Quote:
Originally Posted by dedmau5
But if the drop off in viewership is mostly from non-sports bettors, the sports book market will be less impacted. It's probably hard for this forum to believe, but there are people who watch sports that don't bet at all.
Yes to the first point. For the second point, (monetary) engagement of fans/viewers at home is among the big long term goals of the leagues.
Losing a chunk of (former) core audiences is a trade-off owners are willing to make. People always want to make it political but at the end of the day it’s an obvious business decision. As a pro sports league, your potential future lifetime earnings from one 15 year old brown boy from San Francisco are probably higher than those from three 60 year old white guys in Alabama.
There’s a reason why everyone wants to get into the legalized sports betting market, including media companies. Live betting on your phone while watching a game on TV at home is going to be a huge market and brick & mortar sportsbooks see a lot of potential for them, too.