NFL considers selling data for overseas betting

A U.S. Supreme Court ruling on legalizing domestic sports betting is expected by June.Getty Images

The NFL is considering selling its scoring and playing data to gambling houses overseas, even if the Supreme Court does not overturn the ban on domestic sports gambling outside Las Vegas.

The disclosure was included in a league memo sent to teams before last week’s owners meeting in Orlando.

Such a move would mark a dramatic shift for the normally reluctant NFL in the gaming space. While other leagues such as the NBA already do this, it would allow for gambling books in markets such as the U.K. to use league marks and get instant game data, which they would pay for. The NFL has had the ability to do this, but has never allowed the use of such data or intellectual property.

The development emerges as the NFL, last week, twice addressed owners on the changing gambling landscape and the various contingencies the sport must prepare for. With the looming high court decision, the sports and gambling worlds have been waiting for the NFL to address the matter, with the NBA and MLB already having staked out positions and lobbying in state capitals.

Quietly for a year, NFL Executive Vice President Eric Grubman has been working on a plan to prepare the league.

In the memo to teams, Grubman wrote the NFL would use the owners meeting to present international opportunities and ways to commercialize there this year, which means selling data and allowing use of logos. SportsBusiness Journal was read a copy of the memo.

Gambling houses need instant playing data that beats by seconds the ability of gamblers to watch games and quickly bet on the action. For example, if a team gets into the red zone, that would swing in-game betting chances, and the gambling houses need to be able to adjust the odds before those bets come in. The only way is an official data feed from the sports league that beats the bets by seconds. So the NFL is considering doing this overseas this year (leagues that do this provide the data through third parties).

Selling data overseas is just one of many permutations Grubman and his team presented to owners last week. Wading into overseas gambling would be a scenario should the Supreme Court unexpectedly maintain the gambling ban. If the Supreme Court offers a more narrow ruling or overturns the ban, selling overseas becomes one small aspect of a new domestic market.

Grubman and his team did not take a position on the so-called “integrity fee” that the NBA has proposed to generate revenue from an expanded U.S. gambling market. This would amount to a designated percentage of the gross proceeds of bets paid to the leagues (the NBA has suggested 1 percent).

“We are skeptical it will be easy to get an integrity fee the size the NBA has suggested,” said Clark Hunt, the Kansas City Chiefs owner.

Hunt in fact said Grubman’s message was essentially this: Don’t expect a huge revenue opportunity with the move to legalized gambling. “Beyond the sponsorship opportunities, I haven’t really seen a big opportunity,” Hunt said.

Shahid Khan, the Jacksonville Jaguars owner, suggested whether it’s an integrity fee or something else, the NFL should be compensated for bets on NFL games.

“It makes no sense everybody down the food chain and the value chain is, you know, getting a piece of the action, and the creator is not,” he said.

The NFL has been so conservative on gambling, Khan said, that when he travels, he avoids hotels that have casinos. NFL rules prohibit employees on league business from straying onto casino floors, but Khan takes that approach even when he travels in general.

The Supreme Court will rule by June. Most observers expect the court to overturn the ban, but leave the regulatory structure to individual states. That could create complications for leagues as they would have to negotiate their policies with 50 states, and not just the federal government.