The National Football League has officially renewed its sports betting vows with DraftKings and FanDuel while adding Fanatics to its exclusive club of partners.
- The NFL announced multi-year commercial deals with longstanding partners DraftKings and FanDuel and added Fanatics as a third official online sportsbook partner.
- The agreements grant the operators official branding, league data, and promotional rights while requiring strict integrity and responsible gambling standards.
- The NFL is not including prediction markets in the deals, at least for now, perhaps reflecting the league's concerns about the federally regulated exchanges.
With the regular season set to begin in two weeks, the NFL announced Thursday it reached “multi-year” commercial agreements with the three online gambling companies.
DraftKings and FanDuel have been sports betting partners with the NFL dating back to 2021, but their previous agreements reportedly expired at the end of March.
Fanatics Betting and Gaming is now officially the third sportsbook partner for the league, succeeding Caesars, and expanding on Fanatics' collectible and merchandise business with the league.
NFL said it has reached commercial agreements with three sports betting operators ahead of the 2026 season: DraftKings, FanDuel and Fanatics Betting and Gaming.
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) August 27, 2026
The deals will allow the three U.S. sports betting companies to use official marks and logos, to promote their product during games, and to access official league data provided by another official partner, Genius Sports, which owns Covers.
That arrangement includes access to “real-time, official play-by-play statistics, proprietary Next Gen Stats” and Genius’ interactive BetVision product, which “combines official, low-latency live streams from sports leagues with an integrated betslip, live statistics and bet prompts.”
The three operators also agreed to follow the league’s integrity policy and work together on intelligence sharing, advocacy, and responsible gambling programs. That means they will not offer betting markets the league deems “objectionable,” such as those involving officiating, injuries, and easily manipulatable outcomes.
Genius is another cornerstone of the NFL’s integrity program, as the company monitors betting markets for suspicious activity.
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell was asked by Mike Tirico before TNF if he is comfortable with how the league is reconciling the sports betting-related business it is doing and protecting the integrity of the game (my paraphrasing).
— Geoff Zochodne (@GeoffZochodne) September 7, 2023
Goodell's response:
"It's one of the reasons…
Thursday’s press release noted DraftKings will continue its partnership with the NFL as its official daily fantasy sports partner, a commercial relationship that has existed since 2019. Fanatics, meanwhile, will become an “official online casino marketing partner” of the NFL.
“DraftKings, FanDuel and Fanatics share our vision for innovation and fan engagement, but most importantly, our commitment to protecting the integrity of the game,” said Renie Anderson, executive vice president and chief revenue officer at the NFL, in the press release. “We look forward to navigating this next chapter in sports betting together.”
The deals tee up the league and its three online sports betting partners for another busy year of NFL-related wagering. Football remains king among American sports bettors, and this season could be more crucial than others.
What may make this season more important than ever is the presence of federally regulated prediction markets.
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission-regulated exchanges offer sports-related event contracts for trading across the U.S., a product that some states view as sports betting they have not authorized.
This has caused a fierce fight involving the CFTC, prediction market operators, and states over the legality of sports event contracts, which can stand in for state-regulated sports betting in significant jurisdictions, such as California and Texas.
More than 8,000 event contracts were trading on prediction markets as of last month, up from 220+ in 2021, according to footnote in today's proposed CFTC rulemaking: pic.twitter.com/yvGt8j9tO6
— Geoff Zochodne (@GeoffZochodne) June 10, 2026
Although DraftKings and FanDuel maintain they haven’t bled much business to prediction markets and are offering their own sports event contracts in jurisdictions where they cannot offer state-regulated sports betting, there is fierce competition expected by both online sportsbooks and prediction markets this year for football-related business.
Thursday’s press release is silent on prediction markets. The release is specific, too, saying the three operators (emphasis ours) "will have the ability to leverage NFL marks within the sports betting category and promote online and retail sports betting."
The data and IP rights guaranteed under the sports betting deals do not extend to the prediction market platforms of DraftKings, Fanatics, or FanDuel, according to ESPN.
"That's not a space that we're considering right now commercially," Anderson told ESPN.
The NFL has indeed been more cautious than some other leagues in embracing prediction markets. The NHL and MLB have permitted partnerships, but the NFL has not gone there yet.
Fourth-and-long
The league urged the CFTC in July to strengthen proposed new rules for prediction markets, saying they "fall significantly short of protecting the integrity of sporting events and the fans who participate in these markets."
One of the league's reservations has to do with the types of contracts that may be offered, as it wants the same type of limitations for prediction markets to which the NFL’s online sports betting partners have agreed.
“We believe these objectionable contracts are detrimental to the long-term health of these markets, to the public, and to the leagues,” the NFL said in its comment letter to the CFTC. “Precisely because of the need to provide clear guidelines as to what is and is not permitted, the Commission must expressly prohibit the listing, trading, or clearing of categories of contracts it identifies as particularly susceptible to manipulation or that raise other public policy concerns.”
