours, Ted? Did they win? No, we beat off Sheffield United. you got beat, I thought you said they...

You've held off Sheffield United for a minute. Yeah. well, that's shame. Yeah, mine was all right. Forrest won, conversely, but only one nil again at home to Whipswitch Town. So it's not the most convincing performance, I think. And we've got City tomorrow and United at the weekend. So that's quite a tough one, I think. Funnily enough, actually, I was out in Stockport on Saturday night and I ran into an old friend of ours, Jacob from the

webinar team who sends his regards to everyone at SBC. He seems to be doing well, so that was a nice little surprise. Anyway, we'll get into the... In fact, I'll start this off by asking you a question actually, Charlie. Did you watch the Sunderland game? Yes, I did. What did you watch it on? Sky. So, the traditional sort of one, the one that we all expect. But we're seeing, obviously, lately a lot of these...

Anaya McDonald (02:25.273)
sports books, particularly in the US I think, that's the one we're going to talk about now for at least anyway. There's a real hive of activity going on there regarding this sort of convergence between media and betting. Lately the story that's kind of brought this to my attention is that Fanjul has become the streaming partner as well as a sponsor of the Professional Women's Hockey League. They've also announced a new CEO of Fanjul TV which is their

well, as the name suggests, it's their over-the-top streaming platform. They've really been putting a lot of effort into that lately. obviously you're the, you used to work on the SBC America side of things, so this is something you've covered quite a bit. Is this something that you've seen quite a lot in the US more so than other markets, do you think? In terms of operators launching streaming platforms, yeah, I think this is more of a US,

angle rather than a European. You mentioned Fanjul TV, that's something that they have put a lot of effort into. That's providing round the clock coverage of racing and other sports. So you can watch the races and you can bet along with them. There's also sports analysis shows, which again just helps that marketing funnel for some of their...

sportsbook trading on big events like the NFL. It's not just Fanjul who are doing this sort of thing. DraftKings has the DraftKings network which brings together sports coverage, streaming options. It's something that, you know, we talk about the convergence between betting and sports a lot, but I think it's something that the big two operators in the US particularly are really tapping into and making the most out of.

I do find it quite interesting, especially coming from the UK side of things where I've been mainly working on British betting and European betting before I moved on to the payments and more mainstream sports side of things of what we do here at SBC. It is very interesting what the American sports books are trying to do in this regard. We've even seen, if I'm just going to stick with Fanjul for now because this is one I've noticed a lot more about lately, but know that Fanjul TV has been working directly with sports broadcasters as well.

Anaya McDonald (04:53.686)
They've been getting the rights to hockey leagues and things like that but also I believe some MMA tournaments and stuff like that. So they're really upping the game there and I think obviously there is quite a big reason for it which is that it's just the ultimate way guess to engage sports fans who are the betting audience that is what they are at core, sports fans, is of course to deliver this stuff, it? It's to deliver the content.

And we're seeing over the past few years in particular, like a real focus from the industry on content. Like if you go to all the conferences that we'll have gone to over the past year or so, we've seen some of SBC, North America, Canada, the big one in Lisbon, obviously. There's always a lot of discussion around content at the heart of marketing and really pumping that out around sort of the biggest tournaments. We're seeing a lot of these sportsbooks having their own pundits.

and so putting their own shows together. I know we're to talk about this a bit later, but it's obviously something we've seen in the UK with like brands having their own YouTube channels and things like that and having their own sort of little punditry teams and like teams of influencers talking about things. But the US sports books really seem to be taking it to the next level. Like we were saying, by actually having direct streaming sort of platforms and really starting to, I want to maybe not blur the lines, but like cross the boundary between just being a betting operator and moving into the media side of things.

Yeah, I completely agree with everything you've said there, Ted. I mean, it's that ability to bring the sports to the fans alongside that betting offering that really makes things stand out. it's difficult with the bigger sports like the NFL and the MLB and NBA and whatnot, because the media rights to those sports are particularly expensive and they have big cable network deals. So you can't necessarily bring direct live streaming for those sports.

via Genius Sports and their bet vision products, I think operators like Caesars and Bet Rivers actually do provide streaming and betting capabilities in one inside the sports book, but bringing it back to FanDuel, they have rights for racing. They have certain football, soccer, leagues within their package, darts, loads of different sports that people can go on and watch and then bet along.

Anaya McDonald (07:15.962)
alongside. Fanjul also recently took over, think Jess Wellman and I discussed it on a podcast a few weeks back, the regional sports networks from, it was previously, the naming rights were licensed by Bally's, but Fanjul have taken that over. And that's significant because these regional sports networks allow for sort of localized

fans in certain localities say if you're in Ohio you would have your subscription to the regional sports network in Ohio and you'd be able to watch the action from those teams in that state so it's really targeted so you can really get to that local audience in Ohio for example. So that's another thing that Fanjula are doing in this sort of streaming space to just get their brand out there, blur those lines like we said about

through media and sports book and really it's all about branding and getting people to come and bet on their platform. The regional point made there, that's quite a big one I think. That was something that we covered on Inside a Sport lately. I think that's a really interesting sort of comparison to make there because the US is obviously just such a vast country and has such a very diverse sports ecosystem and the ecosystem of the wider businesses that are built up around that like the broadcasting.

Like in the UK you just, you couldn't get something like that could you? Because obviously everything's just sort of mixed between primarily like Sky, TNT and then know BBC, ITV and Channel 4 getting a bit where they can but you know it's chiefly those two platforms really isn't it that hold the bulk of our sports rights and that's nationwide and you don't really have regional networks like you do in the US. Like you know you can drive from one end of England to the other in a day.

if you time it right, there's US states where you can't even do that. You could be driving for a day and you've barely left a county. So yeah, the regional aspects of it is quite significant there. think that obviously the companies like Fangil will have been looking at that and thinking, this is such a big diverse ecosystem. There's a way for us to get involved there and get a stake and help build up our profile, build up our network. And like you say, probably get that.

Anaya McDonald (09:31.196)
sort like regional element in terms of how you engage with fans and your marketing and things like that. know, like in Ohio, for example, it could maybe give you the opportunity to say, right, how are going to specifically engage with fans of Ohio sports teams via these platforms? How are we going to, you know, bring in like notable athletes as pundits and commentators and things like that. Get like maybe like locally known social media influences in today's day and age, like NFL influences, know, MLB influences, whatever.

and sort of incorporate them into that. yeah, like we saying, that's really, that's the reason for it, isn't it? Why these companies are getting involved in that, mainly for the engagement sort of side of things. And you can completely understand why and how they're doing it. Yeah, I mean, ultimately, I think, I would assume that the US in particular are much further down the road than, along that road than we are. But it's all about sport as an entertainment product. Whereas I think in,

the UK, we're a little bit resident as audiences to accept that sport is just an entertainment product. We talk about things like the Super League and those types of things that are moving in that sort of North American direction and we don't, as audiences, we don't like that. As fans, we don't like that. We protest and we get things overturned. I think the US is much further down the line of treating

sports primarily as an entertainment product which allows these sort of ventures to be a little bit more successful than us. And you mentioned that in the UK our broadcasting rights for the Premier League and whatnot are tied up for the big broadcasters but the betting companies, they have their productions, we see Skybet.

launching Stick to Football and the overlap with Gary Neville and his production company and there's other sort of media sponsorships that go on. So we're getting there, but I don't think we're quite as far down the road as we are in North America. Yeah, and I think it's probably debatable as to whether it ever will reach that point of like, will, yeah, will there be like a Ladbrokes TV where they've got their own sort of distribution of it, to name one example. I don't know if they will do. I don't think in this country we'll go down that route. I think we'll have more.

Anaya McDonald (11:53.651)
the convergence along the lines of, let's say like live score group style sort of thing where they've got their live score bet and Virgin bet brand and they combine that, don't they, with the live score, which the name of the app that does what it says on the tin, provides you with the live scores. Obviously, Skybet, you say, is kind of a historic example. That's quite an interesting one, isn't it? Because obviously that was set up as part of the Sky group and now it's part of Flutter Entertainment.

But that's often sort of given it's been raised a lot in US circles hasn't it sky betters being like the ultimate example of what people want their sportsbook to be I think there's been quite a few Senior figures some of the big US sports betting brands you said like we want to be the sky bet for the US sort of thing and I mean is this it would it be we're kind of moving away from the whole thing of Operators saying which operators trying to be broadcasters now to the broad broadcasters moving into sort of betting kind of thing but

Is that something ESPN bet were quite keen on replicating, if I remember rightly, they wanted to bring the Skybet model to the US in the same sort of sense of having this big media, well-known sports media brand as the face of a betting operator. Yeah, yeah. And I don't know whether this is going to be slightly contradictory of what we've just said in terms of sort of maybe the UK following North America. But I think this is a case of North America following the UK because Skybet is the gold standard for that.

media brand, sports book, amalgamation, sort of achieving long-term commercial success with it. We know how successful SkyBet has been as a brand, the use of some of those big pundits and broadcasters over the years through that sort of brand licensing. And it's definitely something that executives at Penn Entertainment would have been influenced by. I mean,

Anaya McDonald (13:53.921)
Penn Entertainment previously did a deal with Barstool. They had the Barstool sports book. So it's not something that's particularly new in North America. This is just the latest attempt. Flutter even had Fox Sports Bet, which closed down, I believe it was last summer. So it's something that operators have tried stateside. It hasn't necessarily worked yet. We're still in the early days, it must be said, of ESPN Bet. I think they've been sort of live.

for about a year now, or just over a year. And it's something that they'll continue to invest in, continue to try and break the duopoly of FanDuel and DraftKings. They have the huge ESPN, that's a Titan brand in US sports broadcasting, probably the biggest sports broadcaster in the world. And so they're trying to leverage that brand.

Can they turn that into market share? Maybe that's a debate for another day. But it's definitely an example of Skybet being a huge influence on the global stage. Absolutely. I think we should probably just take a quick break now. But yeah, we'll be back shortly to continue this discussion.

Five minutes off sound. Yeah, talk sport the zone. Yeah, yeah against the rest of it. All right

Ahem.

Anaya McDonald (15:27.683)
Do a big yawn. As long as I don't come back into it and just cough down the mic like that one time. would, yeah. You'd be a nice one. Well, make sure to get your Australia example in as well. Yeah, yeah, need to get into that. OK, right. Start just rambling. Let's roll, you? Give me that down the mic. Not again. You still need to pull that clip up for me. I've got it.

Still want the clip of sorry just to interrupt again that we need the clip of Joe we do we need to get it I've got a USB stick and it's on that what did he say

of John. no this isn't the one I was talking about I was talking about the post Lisbon one where they were rambling on for 20 minutes about bloody Ted taking Victor for a Chinese and I have that one I have that one I can get that one I need to see that anyway yeah sorry yeah let's let's crack on

Anaya McDonald (16:53.665)
And we're back. Welcome back to our gaming daily after that short break. We're just going to crack on with this conversation we've been having about sports media convergence, as I'm sure you've all been listening to. So obviously we've seen this relationship between sports, between sports media and kind of the sports, just the wider sports ecosystem itself and betting change a lot over the years. Obviously, you when we were younger, it would have been purely in

just in the realms of sponsorship predominantly, sponsorship and marketing. And we've seen that kind of spiral and evolve into companies taking more of like a media and content element to it. We talked about earlier the things like SkyBets, know, the overlap now being quite a big thing. And other companies like William Hill, 888, Betfrend and so on all having their own. This is obviously me being very UK centric. But these operators having quite a big sort of YouTube presence and having...

influencers and content creators and things like that on there as a bit of a fan engagement tool. We've then also increasingly seen a lot of these companies, like we've said, in media kind of making the leap over to the betting industry. Like the big example we've had in the UK lately has obviously been Torxport Bet, hasn't it? The Zone as well, actually, is obviously a big one. They're now active in a couple of different markets. think it's UK, Germany.

and Ireland I want to say, I might be wrong, I might have to correct myself later on that one but I'm pretty sure they're definitely in the UK and Germany. Interesting with Dzone, obviously Dzone Group owns Dzone Bear but I think on their broadcasts on the main OTT platform that lot of us might more know it for, especially in the UK for boxing and things like that, they do still have ads for other operators I think so they've not made it an exclusive sort of thing just to Dzone Bear which I think is quite an interesting one to see.

But like we saying, we're obviously seeing some countries, particularly the US, but also Australia, kind of take it a bit further. We've talked about Fanjul TV and the DraftKings network in the US. And then in Australia, you've also got Tabcorp, quite a big stakeholder in the racing industry and a media distributor of that. And from what I remember, we've seen a lot of reports about Entain Australia wanting to do the same thing. I mean, like,

Anaya McDonald (19:13.56)
From your perspective Charlie then as like someone who worked on the America side of things for a bit How how it seems to have evolved a lot quicker there in that you know PASPA got repealed in 2018 We've seen more more states open their markets and obviously as a result of that sports marketing and sports sponsorship explode But they've really quickly taken that leap from sponsorship to the media side of things haven't they much quicker than then it happened in the UK I think Yeah, it's something that's developed

developed very quickly but the US market has developed very quickly. We've seen since 2018 an influx of operators come in and now we're seeing a lot of operators go out and we're still in the very early stages of that market but you can see the dynamics have changed very very quickly to the point where it's looking like a bit of a duopoly. There are challenger brands ESPN that are one of those. One thing that you did say earlier Ted that I just...

like to add is where you were talking about a Dzone bet also taking other operators adverts during their... Well, more of Dzone, the OTT platform, not Dzone bet, but yeah, yeah. Yeah, Dzone taking other operators adverts during their broadcast. That's also something that ESPN do as well. So they won't exclusively talk about ESPN bet during their broadcast. There will be sort of, there might be a FanDuel ad or a DraftKings ad or whatever.

those adverts are still quite lucrative to those broadcasters as well, even though you have those commitments to the adjacent brand, the adjacent operator brand, if that makes sense. So yeah, the US has developed very, very quickly. I'm sure it's got a lot to...

develop into as well in terms of that media partnership and it's entertainment. The US love to innovate and pioneer on the global stage in terms of broadcasting and entertainment and all those kind of things. So I'm sure there'll be plenty more to come in the future. Yeah, I think the one thing I just like before we we close off, think to touch on is obviously like, is this a guaranteed

Anaya McDonald (21:35.539)
Is this a guaranteed formula for success? Because I think that's quite a multi-layered question as well, really. Because I reckon in terms of what we see Fanjul and Draft King's doing, I think I can't really see that particularly going wrong in terms of, unless they come up against some, this is all hypothetical, maybe some compliance issues or some backlash around the just sort of visibility of.

of betting in sports and in public life, which I know is a conversation that has been emerging in the US, as you'd expect, similar to how it's been building up in the UK over the past few years. But I think in terms of them getting involved and running their own sports media properties and holdings and things like that, I think that has room to be quite a successful model. I think the other side of things is the media companies getting involved in sports betting.

That's something that's got a bit more of a rocky track record from what I remember, certainly in the UK. think, obviously, Torque Sport Bet has been doing okay from what I remember. I think the Zone Bet has been as well. But we've got more of a historic example of Sun Bets, which was an attempt to joint venture between the Sun, which to anyone who doesn't know is one of the UK's most widely read tabloid newspapers, and TabCorp, the Australian betting operator.

that did not find very much set at all, I think ended up coming up against a couple of regulatory hurdles. I think these examples really sort of show that, nothing's a guaranteed formula for success. You've really got to tailor everything to your own individual approach and sort of own your own market conditions. I think we're coming up to the end of our session, so.

Yeah, I hope that me and Charlie have left all our listeners a lot to think about there and a lot to go over. think we've named, I've lost count, amount of brands and companies we've named during that. But yeah, thank you very much to everyone for tuning into iGaming Daily and we'll catch you for the next episode.