Is Sportsbook Advertising Becoming a Problem?

The evolution and mainstreaming of the U.S. legal sports betting industry has brought an immense battle for market share. That battle includes advertising that has been popping up across all North American media outlets, from TV to radio to internet-based mediums.

Advertising budgets for massive betting companies like FanDuel, DraftKings, and Caesars have skyrocketed over the last year. You would be hard-pressed to watch an NFL game right now and not see a sportsbook that is sponsoring an event or airing a commercial during a broadcast.

While lucrative for media entities to provide airtime for sportsbooks, issues have started to crop up, forcing regulatory bodies to look at the impact of sportsbook advertising, as it's in danger of saturating TV and computer screens across the country.

Crazy profits lead to crazy advertising spending

Market tracker iSpot.tv has been able to identify just how much sportsbooks have spent on advertising since the NFL season started. "Caesars Entertainment, DraftKings, and FanDuel each spent over $15 million" from Sept. 9 to Oct. 17, according to their report.

The need for a media presence is only growing with more states bringing in their own legal sports betting platforms and more betting providers popping up seemingly every month. Exposure seems to be the key for gaining a larger market share - where better to gain instant exposure than a commercial during the games bettors are watching. And spending money to gain a presence is not an issue for sportsbooks during the current legal sports betting gold rush being experienced in the U.S.

Strategies

Sportsbooks' advertising campaigns have been targeting sports-betting audiences. About 80 percent of FanDuel's advertising takes place during broadcasts of sporting events, according to the iSpot report.

Sportsbooks aren't only creating interesting and intriguing advertising campaigns for TV, radio, and internet, but they are signing pop-culture and sporting icons as brand ambassadors. Some examples include Jamie Foxx, Wayne Gretzky, Shaquille O’Neal, and J.B. Smoove. While not all will appear in commercials for the sportsbooks they represent, all have a role as the "face of their brand," hired to woo seasoned and new bettors to their sites.

Sportsbook advertising will even start appearing on pro sports uniforms, just like in Europe where there has recently been some brushback to the sheer amount of sportsbook advertising in the market. The Washington Capitals are the first of what is expected to be many teams with sportsbook advertising patches on their uniforms. DraftKings' advertising has even been superimposed on the pitching mound during MLB broadcasts.

Regulatory radar

Regulators in participating sports betting markets have been signaling that they are ready to intervene on the influx of sports betting advertising in U.S. markets.

“If the industry does not control itself, the government will step in and certainly create standards they may not want,” said David Rebuck, director of the New Jersey Department of Gaming Enforcement.

Colorado lawmakers have been looking at restrictions on sports betting advertising for their state and, despite not having a legal sports betting platform there, the Massachusetts Gaming Commission has vowed to keep an eye on advertising in its market once it goes live.

Moving forward

The momentum currently being seen in the U.S. legal sports betting industry isn’t likely to slow anytime soon. Sportsbooks are becoming a bigger part of not only the sporting environment in North America but also society as a whole.

In Europe, sportsbook advertising has been under the microscope for years and more restrictions for the industry are becoming more of a reality. Get used to seeing sportsbook advertising anytime you tune into a sporting event. But if regulators have their way, sportsbooks will face some resistance to a Wild West approach to advertising.