On Monday morning, the NFL once again established itself as the king of making money.
That's when the league announced it has approved four new authorized gambling partners — FoxBet, BetMGM, PointsBet and WynnBET.
To this point, leagues have been doing deals with gambling brands by selling the official data and league marks, something that hasn't really been established as necessarily being key when third party data hasn't been proven to be significantly slower.
But what the NFL did here is another layer of genius.
These authorized partners do not get access to team and league marks, unlike the three official partners in Caesars, DraftKings and FanDuel, who had previously signed deals with the league.
These partners have essentially purchased the right to advertise on NFL broadcasts. That's it. No sportsbooks outside these seven can advertise on the broadcasts. So they've essentially spent money for the right to spend money.
Other leagues, including the NBA, have insisted that partners have to be authorized to advertise on broadcast, but sources say the NFL made a much bigger play here for more exclusive partners that come at a greater cost. The NBA, for example, has more than 30 authorized partners.
The NFL has also set a rule of only six spots from these partners per game, hoping to avoid the situation in 2015 when DraftKings and FanDuel, fighting for fantasy dollars, seemingly bought every ad at every single break.
