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Single Event Gambling to Become Legal in Canada
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Source: SportsNet
If you haven’t heard yet, you can now bet on sports in Canada. Yes, huge news! With that said, there is now a mad dash to get in on the action. Sports gambling companies are throwing advertising & sponsorship money into the Canadian sports industry to try and get a percentage of the Canadian market share. This is prevalent from jersey sponsors, the ad reads in podcasts, and even large acquisitions/ investments into Canadian companies. In this piece, we’ll touch on three main components: growth, investment, and the future.
Growth. Love it or hate it, things change. Purists may wish sports went back to the days where there were ‘real fans’ you only followed one team, it was about the crest on the sweater, and you rode with that team through the ups and downs. Well, news flash. Society doesn’t necessarily have the patience to deal with a poor team's performance for years on end. They want excitement, or more importantly an experience! Take NFL Fantasy Football, for example, it’s an absolute gold mine, it’s essentially a fan generator. People join leagues with their friends, family, or even strangers and become invested in the game. They feel a sense of ownership and the performance directly affects their experience. Single event gambling can do this for sports that do not have the infrastructure of NFL Fantasy Football. Imagine going to a CFL, CPL, or NHL game, having a notification pop-up on your phone asking if you’d like to open up your gambling app and place a bet before the game starts. Sure, why not? If you’re at the game for a work event, with friends, or whatever else, it’s a way to pull you into the sport if you aren’t already. You better believe when the puck goes in the net, and you have the over, you’ll be cheering just as loud as the diehard to your right. Heck, maybe number 47 won you a boatload of cash that you’re going to head over to the team store as a sign of appreciation. Regardless of what you think, single event gambling especially in sports is the opportunity to grow a sport, and increase fandom as it allows fans to have another avenue to build a connection to a club or athlete.
Investment. Let’s be honest, if you’ve watched or attended anything related to sports in the last 12 months you 100% saw a sports betting company’s logo, whether you realized it or not. Take me. The person writing the piece on single event gambling. I’ve never placed a bet on sports, yet, however, I believe I could name off 5-10 companies just from the ads or sponsorships I see everywhere. Companies are throwing money at teams and leagues in Canada, but they are also investing in Canadian brands to introduce themselves to the Canadian market. Take The Score, for example, a Canadian brand that sports fans have followed for years in order to get their latest news or scores has now been acquired by Penn National Gaming, the same company that owns Barstool. Not only were they acquired by Penn is investing in a new Toronto HeadQuarters for them to show they're sticking around in Canada. We wouldn’t be surprised if they introduced gambling features onto The Score’s app as it’s already a respected app in Canada and is continuously one of the most downloaded sports apps in the country. That’s a way into the market if we’ve ever seen one.
Future. This paragraph is going to just be ideas that come to mind when thinking about the future of sports gambling in Canada. So take it with a grain of salt. As each day passes we are learning how much stronger athletes' brands are becoming, however, with gambling, there is obviously a large issue with athletes being involved due to match-fixing. But, what if they allowed athletes, who are passionate about sports betting, to get in on the action but in other sports? Allow them to partner with these large sports betting companies, and Livestream their bets or reactions when viewing their bets in action. Or, what about companies partnering with an athlete and creating a public bet that others can join in on, within their own sport. For example, company x approaches Connor McDavid and says if you hit 120 points this season, we’ll give you $2M whilst also putting out the odds for others to join in on. This way it would create a story. People would be following the athlete, their personal brand, and their journey to this objective. They’ll be there for the ups, the downs, and most importantly for the experience. Connections will be made not only to the athlete but also to the company that provided them with this unique experience.
There are lots to say. Writing this piece, I had to delete a few paragraphs and start over again, as I’d go on tangents about what I believe can happen or what I’d like to see in the future. But, the overarching theme is the importance of marketing the sport in new manners. And, we believe single event gambling now legal in Canada, can do that.
Published: August 20th, 2021 - Issue 5 of The Sport Marketeer