Not taking up all the positions
The NFL has confirmed that fans will only see three sports betting-related ads during the upcoming Super Bowl LVIII broadcast. The San Francisco 49ers will take on the Kansas City Chiefs on February 11 in Las Vegas, with over 100 million viewers expected to watch the action.
companies spend as much as $7m for 30 seconds
It’s not just the football that they tune in for. The halftime show usually involves notable music stars – this year Usher will perform – and people look forward to the commercials during breaks in the game. As so many eyes are on them, companies spend as much as $7m for 30 seconds of airtime and they usually get creative to try to capture imaginations.
NFL Sports Betting General Manager David Highhill mentioned on Tuesday that one sports betting ad will air before kickoff and the other two commercials will come mid-game. While the league caps the number of in-game betting ads to roughly one per quarter, operators reportedly have not met this threshold for the Super Bowl. DraftKings, FanDuel, and BetMGM are the betting brands that will be running commercials.
Ensuring that ads are responsible
Gambling advertising during sporting events is a hot topic in many different countries. Some jurisdictions don’t allow any betting-related commercials during live sports before a certain time of the day. Others don’t permit active athletes to appear in ads, while others like Italy have a blanket ban in place.
ensure that all betting ads are responsible and won’t target underage people
Most of the professional sports leagues in the US are part of an alliance with media companies NBCUniversal and Fox to try to ensure that all betting ads are responsible and won’t target underage people.
The NFL’s David Highhill said that the league gets blamed for certain gambling ads when the matter is outside of the organization’s control, such as messages running on radio and other forms of broadcasts in the week leading up to games.
Maintaining integrity
The NFL has poured a lot of resources into betting education for its personnel. It has provided training to over 17,000 people regarding the league’s gambling policy, explained that third-party monitoring companies identify suspicious betting activity, and detailed the punishments resulting from offenses.
Numerous players and coaches have fallen foul of these rules since their introduction. Most recently, New England Patriots wide receiver Kayshon Boutte was arrested for allegedly placing thousands of bets online when he was underage and still in school, some of which were on his own college team.