New Sports Betting Coalition Aims to Limit Advertising

• Professional sports leagues and prominent media outlets formed a coalition to ensure responsible sports betting advertising.
• The group intends to limit the amount of sports betting advertising while also implementing customer protection policies.

LAS VEGAS – A sports betting coalition led by NFL Vice President of Public Policy and Government Affairs Jonathan Nabavi has been created to limit sports betting advertising. The coalition wishes that sports betting advertising will be reduced and intended for the appropriate audiences.

Professional sports leagues such as MLB, MLS, NASCAR, NBA, NFL, NHL, and the WNBA have partnered with the major media outlets of FOX and NBCUniversal to create the Coalition for Responsible Sports Betting Advertising.

The coalition listed its six core principles that it will use to ensure responsible sports betting advertising. Some of these principles are a bit ambiguous and will be difficult for television networks to navigate through.

Principle #1: Sports betting should be marketed only to adults of legal betting age.

How does this effect the professional sports leagues like the NFL, NBA, MLB, and NHL that all have partnerships with sports betting companies? With plenty of young sports fans watching these sports, how will the Coalition for Responsible Sports Betting Advertising attempt to regulate sports betting advertisements on game day?

Principle #2: Sports betting advertising should not promote irresponsible or excessive gambling or degrade the consumer experience.

All the major legal sports betting companies that have partnerships with professional sports leagues are vocal about responsible gambling in their advertising. This principle will likely require no changes for sports betting advertisements to comply.

Principle #3: Sports betting advertisements should not be misleading.

People are often confused by promotional fund offers for first time users on sports betting platforms. This principle ensures that misleading language like “free money” or “free bets” won’t be used in sports betting advertisements.

Principle #4: Sports betting advertisements should be in good taste.
Principle #5: Publishers should have appropriate internal reviews of sports betting advertising.
Principle #6: Publishers should review consumer complaints pertaining to sports betting advertising.

The final three principles pertain more to the platform that is publishing the sports betting advertisements, which is where media outlet members of the coalition factor in.

The coalition formation comes in response to the large increase in advertising correlated with the increasing number of states with legal sports betting.

In just Week 1 of the 2021 NFL season, NFL sportsbook partners spent over $21 million dollars in sports betting advertising. Throughout the NFL season sportsbook operators spent over $200 million just in advertising.

The coalition of sports leagues and media outlets hope to limit this massive number of advertisements and encourage responsible sports betting.

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