Fifteen minutes of fame: do niche sports have the staying power to keep bettors interested?

In February 2016, at the age of 18, Marcus Rashford stepped in for the injured Anthony Martial for Manchester United in a Europa League Round of 32 fixture. The teenager scored twice on his debut against FC Midtjylland before netting a brace in his Premier League debut against Arsenal three days later. And he has never looked back.

In a somewhat ham-fisted manner, Martial is the horseracing, football and NBA to Rashford’s darts, table tennis and esports. The question is: will these niche vectors follow in Rashford’s footsteps and not only survive, but thrive, when normality eventually returns? Or will they fall by the wayside and be forgotten despite their limelight moment?

“There has unquestionably been an increase in interest in traditionally less popular sports amid the lighter global sporting calendar,” says Kambi’s head of trading, Simon Noy. An increase in interest could perhaps be a subdued way to describe the rise of the niche.

Table tennis accounted for a third of all Kambi’s turnover in the second half of March following the sports shutdown, and the company still recorded a 33% increase in first quarter revenue year-on-year despite most events falling victim to the pandemic in the latter part of the quarter.

Noy said that Kambi’s extensive pre-existing portfolio before the shutdown, which included the likes of table tennis and darts, helped alleviate the financial nosedives that others in the industry have experienced.

He notes: “Kambi has been trading these sports for a long time. The diversity of our offering and the sports we trade is a key string to our bow and has meant that our revenues have not been as extensively hit as others in the sector.”

For Kindred Group’s Ali Gill, while the smaller verticals have been a welcome buoy in a sea of uncertainty, the return of normality cannot come quickly enough. “Uptake on smaller sports have certainly gone a small way to make up for the loss of major sports. However, put simply, we will be extremely happy as an operator when sports returns to ‘normal’,” he explains.
Of these smaller sports that Gill references, esports is one that has garnered much attention since the sports shutdown, with operators and suppliers scrambling to add the vertical to sportsbook offerings.

“Esports, including FIFA, has been another area where we have seen huge uplift during the period,” says Gill. “In terms of FIFA, it became clear that the country was missing football and the regular offering of various FIFA events proved highly popular.”

Another sport that piqued bettors’ interest is darts via the PDC Home Tour, which sees elite level players competing live from their homes. Stats Perform secured a livestreaming agreement with the PDC for its global Watch&Bet service, and CCO and MD of betting Andrew Ashenden says that the coronavirus pandemic has provided an opportunity to diversify.
“It represents an opportunity in the sense that one of our broader strategic objectives is to get into other sports. It is vitally important, and we are constantly looking for other good quality content to bring to the sports betting ecosystem,” Ashenden says.

For Kambi, Noy highlights how the uptake on darts alone during this period will blow 2019 figures out of the water, adding: “If the number of darts tournaments taking place continues at the current rate, then our 2020 total of darts events traded will exceed the 2019 figure by 31 May.”

Betting blind

While there has been an undeniable explosion in the popularity of these smaller sports, the growth in betting volume raises some interesting questions. An average UK sports bettor’s knowledge of, say, the Premier League compared to Russian table tennis is undeniably deeper and more informed.

To see the drive towards these niche sports in the volumes recorded proposes the point that the skill element of sports betting has been revoked and, instead depending solely on odds, it has erased the dividing line between casino games, which had existed prior.

It is a point Noy refutes, instead highlighting the notion that, at its fulcrum, sports betting is “a form of entertainment” and these niche sports provide that at a base level, regardless of their popularity before the sports shutdown.

Noy continues: “Indeed, we certainly shouldn’t assume that players don’t have a high level of knowledge of these sports or seek to bolster their knowledge with information from the many available sources that exist.” A Google search for ‘Belarusian football tips’ returns more than eight million hits, so Noy’s point is pertinent, but Gill offers an alternative view when it comes to less-studied markets.

“One thing we always place great emphasis on, and even more so during this period, is player safety and responsible gambling [and] ensuring players remain in control even when betting on things they may have slightly less knowledge on,” he notes.

Sports betting is not always undertaken with an omniscient lens, and it would be reductive to assume that every bet placed is done so after sufficient research of the event. “For some, the skill isn’t necessarily knowing the sport and its players, but in successfully playing the odds,” Noy points out.

Will it stick?

The return of Germany’s Bundesliga in mid-May perhaps marked the beginning of the end for these previously unheralded verticals. Spain’s La Liga is pencilled in for a June return and the Premier League recently confirmed a 17 June resumption after ramping up league-wide Covid-19 testing. The death knell tolls for sports that captured eyes, ears and wallets for the past few months.

For the likes of table tennis, it was over before it really began. Despite romanticism, once the established entities returned, niche sports were expected to fall by the wayside and become a supplement to the main.

However, Gill says that these smaller verticals provided a much-needed boost in uncertain times. “In the real dark days at the beginning where we lost almost any semblance of what we would consider in the UK as ‘traditional’ sports, these smaller niche sports really took up the baton.”

Noy follows Gill’s sentiment, adding that the period allowed the verticals their “turn in the limelight” but he is hesitant to suggest that they will remain prominent in the future. “It’s tricky to say how sticky these players will prove when more traditional sports and events make their return,” he says. “We’re not yet seeing a decrease in betting activity on events as some of the more traditionally popular leagues return, so there are some early signs of stickiness.”

However, the surge of esports, coupled with the size of the industry outside of betting, points towards one pretender retaining its place post-coronavirus.

Ashenden is looking forward to seeing how esports develops and assimilates alongside traditional markets. “I think it’d be really interesting to see the degree to which there’s a longevity around after this period [for esports],” he comments.

Noy takes Ashenden’s interest and applies a concrete resolution for the future, having seen first-hand the success, despite the potential lack of “stickiness”, adding: “What I would emphasise is that we’ll continue to offer these niche sports as we know that many players enjoy them.”

While players may have enjoyed the presence of these events, the novelty will eventually wear off, and the desire for premier, elite-level sports will dictate betting patterns as was the case pre-coronavirus. The comfort zone combination of knowledge, previous experience and familiar faces will snare bettors once again.

Gill says: “My feeling would be that come the return of major sports and leagues, these smaller sports will fall away. Ultimately, I think once players can return to betting on things they are more invested in, and have better knowledge of, that’s what they’ll do.”

As more sports return from their coronavirus-inflicted stint in the stands, the brief dynasty of the niche will always have its Marcus Rashford moment.