Sports Betting Partnership Tracker

If you live in a state with legal sports betting, you are no doubt well aware of the many sponsorship deals that teams have with individual sportsbooks. How could you not be? Advertisements for sportsbooks are EVERYWHERE in states with legal sports betting. Even those in states with more limited sports betting opportunities or states where it is not legal yet see plenty of sportsbook advertising on national TV broadcasts. Every major sport has sportsbook partnerships, and that includes branding and television advertising. It’s a new world, and sportsbooks are spending millions of dollars trying to get their product noticed by as many people as possible. 

Sportsbook partnerships with professional sports teams

Partnering with sportsbooks has been a significant new source of revenue for our country’s professional sports teams and leagues (MLB, NBA, NFL, NHL, and PGA Tour). Sportsbooks entering new states are eager to market to a broad base of fans and look to the local sports teams as a sure-fire way to reach and engage with a large population of potential customers. This symbiotic relationship has led to a proliferation of sportsbook partnerships, led by the four Philadelphia teams and the New Jersey Devils, which have capitalized on their location in the two states (New Jersey and Pennsylvania) with the largest concentration of sports bettors.

Sportsbook partnerships with colleges/universities

Partnerships between sportsbooks and NCAA member institutions are small in number but large in significance. This list is sure to grow as both universities and the general public become more comfortable with legal, regulated sports betting on college sports.

LSU and Caesars Sportsbook announce a partnership pic.twitter.com/LUfCvYGM07
— Barrett Sallee 🇺🇸 (@BarrettSallee) September 17, 2021

Professional sports leagues’ official sportsbook partners

NFL announced what it is calling its first U.S. sportsbook partnerships with Caesars Entertainment, DraftKings and FanDuel. Those companies now are the NFL’s "official sports betting partners.”
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) April 15, 2021

The partnership between sports leagues and sportsbooks generally consists of licensed use of official league data and league logos/branding in sportsbook advertising. As you can see in the table below, partnerships between sports leagues and sportsbooks are becoming very popular because of the many benefits to both parties. Sportsbooks receive additional name-brand recognition and official data to use in live betting and prop betting while sports leagues receive additional revenue from the license fees they charge for the use of their official data and branding.

Sports venue partnerships with sportsbooks

In several states, including Arizona, Maryland, Virginia, and Ohio, sports teams qualify for sports betting licenses and can partner with sportsbooks as their online skin. This agreement often includes a retail sportsbook at the team’s arena/stadium. Other states/districts such as Washington, DC and Illinois authorize sports venues to partner with sportsbooks to build a retail sportsbook on-site without an online licensing component. And in some cases the venue just wanted to partner with a sportsbook. Whatever the case, just about every sports facility has some sort of sportsbook branding, but the facilities in the table below feature much more than just a sign on the wall or advertisement in the team program (are those still a thing?).

Media partnerships with sportsbooks

There used to be a hard line between sports media and gambling. In the past, television broadcasters would cheekily refer to gambling during the game, cryptically referring to a play as “important to some,” or some similar reference to the over/under or the point spread. Those days are long gone. ESPN now includes gambling information in its shows and odds on the ticker on the bottom of the screen, while personalities on various sports shows, including Inside the NBA on TNT, make picks based on the spread or moneyline. This has also led to many partnerships between media companies and sportsbooks, a natural alignment that reflects the increased interest in sports betting among the general public.

Celebrity partnerships with sportsbooks

🚨 Introducing WynnBET's newest brand ambassador 🚨

Welcome to the team, @SHAQ! pic.twitter.com/xdo8xZd95A
— WynnBET (@WynnBET) August 9, 2021

Sportsbooks employ many strategies to increase awareness of their product. Like any large company, sportsbooks engage in broad-based advertising campaigns and sponsor events or sports teams. They also contract with celebrities to promote their sportsbook as part of a marketing partnership. Some of these partnerships make sense, while others have raised a few eyebrows. Either way, celebrity endorsements are a growing part of the overall marketing efforts used by sportsbooks to attract new customers in states where sports betting is legal.

More on sports betting partnerships

The sheer number of sportsbook-related commercials has gone from novelty to irritation, but the sponsorships do have some benefits. For example, if you’re a loyal Betfred customer in Colorado, you can head over to the Betfred tailgate set up outside the Broncos stadium and have a drink before the game. If you’re more of a Caesars person, head on over to the spacious Caesars Sportsbook inside Washington, DC’s Capital One Arena and make some bets before a Capitals or Wizards game. If you have VIP status, you will no doubt receive additional benefits.

In some states, sportsbooks need to partner with a sports team in order to have access to the market. This creates a natural partnership opportunity that has led to sportsbooks being built or planned at sports facilities. In other cases, a media company partners with a sportsbook to use their odds information, which helps readers know who is favored and why. Another natural alignment is sportsbooks partnering with sports leagues to use the leagues’ official data for their oddsmaking and live betting. 

Sportsbook partnerships are becoming an increasingly important part of the sports betting industry, so we at Sports Handle thought it would be useful to create a tracker to keep tabs on the state of play. Think of the page as a work in progress – we’ll update it as soon as additional information is released. If you want to let us know about anything we missed or if you have any comments about the tracker, please send us a message. You can also find Sports Handle on Twitter. We love hearing from our readers.