By Joe Favorito @JoeFav @TheDailyPayoff
As a league on the comeback, Arena Football has to find ways to cut through the clutter to get some exposure away from their games and into the general conversation.
It’s most recent effort has it diving right one of the hottest topics in American sport off the field these days; legalized gambling.
While pay fantasy platforms like Fan Duel and Draft Kings have made big noise and big numbers the past few weeks with partnerships and new investors, the AFL and their expansion Las Vegas Outlaws have gone one step further.
The league and the team have taken advantage of the legal sports book in Nevada (the only state where sports betting is legal these days) to form a bold partnership with betting house William Hill USA.
The partnership includes live betting and active point spreads on all of the Outlaws homes games at The Thomas and Mack Center, making the AFL club the first, and only American sports team thus far to be able to take on and activate a betting partnership not tied to pay fantasy, or in the case of the NHL New Jersey Devils and NBA Philadelphia 76ers online poker.
While the AFL is not the NFL and the dollars both wagered and the risk involved is not that high, the partnership presents an interesting potential glimpse into the future of sport in America, something that places like the UK have accepted and profited from for years.
William Hill logos are widespread at the Outlaw games, both on uniforms and on the field, and the company has a kiosk on the concourse where customers can sign up for its mobile betting client, and place wagers from the stands. The risk for William Hill US is probably low given the volume expected on AFL games, but the upside on seeing how this new opportunity engages fans who are not used to in-game wagering is very much apparent, and could set a unique precedent for sports, at least in Nevada, going forward.
With the NHL looking hard at expansion into the state, it will be interesting to see if rules relax with regard to sports books on the four major leagues when games are played in Nevada. Previously when teams like the Los Angeles Lakers played limited regular season games in Las Vegas, the lines on those games were suspended. However with a growing appetite for legal gaming in addition to pay fantasy, the AFL test may change things, with the NHL gaining a first crack at seeing how mobile legal gambling could work.
Of course the arena, and the hometown hockey team, is still in the distance, but rest assured every league will be watching how engaged and how profitable the AFL’s limited but grand experiment will be this season and going forward. If it works, the league which once tried to be a perfect spring feeder league to the NFL could become even more valuable with new business off the field than it ever has been in cultivating talent on the field.
The business of gambling gets to score again.