BETTOR BONANZA
Nielsen handicaps windfall for sports leagues
Legal sports betting stands to generate an extra $4.2 billion a year for America’s four main professional sports leagues, according to a new study.
The study by Nielsen Sports allocates $2.3 billion of the windfall to the NFL, followed by $1.1 billion to MLB, $585 million to the NBA and $216 million to the NHL.
Nielsen, which surveyed 1,000 adult sports fans before making its projections, attributes $3.3 billion — or nearly 80 percent of the anticipated annual revenue increase — to what it calls “increased fan engagement.”
That’s additional revenue the leagues can expect from sponsorships, merchandise, ticket sales and, most of all, the sale of media rights — all indirect byproducts, Nielsen says, of increased consumer interest generated by legalized betting.
The study, commissioned by the American Gaming Association, a trade group for casinos, turned up figures that look comparable to the bonanza the casinos themselves are bracing for.
In June, the research firm Gambling Compliance estimated the legal sports betting industry will be worth between $3.1 billion and $5.2 billion in five years.
What the study did not address — yet remains a bone of contention between the gambling industry and the sports leagues — is how big of a cut each team deserves.
Thedebate centers on what MLB once presented as “integrity fees” but now calls “royalties.”
The leagues’ request for such handouts — after years of resisting sports betting on grounds it would tarnish team reputations and foster game fixing — rankles advocates of legal betting who finally saw it happen after a decision by the US Supreme Court in May,
At last week’s Global Gaming Expo panel in Las Vegas, Sara Slane, the AGA’s senior vice president of public affairs, railed in a panel discussion against MLB Executive Vice President Kenny Gersh for belatedly inviting himself to a party his league and others had blocked for years.
“[Now] you want a cut of the revenue without any of the risk,” she said.
Gersh countered that the leagues provide the games that permit sports betting to flourish.
“If the Yankees weren’t playing the Red Sox last night, the casinos don’t have that game to offer bets on,” he said.
Gersh was conciliatory on one front, however. The1 percent integrity fee MLB originally demanded from the gambling industry for sportsbetting wagers has since been reduced to a 0.25 percent royalty.