How Will TV Benefit From Legal State Sports Betting?

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COMMENTARY

• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, May 17, 2018

Sports betting is now legal in all states, says the Supreme Court. Is this good news for TV? You bet!

Already live TV programming has been affixed with the “premium” value, due to the immediacy of TV viewing and advertising. Now viewers will have another reason to watch.

“It will be a new form of entertainment,” says Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks, citing possible efforts in and around stadiums, arenas and ballparks, speaking on CNBC.  “It is going to improve our [TV] ratings.”

The high profile of sports betting started a few years ago, due to the rise of sports fantasy leagues, such as DraftKings and FanDuel. DraftKings and FanDuel initially spent boatloads of advertising dollars on NFL programming and other sports.

But those companies' sudden high awareness was met with resistance; some individual states questioned the legality of those operations. And there was some pullback of those sports fantasy companies.

The new ruling gives those operators  -- as well as big corporate casino Las-Vegas-based companies -- a major boost. In turn, TV networks could gain from new advertising-related businesses.

Big TV network groups focusing on sports would seem to benefit -- including ABC’s ESPN sports networks; NBC with “Sunday Night Football”; CBS with its NFL programming; and Fox, from its heightened efforts around live sports programming, including the NFL and Major League Baseball.

Worldwide, many countries already have legalized gambling. Even without a U.S. nationally approved imprimatur, there is one estimate that national sports betting here totals anywhere from $113 billion to $247 billion a year.

Cuban believes new electronic games could be developed for consumers via their portable and home electronic devices. The question, he says, is whether states can collaborate with each other and gain scale -- perhaps creating national entities.

Any downside on this news? “It’s going to be free for all -- that’s the only thing you can say with certainty,” says Cuban.