Fanatics has reportedly reached a multi-year agreement to become an official sports betting partner of the NFL, highlighting the shifting priorities of the nation’s leading sportsbook operators.
- Fanatics’ reported nonexclusive NFL agreement includes official sportsbook and online casino designations, premium media inventory, and league marketing rights.
- The deal follows the expiration of the NFL’s FanDuel, DraftKings and Caesars partnerships as leading sportsbooks put greater emphasis on profitability and prediction markets.
- Fanatics is expanding its gaming customer partnerships with the league following card and merchandise deals.
The league and Fanatics are set to formally announce the nonexclusive sports betting partnership ahead of the 2026 NFL regular season, per an unofficial press release shared with Covers. The deal also designates Fanatics Casino as an official online casino partner of the NFL.
Financial terms have not been disclosed.
The agreement gives Fanatics Sportsbook and Fanatics Casino access to premium NFL media inventory, including in-game advertising and sponsorship opportunities involving the league’s media partners. The brands will also receive hospitality assets and access to fan experiences at the Super Bowl and other major NFL events.
Fanatics can use NFL intellectual property in its marketing under the agreement, including league as well as team branding and marks associated with the Super Bowl and NFL draft.
The deal adds sportsbook and online casino marketing to Fanatics’ growing portfolio of NFL business interests. Fanatics already has e-commerce, apparel, and team merchandise relationships along with on-site retail operations at NFL stadiums and events.
Topps, part of Fanatics’ collectibles business, recently became the NFL’s official trading card licensee.
NFL's sportsbook reset
The NFL’s previous official sports betting partnerships expired earlier this year, which underscores the shifting priorities of the nation’s two leading sportsbooks by market share and comparative upstart companies such as Fanatics.
The league announced its first U.S. sportsbook “tri-exclusive” partnerships in April 2021 with DraftKings, FanDuel, and Caesars. The deals came nearly three years after the Supreme Court struck down the federal sports wagering ban and at the onset of a multibillion-dollar marketing and player acquisition push from its three partners and much of the rest of the industry.
Operators spent billions of dollars on promotions, advertising, media partnerships, and customer acquisition during the first years of nationwide expansion, often prioritizing market share over near-term profitability. Access to the NFL, the nation’s most popular and bet-upon sports league, was among the most valuable components of that strategy.
FanDuel and DraftKings emerged from the initial customer-acquisition fight as the two largest U.S. sportsbook operators, combining for more than two-thirds of the nationwide market. Both absorbed hundreds of millions of dollars in losses before reaching sustained profitability, increasingly emphasizing “customer value” instead of market share alone.
This revised strategy is set to be tested during the upcoming NFL season, the industry’s most critical customer acquisition period and largest revenue generator.
Prediction markets have created another nationwide channel for acquiring sports customers, including in California, Texas, and other states without legal online sportsbooks. But they have also led to a new arms race as top sportsbook operators - including FanDuel, DraftKings and Fanatics - invest hundreds of millions more in their own respective prediction market platforms.
Fanatics' strategy
The shift toward prediction markets is one factor that may have influenced FanDuel and DraftKings’ decisions not to renew their NFL partnerships.
Fanatics' partnership gives it a prominent position within that changing competitive environment. Fanatics can use league media, branding and premium experiences to strengthen a sportsbook that is available to nearly 50% of the U.S. population.
The NFL has been more cautious about prediction markets than other professional leagues, following a similar playbook it used when U.S. sports betting first emerged as a new industry. It’s unclear if or when the nation’s most profitable league will take a formal stance on prediction markets and how the expanded Fanatics sports betting and iGaming deal will play a factor.
In any scenario, sportsbook operators are again preparing to spend aggressively around football, but they are doing so in a more mature market with greater pressure to justify customer-acquisition costs. Meanwhile, prediction markets add another competitive threat and another place for companies to direct marketing dollars.
But unlike the spending wave at the beginning of the decade, the value of this latest sportsbook-NFL agreement may depend less on simply attaching a sportsbook logo to the league and more on how effectively Fanatics converts the expanded relationship into profitable customers.
