MLB Adds Score Media & Gaming As Authorized Betting Operator

MLB has added Score Media & Gaming to its portfolio of authorized sports betting operators in a deal that will deliver access to the league’s live official data feed as well as MLB and club logos for use on theScore Bet app and web site. Already available in New Jersey, theScore Bet sportsbook app also is on track to launch in Indiana and Colorado in the next two months. It becomes the seventh sportsbook in the league’s authorized operator portfolio, joining FanDuel, DraftKings, Bet MGM, FoxBet, Bet365 and Intralot.

Toronto-based Score Media positions itself as the first to create a North American media company to integrate sports betting into its sports offerings. Formerly the digital wing of the Score Television Network, Score Media was spun off shortly before the network was acquired by Rogers Communication in ‘12. While other sportsbooks have deals that drive traffic from the leading sports sites, only theScore allows them to begin their transaction at the same place that they go for scores and other content, creating betting slips that then integrate with the betting app to complete the transaction.

“We do our deals (sportsbook and media deals) with MLB separately, but at the end of the day we think the right approach and the win is going to be in the interface,” said Score Media Founder & CEO John Levy. “So by getting this fast data from MLB in our betting app, it allows us to do it in a consistent, integrated fashion with what we have in our sports media app.”

More than half of theScore Bet users in New Jersey found the site through the general sports app, Levy said, making league authorization and official data even more important in his company’s model. “It’s always good to have strong relationship with the leagues that are at the core of what we do for a living,” said Levy, who struck a similar deal with the NBA in January. “That’s not foreign to us. We were in the TV business and had relationships with these guys for our TV network in Canada years ago. So it’s good to continue that on.”