Online sports betting and casino gaming affiliate services provider SharpLink Gaming came up with a new free-to-play game for this year’s NCAA March Madness to celebrate its 12-year partnership with the NCAA and Turner Sports.
Starting Lineup Challenge
The game, Starting Lineup Challenge, is part of NCAA March Madness Live, the live streaming for the NCAA Men’s tournament, and is offering basketball fans a chance to boost their experience alongside the matches of the tournament.
Each participant in Starting Lineup Challenge is requested to pick up 5 teams from all 68 competing teams at the NCAA March Madness, operating within the limits of an equal amount of initial starting points while each team is assigned a starting point value based on their seating.
After each round, winning teams are given points according to the initial ranking of the team they beat, while losing teams can no longer acquire points for the rest of the tournament, essentially turning into deadwood.
Participants can sell any of their teams regardless of whether they have won or lost their games to release the points locked in and acquire new teams, or hold to their initial selection round after round and acquire loyalty points.
At the end of the tournament, the participant with the highest points tally wins the game.
SharpLink Gaming’s Starting Lineup Challenge free-to-play game is set to complement the NCAA March Madness Live service that will feature a new multi-game viewing option, the Capital One NCAA March Madness Men’s Bracket Challenge, game recaps and breakdowns “The Catch Up” and “Fast Break” dedicated shows, as well as all the tournament news delivered via the Game Center.
The March Madness Live service, delivered by Turner Sports in collaboration with the NCAA and CBS Sports, is already available for download across Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, Roku, Xbox, Google TV, and LG Smart TVs.
Expanding US Presence
Earlier in the month, the pioneer of smart, data-driven sports betting conversion solutions for the emerging US sports betting and iGaming markets announced it was in the later stages to get its services licensed in Arizona, Louisiana, Michigan and Virginia, and expand its presence across US regulated markets.
Currently, SharpLink Gaming is authorized in Colorado, Illinois, Iowa, Montana, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, West Virginia, Wyoming and Washington, D.C., and with the addition of the pending four, the marketing affiliate will cover 59% of all US regulated sports betting market.
In January, the founded in 2019 in Minneapolis, Minnesota business acquired FourCubed assets amounting to approximately $8.2 million.