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Legal online sports betting in New York is just getting started, but the myriad New York sports teams are no strangers to partnering with gambling companies. Many of them currently count casinos, daily fantasy sports platforms, and sportsbooks among their corporate sponsors.
With Saturday’s launch of online sportsbooks, however, the intricacy and significance of these partnerships could be about to increase. Fans might soon find themselves thinking they went to see some gambling ads with a sporting event happening between them.
New York sports teams all-in on gaming partnerships
The Buffalo Bills are the most recent to announce such deals. Their new partnership with FanDuel and the same with Caesars explicitly cover sports betting. The Bills also count Seneca Casinos among their sponsors.
Here is a list of other NY professional sports franchises and their active gambling partnerships:
- Brooklyn Nets – Betway, FanDuel, and the New York Lottery
- New York Islanders – Betway, Jackpocket, and the New York Lottery
- New York Knicks – BetMGM, Caesars
- New York Rangers – BetMGM, Caesars
Other NY teams have had similar partnerships in the past. For example, the New York Liberty has counted both DraftKings and FanDuel as primary jersey sponsors at different times. New deals with the Liberty and other NY teams could surface quickly.
Groundwork is in place for many more deals
To continue with the example of the Liberty, Nets Owner Joseph Tsai also owns the WNBA franchise. There are a couple of ways to read that situation. It would seem that building on the past with FanDuel is a natural fit. FanDuel was the jersey sponsor of the Liberty just last season, and the Nets are already a FanDuel partner.
At the same time, the Nets did not support the bid for a NY platform provider license for sports betting that FanDuel was part of. The NBA team instead threw its weight behind a competing bid from Fanatics. That bid ultimately failed.
Thus, the Liberty might go in a different direction than the Nets. Also potentially going in different directions are the Buffalo Sabres and New York Yankees. Those two organizations supported the bid that FanDuel was part of. FanDuel wasn’t alone there, however.
Bally Bet, DraftKings and the BetMGM NY Sportsbook, were also part of that application. Thus, it’s entirely possible that the Sabres and Yankees could go with any of those brands because there is some familiarity there. Of course, there’s still an in for FanDuel there as well.
The Islanders haven’t been shy about wanting to add to their contingent of gambling sponsors, reportedly eyeing a couple of sports betting partners. The New York Mets have also recently been kicking the tires on a deal for a brick-and-mortar casino next to Citi Field with the Las Vegas Sands Corporation.
Why might gambling companies be soon keen on wrapping up these contracts, and what could that mean for fans in NY? To get an idea of that, all New Yorkers have to do is turn on their televisions.
All about the money honey
These sponsorships are no different than any other promotional partnerships at their most basic level. The gambling companies pay the sports teams money to get their logos and names in front of potential customers.
That can take many forms, but that’s the basic idea. In a state that contains the most populous city in the US and a litany of high-profile sports teams, those promotional opportunities are pretty valuable.
Getting an ad on a Yankees broadcast or at Madison Square Garden means exposure to millions of people. That’s why these gaming companies aren’t wasting time trying to snatch up that real estate.
For that reason, fans of these teams should expect to see more such ads going forward. The advent of online sports betting in NY means unprecedented access not only for customers but also for those brands to those customers.
There’s no better place for a sportsbook to access potential bettors than on a popular sports team’s digital channels. For that reason, New Yorkers are about to become very familiar with their wagering options, like it or not.
