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With regulators concerned about potential advertising saturation in Massachusetts when sports betting launches next year, broadcasters and league officials say their internal rules will help curb an advertising frenzy.
Concerns over potential advertising saturation have been a key part of sports-betting conversations at both the regulatory and legislative levels in Massachusetts, with conversations at late stages including a whistle-to-whistle ban on sports-betting ads during games that was ultimately not part of the final legislation approved in August.
The legislation does give the Massachusetts Gaming Commission (MGC) the power to make regulations governing advertising, however, and the commission on Monday (November 14) held a roundtable with representatives from local broadcasters, Major League Baseball (MLB) and the American Gaming Association to learn more about the industry and how the commission should proceed.
Cathy Judd-Stein, chair of the commission, said the issue has been one that has popped up within the regulator for more than a year as commissioners watched National Football League games last year and saw plenty of sports-betting ads despite sports wagering yet to be legalized in Massachusetts.
“I think pretty quickly we had a consensus on the commission that we were concerned about what we described as the frequency and intensity of sports wagering ads, and how do we address marketing saturation,” she said. “I have a real fear that we will be inundated once we stand up sports wagering in a way that Massachusetts may not be prepared.”
Representatives from local broadcasters say they are prepared to responsibly distribute sports-betting advertising.
“Most, if not all, broadcasters have internal rules as to how many spots for an industry and advertiser can air next to each other, or within a stop set, which is a set of commercials that are within an hour or period of time,” said Jordan Walton, executive director of the Massachusetts Broadcasters Association, a trade association which represents more than 200 radio and television broadcasters in the state.
“I would hazard to guess that most of our broadcasters would continue to follow their internal rules, so that you don't have an MGM, DraftKings and FanDuel spot running back-to-back,” he continued.
“We do that because our broadcasters are beholden to their listeners and viewers, and to annoy a viewer or listener to the point where they change the channel is exactly the opposite of what our broadcasters want to do, so it's a balancing act that that they each go through, but it's an important one, because changing the channel or changing the station is not the goal of broadcasters, for sure.”
Sean McGrail, president and CEO of regional sports network NESN, said the network only offers inventory to four different gaming operators within a pro sports broadcast, in addition to following league guidelines, and has learned from previous instances where there was saturation in the market.
“There was a good deal of saturation, especially on natural broadcasts, and I think the industry responded very proactively,” McGrail said. “Leagues have all come forward with their own self-policing regulations, and basically work collaboratively with the broadcast partners to make sure those are reasonable and enforceable.”
McGrail added that the discussion about saturation is not a new one for broadcasters to manage.
“We’ve seen it in other categories too. We’ve seen it in the airline industry where certain airlines would like to buy out inventory, and heavy up, and it became a distraction,” he said. “We’re very cognizant of our audience, and we spent a great deal of time thinking about what’s the impact on the audience, and exactly how is this affecting the broadcast and our overall performance and brand.”
Marquest Meeks, vice president and deputy general counsel for Major League Baseball (MLB), said that league regulations permit ten ads throughout a game window, which includes pre-game coverage, the game itself, and a post-game show, with only six permitted during the broadcast, and one 30-second ad per commercial break.
He added that the league does allow two additional spots for ads that are responsible gaming messaging.
“I do think that the sports betting operators, and I guess I shouldn't say I think I know because I've had conversations with high level folks in some of the leading operators, they've heard the concern from not just regulators in Massachusetts, but across in other jurisdictions,” Meeks said.
“And so they've responded accordingly, and that also is in the mind of the leagues when we set our kind of year-to-year benchmarks and we talk about these things in our off-season.”
Meeks added that despite the concern about advertising, it was important for MLB to permit enough advertising to transition customers into the legal market to improve transparency, including when it comes to investigations of wrongdoing among baseball personnel.
“The illegal offshore sites like Bovada and the others, they're not responding to my email when I try to get information to conduct our investigations and put us in position to levy punishment, or to make sure that people are being compliant with our rules,” Meeks said.
“We only get that from the legalized licensed sportsbook partners, and so we have tried to strike that balance to make sure that those entities and companies have as much of an opportunity to draw customers away from that illegal market.”
