WNBA and DraftKings Seal an Exciting New Partnership
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00:00Okay, so now a bigger news as the WNBA and DraftKings make their partnership official.
00:09So good news for both sides, especially I would say, Sam, very good news for the WNBA.
00:15Sam, even with sports betting being legal a couple of years ago, they could have never
00:19dreamed that they would be able to link up with a partnership like this.
00:23But the sport is growing wildly.
00:24The attention on it has been tremendous.
00:27And I think predominantly that's the reason why.
00:29I don't think anything simply has changed except for the WNBA's popularity.
00:34Yeah, this is really a cool story, and one of the reasons I love covering sports business
00:38and sports betting in general, here we're kind of seeing DraftKings, the money that
00:43they're putting in here, reflect really what's going on with American fandom and
00:47viewership. The WNBA is fresh off of an 11-year, $2.2 billion new media rights deal.
00:54So that's huge news.
00:55And now you're seeing companies invest, kind of put their money where their mouth is.
00:58We just talked about DraftKings.
01:00Maybe they didn't find Visa so great.
01:04Maybe they didn't make a lot of money off that deal.
01:05But the fact that they're doing a deal now, a partnership with the WNBA, they're going
01:10to be their second sports betting sponsor, comes after they stopped partnerships with
01:14other companies like ESPN that they didn't think was really bearing fruit.
01:17So this really says a lot about what they believe the WNBA to be currently as sort of
01:22a marketing tool and where they believe it's going to go as well.
01:26So FanDuel previously had been the only sports betting sponsor, but now it adds
01:30DraftKings. DraftKings will have basically branding opportunities all over the WNBA's
01:35platform, including this new WNBA postseason push, which is going to be a content kind
01:41of platform that comes out at the end of the regular season.
01:44So DraftKings is pretty excited about that from a branding opportunity.
01:48They'll also get access to official league data, which is something that was talked
01:51about really early in the days of sports betting companies getting the actual data
01:55from the league to verify the stats.
01:57It hasn't really shaken out where it's been a big deal if they don't have it.
02:01But DraftKings has also been pretty vocal about wanting to add more WNBA markets that
02:06mirror a lot of the stuff they've done with the NBA, if that's first basket, first
02:10three, those kind of things.
02:11So DraftKings really doesn't have to look far to see the popularity spike in the WNBA.
02:17They already reported before the year started that they expected money wagered on the
02:21sport to double from last year, which was already almost double the year before.
02:26Obviously, viewership is up a ton, I think 300 percent year over year.
02:30Merchandise sales are through the roof.
02:32So it's really cool to see as the WNBA rises, as viewership obviously spikes, you have
02:37companies coming in and investing in it and wanting it to grow more.
02:40So it's a really good sign for the league as women's hoops continues to grow.
02:44You have big tech companies like DraftKings coming in and maybe there'll be a few more
02:48down the road, too, if DraftKings and FanDuel are successful with their partnerships here.