The legalization of sports betting is massive news for the sports industry because essentially every party benefits, except maybe Las Vegas. 

  • More people will be interested in watching and attending games for longer, which will increase attendance and TV viewership and the associated revenue streams for teams and media rights holders. 
  • Companies providing sports betting services will be spending marketing and sponsorship dollars to differentiate themselves, which will also flow to teams and media rights holders. 

Those things are obvious. 

What I’m most curious about is how companies like Facebook, Amazon and even Yahoo! take advantage of this shift. 

  • Will Facebook be the go-to place that combines community, exclusive live streaming and sports betting apps all on one screen? 
  • Will Amazon do the same with e-commerce? 
  • Will Yahoo! leverage it’s massive fantasy sports following?

Time will tell, but I’m betting on one of these other technology companies capitalizing potentially even more than the obvious players.  

– Matt Balvanz