NFL’s Acceptance of Gambling Gets It $270m in Projected Revenues

The National Football League announced that it expects its revenue from deals with betting operators and casinos to reach around $270 million for the year. This number may swell to as high as $1 billion by the end of the 20s, according to NFL’s vice president, Christopher Halpin, who detailed the developments for the Washington Post.

Warming Up Towards Sports Betting

Those impressive numbers weren’t always that way. A few years ago, the NFL was highly antagonistic towards gambling as a whole. Back in those days, even some of the best players could have been suspended for engaging in wagering activities.

Those winds started changing when the Supreme Court ruling on the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act rolled up in 2018. Despite its initial opposition, the NFL took its time to carefully study the gambling market. From researching how fans of the league feel about wagering, the league found out that about 50% of them are either active bettors or support betting, 30% are neutral to it, and only 20% strictly oppose gambling. 

Three years later and the number of betting opponents has declined by 8%. The NFL has drastically changed its attitude to betting. Other than having Caesars Entertainment as a sponsor and DraftKings as a partner, the league boasts numerous deals with various other sports gambling bodies. Thanks to that, the NFL has seen a massive increase in revenue that helps for the maintenance of the league and its teams.

The NFL currently has 32 franchises, out of which 14 are based in states where sports betting is permitted. 

Fully Indulging in the Gambling Industry

NFL’s acceptance of betting also has seen the league investing in equity stakes in several sports betting data providers, namely Genius Sports and Sportradar. If all of this isn’t enough to prove how much the league has warmed up to gambling, it recently revealed that several sportsbooks would be advertized during NFL’s upcoming season. On top of all, the State Farm Stadium will be the first to have an onsite retail sportsbook.

The next season of the National Football League begins on September 9. The outcomes of the matches will be highly wagered on in states where sports betting has been legalized. This will also include Arizona, which is envisioning having its regulated sports betting launch on the same day as the NFL season. 

According to industry analysts, over $20 billion will be wagered on football by the end of 2021.