The return of top-level soccer across most European leagues and the National Basketball Association’s restart scheduled for July are hugely welcome. As suppliers and sportsbooks focus on user experience and adhering to the highest responsibility commitments, they are also hoping the reopenings across the U.S. and Europe can be sustained.
All major European soccer leagues, apart from France’s, have restarted as we reach the end of June and the return of top-level soccer is a massive boost for Europe’s online betting industry.
In the U.S., competitive NBA matches are set to return throughout July and August and will drive key sports-betting revenues for U.S. books. The 22-team eight-game mini-season devised by the league will take place at the Walt Disney campus in Florida and decide the final playoff places.
This is a huge boost for U.S. books and a hopeful sign of a return to business. However, the recent spike in COVID cases across the state and Florida Governor Ron de Santis’s decision to reinstate restrictions on businesses that had reopened shows it is impossible to take anything for granted when it comes to public health and safety at the moment.
There is also a grim irony in that Florida was chosen for the NBA restart, partly because at the time it had a much lower number of COVID cases than some of the northeastern states that were first hit by the pandemic.
Bill Anderson, VP Americas at Betgenius, says he remains optimistic about the NBA resuming action and the whole industry stateside will monitor the situation closely.
For European sportsbooks, “The return of top-tier soccer has been a vital lifeline”, he tells CDC Gaming. “While the volume of content we’ve been able to offer has remained high, you simply can’t compare the appeal of an esports or table-tennis tournament to the likes of premium content, such as the English Premier League and Spanish La Liga.”
In the UK, operators have been helped by networks scheduling the games in non-concurrent fashion, with the BBC showing some of the matches on terrestrial TV, boosting audience figures in the process.
UX focus, responsible marketing
As a result, Anderson says “turnover levels are almost back to where they were pre-lockdown (and) we expect those levels to rise even more over the summer. On the back of this, a key requirement from our partners has been around reducing suspension and maximizing market uptime – every second counts when making up for three months of no live sport, particularly with the U.S. sports about to restart as well.”
Clearly, maximising the amount of time a market is offered and that the data is fast will be a priority for operators wanting to offer a strong customer experience that ensures bets are placed and cashouts are processed promptly.
The return of live sport also means a return of marketing activities from the industry. In the UK, this has led to calls from anti-gambling politicians for a total ban on advertising across all platforms.
If there is a certain familiarity to those calls from anti-gambling politicians, they should not be minimised. But if operators have not learned the importance of working in a socially responsible manner during lockdown, they never will. From his dealings with betting brands, Anderson says they are focused on striking a balance between marketing and driving live-betting volumes.
“I think operators, in particular in mature regulated markets, are having to strike a real balance between pushing in-play products and being seen to be responsible brands. Faced with up to eight hours of televised live soccer on some days, it would be very tempting to turn on the promotions and bonusing taps and extract as much customer value as possible.
“But that is not prudent, safe, or effective. Being relevant to the sporting narrative and curating a personalized, tailored experience is the right approach. Striking this balance will not require a bombardment of ads.”
Importance of in-play
In-play betting is crucial to the sector, but is often described by critics as a being unsafe and promoting impulse betting. It accounts for 49% of overall sports betting (non-horse racing) worldwide and is set to rise to 55% in 2020, data from H2 Gambling Capital shows.
In-play betting isn’t as prevalent in North America (yet?). William Hill said it represented just 22% of its Nevada handle in 2017, but it is easy to see it develop in the coming years as more states regulate and the mobile channel becomes even more dominant.
For a sport like tennis, this trend is even more pronounced: 80% of all online bets on the sport are made in-play.
In these COVID-19 times, crowd-less matches also play a key role in relation to trading and pricing up live events. Crowds affect referees’ and umpires’ decisions and events like fouls, yellow and red cards, and the industry is adapting to this new context.
Rights holders and igaming sector positive
Anderson adds that sporting clubs and other rights holders are keen to explore commercial opportunities around data and streaming products to address the drops in ticketing and merchandise revenues caused by the pandemic.
Gareth Balch, CEO of the sports sponsorship agency Two Circles, adds: “We don’t see the appetite for sport being negatively impacted. According to our research, the average time spent participating in and consuming sport grew by 22% over the course of 10 years.
“But history does indicate that change is accelerated in times of unprecedented disruption/recessions. Therefore yes, an accelerated paradigm shift is to be expected, and coronavirus will accelerate an experience economy where digital and physical worlds collide. During lockdown, we have seen rights holders deliver content directly to fans looking to fill the void for live sport, helping drive strong digital engagement and sign-ups to direct-to-consumer streaming services that provide premium content. Expect sport fans to consume more of their content directly post-coronavirus.”
And of course, it will be interesting to sift through European regulators’ post-lockdown betting data to analyse how punters have consumed sport and the wagering activity that has gone with it.
“So long as there is no fan fatigue caused by the volume and frequency of games, football betting should be in rude health, with August’s Champions League schedule particularly mouth-watering,” says Anderson.
“Basketball and tennis will be slower coming back for different reasons, but by the end of the year, we expect most major basketball leagues to be back in action and for in-play schedules to be brimming once again. The safe return of the NBA in July is going to be huge for our partners in the U.S.”
