DraftKings Wasting No Time With Sports Betting Advertising

DraftKings Sportsbook Launches Ad Campaign For NJ Sports Betting
Eric Ramsey, May 23, 2018

Remember all those DraftKings ads and billboards promoting daily fantasy sports? How your one annoying friend would quote the taglines along with those paid actors on TV? And you know how you were pretty relieved as you noticed the ads tapering off over the last couple years?

Yeah, so I hate to be the one to tell you this. Those are about to be coming back with a vengeance. If its any consolation, though, they won’t be about DFS this time around.

DraftKings is piling resources into sports betting in a move that has caught literally nobody by surprise. The pace it’s setting toward the market, though, might have caught a few folks off guard. The company’s first sports betting advertising is already up.

This week, DraftKings Sportsbook rolled out its inaugural campaign in New Jersey, scooping up highway billboards and transit signage. If you drive into Atlantic City or hop the rails out of Newark airport, you may spot one that says: “Legal sports betting in Jersey? You bet.” The crowned-D logo and black/ green palette might catch your eye if you’re a DFS customer.

Prior to last week’s ruling from the US Supreme Court, promoting sports betting like this would have been illegal under federal law. That’s no longer the case, and the skyline is already starting to show signs of change.

Let’s run through what we know — and don’t know — about DraftKings Sportsbook so far.

DraftKings and sports betting so far

First of all, DFS is not sports betting. Just wanted to be clear about that.

Under the legal framework that existed until last week, DFS operators distanced themselves from sports gambling like the plague, shunning all comparisons. They’ve argued semantics for a decade as they’ve worked to garner support for fantasy sports bills.

DraftKings Sportsbook is sports betting, though. Or, it will be when it launches.

Starting around November of last year, executives started expressing some curiosity about a potential pivot. At that point, SCOTUS hadn’t even heard the NJ sports betting case, but internal memos were already being passed around.

Following oral arguments in December, DraftKings announced plans to relocate its headquarters within Boston to make room for about 300 additional employees. The growth was inferred to be preparation for legal sports betting (pending a favorable decision from SCOTUS) but it was just a hunch.

It was a correct hunch, though. On top of its Boston expansion, DraftKings opened a new office in Hoboken, NJ, and hired a Head of Sporstbook to oversee the new vertical. The news provided the first substantial proof that a DraftKings sports betting product would be coming out of NJ.

FanDuel also confirmed plans to “get into sports betting” before an announcement that it was in talks to be acquired by UK bookmaker Paddy Power Betfair.

What we still don’t know

There’s a lot that goes into launching a new product into a new market, and there’s likely much left to do before we have an app to download.

Is it doing a sports betting platform in-house? Will a third-party provide the software, like Kambi or someone else? We don’t know either, and DraftKings told Legal Sports Report that there was no update on this front.

Some possible context: The company recently offered support for online wagering in Rhode Island, but it did not submit a proposal for the only available license. Given that it attended the pre-bid conference but didn’t bid on the job, maybe DraftKings Sportsbook can’t meet the state’s October timeline? It would actually be pretty surprising if it could.

For that matter, the DraftKings Sportsbook doesn’t have a path to market in any state yet. The law in NJ will likely require it to partner with a land-based casino licensee, which it has not yet announced, either. It’s not clear who that potential partner could be, and any deal would hinge on the sportsbook tech DraftKings is able to bring to the table.

DraftKings did indicate that it’s “actively seeking” a partnership, and it will no doubt enter the market at its first opportunity. A marketing blitz doesn’t come cheap, especially for a company without a product at the moment.

I think advertising for sports betting will be eased in slowly. Whenever I watch a fight in the UK, you see sports betting ads all over the place and I just think that would be a big cultural jump that will take time to get to in the US.

As lucrative as this will be for all parties, the vast majority of people watching the major sports are not doing so with action on it and have no desire to bet. To just go with some crazy ad blitz and alienate these people and cause a backlash would be the dumbest thing all these companies could do. If they're smart, they will allow for legal sports betting to marinate a little bit and be more sensible in their advertising rather than go with the DraftKings 2015 guerrilla strategy which basically resulted in alienating an entire nation. I haven't seen anything that aggressive since AOL was pimping those 20 free hour CD's.

You still gotta promote the major sports as family entertainment first rather than just have the entire arena and every commercial plastered with "Come place a bet on XYZ." So it'll be interesting to see how aggressive they are. I think the leagues and networks will want a more gradual, measured approach.

Everybody is getting into the act!

I wonder if they’ll pay payouts with p aypal

PatsFan1283 said:

I think advertising for sports betting will be eased in slowly. Whenever I watch a fight in the UK, you see sports betting ads all over the place and I just think that would be a big cultural jump that will take time to get to in the US.

As lucrative as this will be for all parties, the vast majority of people watching the major sports are not doing so with action on it and have no desire to bet. To just go with some crazy ad blitz and alienate these people and cause a backlash would be the dumbest thing all these companies could do. If they're smart, they will allow for legal sports betting to marinate a little bit and be more sensible in their advertising rather than go with the DraftKings 2015 guerrilla strategy which basically resulted in alienating an entire nation. I haven't seen anything that aggressive since AOL was pimping those 20 free hour CD's.

You still gotta promote the major sports as family entertainment first rather than just have the entire arena and every commercial plastered with "Come place a bet on XYZ." So it'll be interesting to see how aggressive they are. I think the leagues and networks will want a more gradual, measured approach.

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I would say 60% of the people I know have some form if wager on the sports they watch, whether its fantasy sports or regular wagers. The die hard fans most likely will have a wager on their team come NFL season.......as for how aggressive of an approach should sports books take, I don't think it matters & it won't alienate any fans that don't bet.

Do you think people pack Churchill down on derby day to watch the horses ho in a circle? They're there to win money betting, same as fans will be betting thru their mobile phones before games, halftime & during the game (live in game wagering). Its all about getting the fans involved.......gone are the days of fans sitting in front of a TV or in the stands for 4 hours just getting drunk & acting stupid.

I don't think it will.matter if they go hardcore on advertising........they do it before opening g casinos, & they will probably do it with sports betting.

daveydips said:

I wonder if they’ll pay payouts with p aypal

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I'm thinking if PP can make money off of this, they will also jump into the game.

You have 13k posts on a sports betting message board, I have 20k posts. Obviously the people we know are more likely to bet on sports than the avg bro.

Yeah, a lot of people play fantasy for $50-100 a year with their friends/co-workers/family but that's more of a casual thing. When you see studies talking about stuff like "35% of viewers have played fantasy sports or bet on a game in the last year", well a lot of it is those people and they probably don't wanna be bombarded with sports betting ads. Most of these people aren't looking to bet on games.

Horse racing is a niche sport that is largely associated with betting so not really a good example when comparing it to something like NFL, NBA, MLB that are trying to present themselves as family friendly entertainment. For the big leagues, I don't think it would be wise to be that aggressive from the start. You're talking going from 0 to 100 very quickly.

I just don't think it'll be all over the place like when watching a Klitscko or Joshua fight or soccer for you soccer fans out there. I think the leagues and networks are probably smart enough to realize how big of a transition it will be and will ease it in slowly, but we'll see.

PatsFan1283 said:

I think advertising for sports betting will be eased in slowly. Whenever I watch a fight in the UK, you see sports betting ads all over the place and I just think that would be a big cultural jump that will take time to get to in the US.

As lucrative as this will be for all parties, the vast majority of people watching the major sports are not doing so with action on it and have no desire to bet. To just go with some crazy ad blitz and alienate these people and cause a backlash would be the dumbest thing all these companies could do. If they're smart, they will allow for legal sports betting to marinate a little bit and be more sensible in their advertising rather than go with the DraftKings 2015 guerrilla strategy which basically resulted in alienating an entire nation. I haven't seen anything that aggressive since AOL was pimping those 20 free hour CD's.

You still gotta promote the major sports as family entertainment first rather than just have the entire arena and every commercial plastered with "Come place a bet on XYZ." So it'll be interesting to see how aggressive they are. I think the leagues and networks will want a more gradual, measured approach.

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Interesting perspective. Good point.

PatsFan1283 said:

You have 13k posts on a sports betting message board, I have 20k posts. Obviously the people we know are more likely to bet on sports than the avg bro.

Yeah, a lot of people play fantasy for $50-100 a year with their friends/co-workers/family but that's more of a casual thing. When you see studies talking about stuff like "35% of viewers have played fantasy sports or bet on a game in the last year", well a lot of it is those people and they probably don't wanna be bombarded with sports betting ads. Most of these people aren't looking to bet on games.

Horse racing is a niche sport that is largely associated with betting so not really a good example when comparing it to something like NFL, NBA, MLB that are trying to present themselves as family friendly entertainment. For the big leagues, I don't think it would be wise to be that aggressive from the start. You're talking going from 0 to 100 very quickly.

I just don't think it'll be all over the place like when watching a Klitscko or Joshua fight or soccer for you soccer fans out there. I think the leagues and networks are probably smart enough to realize how big of a transition it will be and will ease it in slowly, but we'll see.

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This we'll ever see live lines posted throughout the game? "Brought to you by DraftKings".

They already do win percentages during MLB games. Not that big of a leap.

HarryCaray said:

This we'll ever see live lines posted throughout the game? "Brought to you by DraftKings".

They already do win percentages during MLB games. Not that big of a leap.

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I think they will mention the point spread more during the telecast similar to how they mention fantasy football from time to time. The NFL embraced fantasy football awhile ago but they still make sure not to litter the entire broadcast to references of it because they know that not everyone wants to hear that.

Unless it is a SNF, MNF or a big game then the majority of people watching are still people that have a rooting interest in the teams playing and you don't really wanna do overdo references to the over hitting or Todd Gurley breaking the 100 yard bonus.

But to mention live lines throughout the game seems like a leap, I'd be surprised but I guess time will tell.

It'll probably be on the leagues/networks to be the moderating tone with how in your face they wanna be with this stuff, because if it is left to DraftKings they will obviously be aggressive as fuck.

PatsFan1283 said:

I think they will mention the point spread more during the telecast similar to how they mention fantasy football from time to time. The NFL embraced fantasy football awhile ago but they still make sure not to litter the entire broadcast to references of it because they know that not everyone wants to hear that.

Unless it is a SNF, MNF or a big game then the majority of people watching are still people that have a rooting interest in the teams playing and you don't really wanna do overdo references to the over hitting or Todd Gurley breaking the 100 yard bonus.

But to mention live lines throughout the game seems like a leap, I'd be surprised but I guess time will tell.

It'll probably be on the leagues/networks to be the moderating tone with how in your face they wanna be with this stuff, because if it is left to DraftKings they will obviously be aggressive as fuck.

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Theoretically the networks are the last filter as far as how inundated they allow the masses to become, but operators will still have a heavy influence via the almighty dollar. Networks are going to have a hard time saying no to what I imagine will be thrown at them. Maybe there will be some kind of contractual limit built into the television rights contracts moving forward.

They should have an add-on, similar to a google chrome extension. Something you enable in the settings with your cable provider and it overlays live odds, gambling ads, that kinda thing. Maybe in the not too distant future.

Ya, it'll be a classic case of short-term profit/gain vs long-term vision/sustainability.

But I think the case study with DFS in '15 is a pretty clear example of what you don't wanna do.

Will you have to have a Jersey address to join and play? Could you live in another state and establish an account?

Legend-I-Aint said:

Will you have to have a Jersey address to join and play? Could you live in another state and establish an account?

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yet to be determined

Legend-I-Aint said:

Will you have to have a Jersey address to join and play? Could you live in another state and establish an account?

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You will need a Jersey address and need to physically be in Jersey to make bets (or w/e other state it is legal in)

Almost positive of that.

PatsFan1283 said:

You will need a Jersey address and need to physically be in Jersey to make bets (or w/e other state it is legal in)

Almost positive of that.

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I live in a state that allows legal heroine injection sites monitored by nurses and doctors. If you OD they hit you with the adrenaline shot and bring you back to life. It's also a state that will not allow sports gambling. Play the state lottery though. Fuck!

We get commercials during the games here in Nevada, but the adds are one every now and then, nothing like what draftkings was doing, and it's usually William Hill.