Sports Wagering TV Ad Spend Grows 281% Over 9 Months

The growing sports TV ad category of sports wagering has seen national TV ad spending rise nearly threefold over the most recent nine-month period to $282 million, according to Mediapost citing figures from iSpot.tv.

From September 2021 through May 2022, there was a 281% rise in estimated national TV ad spend versus the same period a year ago -- with total TV ad impressions up 48% to 18.2 billion versus the same period the year before.

Of those 18.2 billion TV advertising impressions, 60% were on national linear TV networks, while 37% came via local TV media deals and 2.7% were streaming. Currently there are 30 states that have live/legal operations, and five states have passed legislation, but sports betting is not yet operational.

The biggest players in terms of total TV ad impressions are FanDuel with a 34.0% share, Caesars Entertainment with 21.7%, DraftKings with 18.6%, BetMGM with 13.4%, and Fox Bet at 7.5%.

FanDuel's big lead was largely driven by TV media airing during the NFL games.

Top programs for TV ad impressions for sports-betting operations for in-game/in-play TV commercials include the NFL with a 42.5% share; NBA (7.9%); Major League Baseball (5.0%); college football (3.3%); NHL (1.3%); and PGA (1.2%).

For the previous nine-month period -- September 2020 through May 2021 -- national TV ad spend was $74 million, from a total of 12.23 billion TV advertising impressions -- 57% for national linear TV; 40% of which came from local TV media buys, and 3.4% on streaming platforms.

A year ago, FanDuel was at a 40.6% share, followed by DraftKings (36.3%); FOX Bet (12.2%); BetMGM (9.5%); PointsBet (0.9%); Unibet (0.2%); WynnBet (0.1%); and Caesars Entertainment (0.01%).