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00:00Welcome back to Newswire, DraftKings in the news quite a bit over the last 24 hours, partnering
00:07up with the WNBA, but also leaving one other partnership.
00:11That will be the topic that Sam McQuillan and I start off with.
00:14Sam, great to have you back here on Newswire.
00:18And yeah, let's start off with this story here, VSIN, the Sports Betting Network that
00:24has been around for a number of years, actually, full transparency.
00:28I used to be on VSIN all the time.
00:30I used to make weekly appearances on that show, of course, before SportsGrid became
00:33live.
00:34And now I am here with you guys on SportsGrid.
00:36But certainly they built their own footprint into a 24-hour network on radio initially.
00:44And then a few years ago, DraftKings came in and took over some of the sponsorship and
00:50distribution.
00:51And now we find out that they're leaving that sponsorship and distribution.
00:54So what exactly is going on here, Sam?
00:58Yeah, Craig.
00:59A few years ago, when DraftKings actually bought VSIN, they fully took over the network.
01:05But as you well know, it's a network designed for sports bettors to find an edge, talk about
01:11different books that have better pricing here or there.
01:14So when DraftKings came in, they kind of just slapped their logo on a lot of things.
01:19And it was a lot of odds presented by DraftKings, which kind of conflicted with maybe the way
01:25the network was founded.
01:26But they paid $70 million at the time to acquire the network and do all of those things.
01:32And now three years later, we're talking about them selling the network back to Brent Musburger,
01:37legendary broadcaster, and his family, which founded and built out this network.
01:42And kind of when this network was created, it was really one of the first of the time
01:46to talk about sports betting 24-7, have a place where you could always go.
01:51Now you have a lot of other places, including SportsGrid, FanDuel TV, all these different
01:5524-hour sports betting networks, so to speak.
01:59So we talked about this deal being closed last week.
02:02I believe there was a report that the Musburgers could buy DraftKings back.
02:07Fast forward a week later, the deal's complete.
02:09We don't know how much exactly.
02:12The parameters of the deal are very unclear at this moment.
02:14There was sort of some speculation out there that it could kind of mirror what Barstool
02:20did with Penn, selling it back to founder Dave Portnoy for $1.
02:26Now it's not an apples-to-apples case, because Barstool there was able to kind of take advantage
02:31of Penn all of a sudden needing to move quickly on ESPN, needing to get rid of Barstool as
02:36soon as possible, and really had a lot of leverage there.
02:39So it'd be hard to think of a similar situation with DraftKings where owning Visen would conflict
02:44them from doing any other larger media deal.
02:47So it could mean a few other things.
02:49It could mean they have another move up their sleeve in terms of media partners.
02:53It could mean that, quite frankly, they just didn't really figure out how to make it a
02:57profitable partnership besides couldn't mesh.
03:00The nature of Visen obviously is a lot different than just using one book.
03:04So the CEO of DraftKings has been pretty vocal over the past year and a half about the need
03:10to find more efficient partnerships, and partnerships that are going to be really good for DraftKings
03:14as opposed to just kind of, here's a lot of money, get our brand out there.
03:18So this could be part of that, but DraftKings also hasn't shied away from spending a lot
03:22of money on big partnerships lately either.
03:25They just paid like $750 million to buy a Jackpocket, which is a lottery retailer.
03:30So I imagine we'll hear more about this during DraftKings' upcoming earnings call.
03:36We'll see if it's a pivot away towards media as a customer acquisition tool, or if they've
03:41got something else up their sleeve.
03:43It would be nice to get a price tag, but we'll just kind of have to see what else shakes
03:46on this trade.
03:47Yeah, we just really don't know.
03:49Again, you know, it would be hard for me to believe that it is similar to the Barstool
03:53acquisition for a buck.
03:55But again, as you said, we don't know if they have something else that they had to get out
03:58of this and find something else.
04:00It did happen very quickly, I will say.
04:01I saw the rumor about it, and then the next week I did see Visen, I think it was Brian
04:06Musburger, ended up making that post.
04:08Okay, so now bigger news as the WNBA and DraftKings make their partnership official.
04:13So good news for both sides, especially, I would say, Sam, very good news for the WNBA.
04:19Sam, even with sports betting being legal a couple of years ago, they could have never
04:23dreamed that they would be able to link up with a partnership like this.
04:27But the sport is growing wildly.
04:29The attention on it has been tremendous.
04:32And I think predominantly that's the reason why.
04:34I don't think anything simply has changed except for the WNBA's popularity.
04:38Yeah, this is really a cool story, and one of the reasons I love covering sports business
04:43and sports betting in general, here we're kind of seeing DraftKings, the money that
04:48they're putting in here, reflect really what's going on with American fandom and viewership.
04:53The WNBA is fresh off of an 11-year, $2.2 billion new media rights deal.
04:59So that's huge news.
05:00And now you're seeing companies invest, kind of put their money where their mouth is.
05:03We just talked about DraftKings, maybe they didn't find Visen so great, maybe they didn't
05:08make a lot of money off that deal.
05:10But the fact that they're doing a deal now, a partnership with the WNBA, they're going
05:14to be their second sports betting sponsor, comes after they stopped partnerships with
05:19other companies like ESPN that they didn't think was really bearing fruit.
05:22So this really says a lot about what they believe the WNBA to be currently as sort of
05:27a marketing tool and where they believe it's going to go as well.
05:31So FanDuel previously had been the only sports betting sponsor, but now it adds DraftKings.
05:36DraftKings will have basically branding opportunities all over the WNBA's platform, including this
05:41new WNBA post-season push, which is going to be a content kind of platform that comes
05:47out at the end of the regular season.
05:49So DraftKings is pretty excited about that from a branding opportunity.
05:52They'll also get access to official league data, which is something that was talked about
05:56really early in the days of sports betting companies, getting the actual data from the
06:00league to verify the stats.
06:02It hasn't really shaken out where it's been a big deal if they don't have it.
06:06But DraftKings has also been pretty vocal about wanting to add more WNBA markets that
06:10mirror a lot of the stuff they've done with the NBA, if that's first basket, first three,
06:15those kinds of things.
06:16So DraftKings really doesn't have to look far to see the popularity spike in the WNBA.
06:22They already reported before the year started that they expected money wagered on the sport
06:26to double from last year, which was already almost double the year before.
06:31Obviously, viewership is up a ton, I think 300% year over year.
06:35Merchandise sales are through the roof.
06:36So it's really cool to see as the WNBA rises, as viewership obviously spikes, you have companies
06:42coming in and investing in it and wanting it to grow more.
06:45So it's a really good sign for the league as women's hoops continues to grow.
06:49You have big tech companies like DraftKings coming in, and maybe there'll be a few more
06:53down the road, too, if DraftKings and FanDuel are successful with their partnerships here.
06:57Yeah.
06:58And speaking of tech companies, we move ahead to Camby, who, of course, they don't need
07:01to be involved in taking any money as sports betting operators, but they certainly have
07:06had a big footprint in the operators themselves and running some of the tech for it.
07:10Really good second quarter, Sam, for Camby.
07:13I mean, this is a company we've talked about on the show for several years.
07:16It seems like their success continues to grow.
07:19Yeah.
07:20Camby is a really interesting case in the sports betting landscape.
07:23They basically outsource their tech to sports books that don't have their own tech or haven't
07:28built out their own tech.
07:29It's been a big trend lately in America for companies like DraftKings, Penn that was Barstool,
07:34now ESPN Bet, to move off of Camby and onto their own tech.
07:38We've seen kind of how hard that can be for some to maintain a competitive product.
07:42But good news for Camby here with revenue up 6.5% year over year as they report second
07:47quarter earnings and profit up 67% as well.
07:51The really interesting thing, I think, within all that is how well they did with international
07:56soccer, which they still have a ton of customers in Europe and across the world.
08:00So a lot of their business is tied to how well they do there.
08:03They had a 20% increase in betting volume this quarter, which is basically the handle.
08:08It's what the Europeans call a handle.
08:10So that means, you know, they were taking more bets than ever on a super popular sport.
08:14And with that, they also posted a record hold of 10.3%.
08:18That's essentially what the sports books keep, which is the best ever.
08:22So it was really a great quarter.
08:24Thanks a lot to the Euros and Copa America, but also Camby's product has developed a lot.
08:29They were really vocal about this being kind of a test period for their new AI trading
08:33platform, and we're seeing it pay dividends.
08:36So as we expand to football later in the fall, maybe this is a good sign that that'll all
08:41roll over.
08:42It's going to be really interesting to see how these business to business providers survive
08:46now in this new sports betting landscape.
08:48All right, Sam.
08:49Well, great stuff.
08:50As always, we'll talk to you again next week.
08:52I know you're building a new little Sam studio.
08:55I'll look forward to seeing you when you have that in and we'll talk again soon.
08:58Yeah, I can't wait.
08:59Thanks, Craig.