The next generation of gambling affiliates
| By Aaron Noy
In the nascent US online betting and gaming sector, traditional igaming affiliates are facing significant competition from major media brands moving onto their patch. Jake Pollard looks at how the likes of Fox Sports, ESPN and NBCSN can leverage their massmarket audiences to become operators’ principal source of traffic
The US igaming affiliate and media sector has some similarities with the EU industry but in other ways it is also very different. The first and obvious difference is how ‘media’ is defined in the context of igaming as we know it in Europe.
On this side of the Atlantic it is mainly viewed through SEO, PPC, advertising and marketing. All those skills obviously play an important role in the US, but they are at a very different stage in their development.
‘Media’ in the context of the US betting scene is about the prevalence of betting content: videos, betting and sports features, markets or spreads. For a European observer the format is distinctive and differentiates substantially from what their experience of the sector is up to now.
The repeal of PASPA in May 2018 is often seen as a watershed moment in the US gambling industry and from a regulatory perspective that is certainly the case. Regulation of online and landbased sports betting and casino gaming has spread at breakneck speed across the US in the intervening 18 months and created much momentum and excitement for stakeholders. And that is without the major states including New York, Texas or California nearing any kind of regulation of their respective sectors – at the time of writing in any case.
When it comes to the role US sports media could play in driving traffic to operators, acting as ‘traditional’ affiliates, it is clear the likes of ESPN, Fox Sports and NBCSN, along with data- and stats-focused outlets such as theScore, Action Network or Rotogrinders, have the readers, reach and target audience to adopt a business model that could bring substantial new revenues to their coffers.
However, if we take a step back and look at US sports betting along more Thistorical lines, it is also clear that this content has always been present and broadly accepted across US society, media and film. That the relationship is even more pronounced in these post-PASPA repeal days is not surprising, of course.
SOCIALLY ACCEPTABLE?
Visiting and browsing US sports media outlets, an unaccustomed reader would think sports and betting content are joined at the hip. To a certain extent they are, such is their prevalence on screen. Does this mean sports betting is widely accepted as a mainstream leisure activity in the US? Maybe, but as mentioned, its presence on TV screens, online, mobile or on radio airwaves is nothing new. As David Purdum, gambling industry reporter at ESPN, says: “The acceptance of sports betting as a leisure activity among sports fans has grown, but really it’s always been there. “Sports betting prognosticators have been a small part of US sports media for decades. Bookmaker and noted gambler Jimmy ‘The Greek’ Snyder was a staple on NFL pre-game shows in the 1980s, and throughout the last few decades various media outlets have featured prognosticators who made point-spread picks, some more openly than others.” This trend is only going to increase as sports media and betting continue to converge, especially within an environment where print newspapers’ media revenues have been falling for the past 15 years and those generated by online advertising have not grown enough to offset the losses. With that in mind, it is only normal that those media groups would look at affiliate models and seek to make use of their audience size, brands and reach into what is the perfect target audience for sportsbooks. Affiliate revenue is an obvious way to develop new revenue streams. One of the key questions therefore is whether the affiliates already connected to the gambling world (what the sector would describe as the ‘traditional’ ones) will be able to compete against the mainstream press outlets with their giant audiences and brand names.NEW TERRITORY
Gambling.com Group is one of those ‘traditional’ igaming affiliates. Does it see those media conglomerates as major rivals when it comes to driving US sports betting and gaming traffic?
CEO Charles Gillespie says in some respects it is a tradtional affiliate and the US has forced the group to pivot in the way it operated historically.
“We have put together a first-class US media team with 15-plus reporters and journalists and are the first gambling industry company to be accepted to the Associated Press Sports Editors group,” he explains. “We are investing heavily to bring some of the best reporting and content to the US market around all forms of sports betting.
“This is somewhat new territory for us as we have historically been focused purely on performance marketing or ‘the bottom of the funnel’. This type of content has broad appeal and is not directly tied to users signing up for new sportsbooks accounts.
“This ‘top of the funnel’ content is what traditional media companies like ESPN and Fox Sports produce. Given that we are broadening our reach and investing in this new area, I do now see them as competitors for a certain part of the business. They are not however competitors for our core business of performance marketing.”
Producing content is one of the new strings US affiliates are adding to their bows, but stats and data also play huge roles in the US. Does this make it even more difficult for new entrants or affiliate start-ups in the market?
“It certainly doesn’t make it easier. We have data deals with a variety of suppliers and integrating and monitoring it is of course a lot of work,” says Gillespie.
“Many of the data products that come off the shelf are not adequate for the US market or not a good fit for affiliates, so some bespoke integration is required for anyone trying to deliver a compelling product to US consumers.”
The fact that US sports media seems much more comfortable discussing betting, tips and odds on screen than is the case in the UK implies that it’s been accepted in the US as a mainstream leisure activity. In fact, Gillespie explains, the US media is still finding its feet in terms of what level of betting discussion will be appropriate long term.
“Shows like Lock it In are 100% sports betting and I think from a media investment perspective still experimental,” he says. “Not in the sense of whether it will be profitable, but whether it will be socially acceptable – to society, regulators, problem gambling interests and so on.
“The UK has much more experience of combining legal betting and sport, and all parties seem to have settled on an unwritten rule that sports media coverage will not engage directly with betting.”
SEO and PPC marketing are still in the very early stages of their lifecycles in the US. This means the likes of Gambling.com Group, Catena Media or Better Collective, while still able to attract decent-sized audiences with their content sites, don’t have the same gravitational pull as a Fox Sports or ESPN.
Says Gillespie: “People don’t search as much for gambling or for the same things as they do in Europe. This is changing fast, however, and that ‘normalisation’ will accelerate with the opening up of the PPC market. The presence of the PPC advertising for the first time will help shape and increase the search queries seen in the market.”
This is likely to happen fairly quickly. In late October, Google announced it would allow gambling advertising to most of the US jurisdictions where sports betting is regulated. Iowa, Montana, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island can be added to New Jersey, West Virginia and Nevada as states where operators will be allowed to advertise on the search engine.