An interesting question was asked earlier this week: What does professional sports actually get out of legalized sports betting?
“I keep wondering to myself, what's really in it for the sports teams?” asked Georgia Rep. Alan Powell. “What's the profitability? What are y'all getting back?”
- Since 2018, professional sports leagues have embraced legalized sports betting as a way to influence regulation, monitor wagering activity, and engage fans more deeply.
- Financially, teams and leagues earn money through sponsorship deals, data licensing agreements, and possibly even direct revenue-sharing from wagers.
- While the revenue impact varies by league and market, sports betting also brings harder-to-quantify benefits like increased fan engagement and enhanced tools for promoting responsible gambling.
These kinds of questions have loomed larger over the world of online sports betting in the U.S. since 2018, when the Supreme Court struck down the law standing in the way of wider-spread legalization.
Professional sports leagues, once an opponent of more legalized sports betting, have changed their tune. They are now business partners of sportsbook operators, and supporters of legalization and regulation.
There are a few reasons why the position of the leagues and teams has changed. One is that they had no choice: The Supreme Court ruled and legalized sports betting was going to spread no matter what. Best to get out in front of the issue, and to have a say in how it was going to happen.
But there have also been some financial opportunities for professional sports. And those were of particular interest to Powell, a member of the House Study Committee on Gaming in the State of Georgia, a state that has an annual debate about whether to legalize sports betting.
A Georgia House committee studying various forms of gambling heard more testimony yesterday, including from a North Carolina lawmaker who told them nobody in NC lost an election because they legalized sports betting:https://t.co/rJhBvTaRAA @Covers
— Geoff Zochodne (@GeoffZochodne) August 26, 2025
On Monday, Powell and other committee members heard the testimony of executives appearing on behalf of the PGA Tour and the NFL’s Atlanta Falcons.
And while Powell had heard those reps discuss how legalized and regulated sports betting can help leagues and teams ensure the integrity of games and assist with campaigns to combat problem gambling, he wanted to know more about the financial incentives for pro sports.
What are y'all getting back?
An answer was provided by Joe Pierce, general counsel for AMB Sports and Entertainment, a company comprised of the Falcons and other Georgia teams.
Although Pierce noted he's not necessarily the "finance guy," he did acknowledge there were “multiple aspects” of engaging with legalized wagering, one of which is indeed financial.
“Whether it be sponsorship agreements that … a sports betting operator would pay to teams to kind of get the rights to associate their brand with the brand of the teams and kind of get connectivity to the fans,” Pierce said on Monday. “The dollar amounts of those relationships can really vary. There's a wide range, kind of depending on the state and kind of depending on the nature of the agreement that's reached.”
Some of these deals are reflected in the financial reports of sportsbook operators.
FanDuel-owner Flutter Entertainment reported that as of the end of 2024, it was on the hook for roughly $4.6 billion in “known contractual and other obligations relating to sponsorship agreements, marketing agreements and media agreements."
The cost of 'exclusivity'
Caesars Entertainment reported that as of the end of June, it had $372 million in “agreements with certain professional sports leagues and teams, sporting event facilities, and media companies for tickets, suites, advertising, marketing, promotional and sponsorship opportunities including communication with partner customer databases.”
“Some of the agreements provide Caesars with exclusivity to access the aforementioned rights within the casino and/or sports betting category,” the company added.
So, there is indeed “some incremental revenue” to be had, as Pierce noted.
“But … not at any cost of doing things in a non-responsible way, or doing things that would jeopardize the integrity of the game or the consumer too much,” he said.
Welcome to Super Bowl LIX! 🏈 pic.twitter.com/utioZWqlc9
— Caesars Superdome (@CaesarsDome) February 9, 2025
Asked about the potential for "selling information," Pierce said that sort of access to data would likely be controlled by the leagues.
The NFL, for example, has a partnership with Genius Sports. Their agreement makes Genius the league's "exclusive distributor of real-time, official play-by-play statistics, proprietary Next Gen Stats data and the League’s official sports betting data feed to media companies and sports betting operators globally."
In return, Genius has issued millions of "warrants" to the NFL that entitles the league to buy shares of Genius for a literal penny, $0.01.
Given that the shares of Genius are trading at around $13, this makes those warrants pretty valuable, since the NFL could buy them at a huge discount (and then potentially sell them later for a big profit). Genius even recognized $43.8 million in costs tied to the warrants for the three months ended June 30.
🏈 In partnership with the @NFL, we're now providing US sportsbooks with live streams for the first time!
— Genius Sports (@GeniusSports) December 5, 2022
▶️ Starting with @CaesarsEnt, US sportsbooks can now integrate our Watch & Bet solution to live stream NFL games. Full release here: https://t.co/1WoBLZu6nV $geni pic.twitter.com/e7JPAtMnfQ
So, there is money in sponsorships and data. There are also some harder-to-quantify benefits that come with people taking a greater interest in sports if they have money on the line.
Scott Warfield, vice president of gaming for the PGA Tour, appeared before the Georgia House committee on Monday as well. Warfield said a “big part” of why the golf organization is dabbling in the world of legalized wagering is to help get and keep fans engaged in the sport.
Someone who wagers could attend more tournaments and watch more golf, Warfield suggested.
And golf has an older fanbase, Warfield noted, and wagering can attract that 35-to-44-year-old consumer who may not have had a preexisting interest.
“So, yes, there's a revenue benefit,” Warfield told the Georgia committee members. “Yes, there's an engagement benefit. There is also a way to better monitor what's happening by bringing it above board.”
Warfield also talked about the importance of Georgia to the PGA Tour. Among other things, the state plays host to the tour's championship event at East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta.
Georgia’s golf ties were also reflected in the legislative effort to legalize and regulate sports betting in the state earlier this year, as the enabling legislation would have made the PGA Tour and Augusta National Golf Club (home of the Masters) eligible for sports betting licenses.
Thanks for sharing
Furthermore, the enabling bill said that "a professional sports governing body" could enter into agreements with online sports betting companies "to share in the amounts wagered or revenue derived from wagers on the sporting events" of that governing body.
That legislation did not pass this year. However, similar language appeared in the constitutional amendment that was approved by Missouri voters last year. The approval of the amendment has teed up the launch of legal sports betting in the state in December.
“A sports governing body or professional sports team may enter into commercial agreements with sports wagering operators or other entities in which such sports governing body or professional sports team may share in the amount wagered on sporting events of such sports governing body or professional sports team,” the now-approved constitutional amendment says.
In other words, a league or team could get a percentage of what is bet on their games. That revenue would be in addition to whatever advertising, sponsorship, media, and data rights-related money that comes from Missouri sports betting.
How much exactly those agreements would be worth would likely depend on the team or league; no doubt much more gets bet on the Kansas City Chiefs than St. Louis CITY SC.
BREAKING: Missouri sports betting ballot measure narrowly approved by voters
— Ryan Butler (@ButlerBets) November 6, 2024
Still votes outstanding but the yes is up just enough to get it done
First mobile, retail books set to open before Dec 1, 2025
Furthermore, most teams and leagues do not have publicly disclosed financial statements to parse, and only some states require partnerships with teams or leagues to earn sports betting licenses. And, as the Missouri law notes, sports teams don't need "a license or any other approval" from regulators to "share in the amount wagered" on their games.
It could conceivably be something like horse racing, where a percentage of pari-mutuel wagering pools goes to the track operators. NASCAR even announced an effort earlier this year to offer pari-mutuel wagering on its races, which would give it a cut of wagering on its races.
Leagues were previously interested in so-called “integrity fees” as well, a percentage of wagering that would help them police their sports in the age of wider-spread sports betting. While those were pushed back on by the gaming industry, it could be that something similar has emerged via state legislation.
However, it’s not something that has been discussed all that much (or at all, at least publicly) compared to the other reasons that leagues are much more happy to bring up.
Nevertheless, while Missouri has yet to launch sports betting, North Carolina has. The state’s sports betting law contains similar sharing language, permitting a sports governing body to “share in the amount bet from sports wagering on sporting events of the sports governing body.”
How much any entity has actually received, though, is uncertain. As in Missouri, the North Carolina sports betting legislation says that “a sports governing body is not required to obtain a license or any other approval from the [North Carolina State Lottery Commission] to lawfully accept such amounts.”
The three-year extension with FanDuel runs through 2024.
— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) January 10, 2022
In North Carolina, where online sports betting went live last year, the PGA Tour partnered with FanDuel. And the PGA Tour, as it happens, is a non-profit entity, meaning it does publicly disclose some of its financials.
For example, the PGA Tour reported more than $1.8 billion in revenue to the IRS for 2023. The tour also attributed a little less than $10.8 million in total income to a subsidiary named PGA Tour Gaming LLC.
A 'nice' thing, but not the only thing
It's unclear if PGA Tour Gaming is where all of the PGA Tour's sports betting-related revenue winds up. Ultimately, though, the tour's financials suggest any sports betting-related revenue likely pales in comparison to its other lines of business.
And while the subject of potentially sharing wagering money wasn’t discussed on Monday, the tour’s representative assured the Georgia lawmakers that their sports betting-related interests go beyond money.
“Sports betting has been a nice, new revenue stream for the PGA Tour: the league, the tournaments, [and] our players,” Warfield said. “But it's not why we're in it.”
Warfield instead noted the 2018 Supreme Court decision and the spread of legalized wagering since then, as well as the "greater oversight and consumer protections" offered by regulated sports betting.
For teams and leagues, then, the money is nice. It's just not all they want to talk about when it comes to legalizing sports betting.
“We're able to better monitor betting patterns and identify suspicious betting behavior,” Warfield said. “We're able to more openly talk to our athletes and our fans about the potential risks, as well as use our own platforms to promote responsible gaming practices.”
