Aug 19, 2022

OPINION: Early signs, and concerns, of how sports gambling apps will market to Kansans

Posted Aug 19, 2022 3:00 PM
This mailing from DraftKings, which is arriving at Kansas mailboxes this week, is one sign of the marketing blitzes on the way with the Sept. 1 start of sports gambling in Kansas. (Eric Thomas)
This mailing from DraftKings, which is arriving at Kansas mailboxes this week, is one sign of the marketing blitzes on the way with the Sept. 1 start of sports gambling in Kansas. (Eric Thomas)

By ERIC THOMAS
Courtesy Kansas Reflector

Thursday’s announcement that sports betting will begin Sept. 1 in Kansas edges the state closer to a brave new world for sports fans, whether supporting the Jayhawks, Chiefs, Wildcats, Shockers, Royals or Sporting KC.

When the Kansas Legislature approved sports gaming earlier this year, it triggered a complex multibillion dollar marketing and technology machine that is already whirring to life, even in advance of the start date. And that machine will certainly change our state’s relationship with sports.

Some of these changes will be minor and cosmetic. However, other changes will alter how we watch games and, most radically, who we root for.

Here are my notes about how sports has already changed with gambling on the scene — along with a forecast of coming changes.

Signs of betting in new places

The visual landscape of watching sports — or even reading about them — will never be the same. Since the U.S. Supreme Court opened the door to nationwide sports gambling in 2018, betting odds have invaded every mainstream sports app.

On my phone, ESPN’s app offers a PickCenter, providing the run line, money line and over/under for the Royals game Friday against the Tampa Bay Rays. You can also get “exclusive PickCenter analysis” with a subscription payment. CBS Sports and most other apps offer the same wagering details — sometimes on a homepage scoreboard that doesn’t require you even to click through to read about the game.

Like me, maybe you spent decades scanning the daily newspaper and the sports page, with its hundreds of lines of agate, displaying scores and betting lines. In most papers, betting information was relegated to a box on the outskirts of the page, signaling an uneasy yet conjoined relationship between sports journalism and gambling.

The paper sought to inform both your pure love affair with your favorite team and your begrudging habit of making a bet against that same team with a local bookie.

We should expect the same creeping presence of sports betting information when watching sports broadcasts too. In past NFL seasons, commentators coyly hinted at how a fourth quarter field goal might impact a teetering betting line. Those same play-by-play personalities, like Al Michaels of NBC, have acknowledged their increased liberation to be more direct.

“So what I would do through the years is I would come in the back door, sometimes I would come in the side door, and now I guess they’re allowing me to come in the front door, which is not as much fun as doing it subtly,” Michaels told the Associated Press last year.

In addition to this shift to verbal posture, the networks broadcasting the games will provide more gambling information in pregame shows, “but only to help contextualize game analysis or a broader storyline.”  

Looking to countries where sports betting has had decades to infiltrate the culture suggests how visually omnipresent sports gambling brand might become, and how much we might regret it eventually.

The English Premier League is arguably the top soccer league in the world in a country that has long allowed sports gambling. Forty percent of teams in the league have agreements with sports gambling companies to provide an advertising image on the front of the team’s uniform. This summer, the league looked poised to ban such ads on the front of shirts, but energy for the prohibition has stalled.

More North American sports teams are including advertising on their jerseys, in big or small ways. The Washington Capitals signed a deal with Caesars Sportsbook last year to include a 3-by-3.5 inch patch on their jerseys. So, don’t be surprised to see a FanDuel logo on the chest of your favorite player during an upcoming season.

The tension is clear. How can a player try his hardest to win while he wears an ad for a site where hundreds of people financially invest in his losing?

The line between journalism and betting advertising

Publications constantly allow advertisers to blur the line between advertising from a paid sponsor and the journalism from their staff members. That line is particularly hazy these days on the sports web page of the Kansas City Star. The most prominent real estate on the page in the top left quadrant is dedicated to a module labeled “Betting.” 

The packaging of that content uses the same fonts, story structures and provides bylines for the writers. However, the content is sponsored.

“We may earn a fee if you make a purchase through one of our links,” the page explains. “The newsroom and editorial staff were not involved in the creation of this content.”

What follows that warning is a promotional blitz for each of the companies that will offer sports gambling in Kansas: DraftKings, BetMGM, Caesars Sportsbook, WynnBET, FanDuel, BetRivers and PointsBet. While headlines for each post promise a “review,” the writer from Gambling.com gushes about the features without ever considering a critique.

In the final words of these reviews (some of them stretching more than 3,000 words), there is the same cut-and-paste warning about “responsible gambling.”

The Wichita Eagle’s sports home page does not display the betting content in the same prominent way, although the same “reviews” are there for readers. Both publications are owned by the same parent company and use the same website template.

Chatter during games

Aside from sports media, Kansans should prepare for their fellow fans to act differently during games. The never-ending buffet of betting options for any particular game might create perverse rooting incentives for the fan sitting next to you at the bar.

Imagine that you are sitting next to your buddy, a rabid Kansas City Chiefs fan decked out in his Patrick Mahomes replica jersey as he crushes some chicken wings. By betting on the “under” for a game, he will be hoping for a low-scoring game. So, don’t be surprised if he is rooting for the Chiefs to take a knee, rather than for Mahomes to throw another touchdown pass, if the game is already secured for the Chiefs.

Sports gambling muddies our fandom.

Of course, many fans are familiar with this from years of fantasy sports and illegal gambling. But legalized gambling promises to send many more fans to check their phones at the end of the game and consider which is more precious: their $500 wager or their coveted team.

Enticing VIP packaging 

In the mail this week, I received a glitzy brochure from DraftKings VIP, promising “enhanced promotional offers,” “invitations to private events” and “a dedicated host.” The cover of the advertisement featured a map of Kansas with a clutch of sunflowers blooming awkwardly in the northwest corner of the state (Hello, St. Francis!). 

The message of the black-and-bronze advertisement is clear: While gambling will be as easy as downloading an app, I can have an exclusive, swanky experience (through the phone?). This appeal might be useful for separating DraftKings VIP from the other gambling providers. However, the implicit message is that spending more (“Qualified Dynasty members”) will bring benefits.

Such marketing creates a slippery slope toward irresponsible gambling, even before the start of online wagering has been announced.

Of course, all of these dominoes of sports, culture, advertising and journalism were long ago set in motion. What’s coming into sharper focus now is how it will affect Kansans as we cheer from our couches — perhaps with a sports gambling app on the phone in our hand.

Eric Thomas directs the Kansas Scholastic Press Association, a nonprofit that supports student journalism throughout the state. He also teaches visual journalism and photojournalism at the William Allen White School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Kansas in Lawrence.