A design for success? 888 on scaling up the US with the Sports Illustrated partnership

888 hit the headlines in April when EGR exclusively revealed the firm was in talks with Authentic Brands Group (ABG) over a potential sports betting partnership with the publishers of Sports Illustrated (SI), one of America’s biggest sports-themed publications. The wide-ranging media partnership, which was sealed in June, sees the creation of the SI Sportsbook, set to go live later this month in Colorado, with a proviso to widen that to other states over the coming months.

It gives 888 preferential access to 12 million SI readers and a website which receives more than 30 million monthly impressions and capitalizes on the recent trend among sports betting firms towards media partnerships. Below 888 CEO Itai Pazner discusses his perspective on the deal and how 888’s US roadmap will expand to encompass its prominent publishing partner.

EGR North America (EGR NA): How important is the forthcoming NFL season to 888’s plans in terms of the SI sportsbook and wider US expansion?

Itai Pazner (IP): Football is the most important sport and most important betting sport in the US so obviously we want to try to tie in as much as we can the launch of the SI sportsbook brand to the opening of the football season. We’re very much focused on that these days. Hopefully, we’ll be able to be on air before the football season begins in a week’s time.

EGR NA: In what ways does the group and SI plan to leverage SI’s considerable marketing and publishing assets to attract NFL bettors?

IP: There are different ways that we’re going to work together with the SI team to leverage all of their assets. Some of them are in terms of the editorial, so bespoke editorial pieces around the betting and football. Some of them are more kind of direct integration and links of odds into their regular editorial pieces, and some of them are through interactive games like draft games, prediction games, and games that we are going to create with them and offer to their customers as a kind of bridge between content and sports betting. We have a whole roadmap of different elements that are going to help engage with customers and offer them as SI betting opportunities. The first part of that was in the recent sports betting themed July issue of Sports Illustrated. Obviously, there was a reference to the SI sportsbook that’s going to be launched in the US and we had some ads there, so that’s just one example. We have a very long list of ideas that we have started working on and we will implement in the next few months with SI to integrate these two kinds of brands: SI media and SI sportsbook.

EGR NA: The initial agreement between 888 and SI includes a minimum annual advertising commitment on certain ABG media assets. Can you expand on how this works on a day-to-day basis?

IP: I wouldn’t get caught up on that part of the deal. It’s not a major part of the deal. We have a lot of exposure, we have different assets of exposure, but ABG as a group has a lot of other assets. They own brands. For instance, they own Marilyn Monroe as a brand. They have different kinds of brand associations that we can tap into, but that’s a probably the smallest part of the deal. We have a huge amount of exposure on their content assets in their social feeds and all of that is an integrated part of the deal. There’s no separate payment for exposure on their assets on the SI assets.

EGR NA: Following the partnership with Sports Illustrated, the group is currently aiming to recruit various roles into a joint team. What are these roles generally and how many employees are you and SI looking to add to this joint team?

IP: We’re looking to add several employees in the US market. Basically, there’s going to be the SI editorial team that’s run by Maven, the company that’s running the publishing business for SI. There’s 888’s core marketing and product teams as well as all the rest of support and  functions that’s purely run by 888. Then there’s going to be we call ‘hybrid positions,’ which is a combination of people that are content driven and betting driven, which are going to create that segue between the SI editorial content, the betting, and what we call the free play activity, that’s going to be about a team of another around 10 people that are in the recruitment process and in the SI team. Altogether, it’s going to be quite a significant team, between 888 marketing people, operational people, dedicated integrative roles, and then SI with their own editorial team, which they’re covering.

EGR NA: How would you describe SI’s approach to the partnership?

IP: I would describe it as extremely proactive and collaborative. SI was acquired by ABG just over two years ago, I think just before PASPA was repealed. They saw this as a very interesting asset. ABG recently also bought Reebok so they’re a very significant brand licensing retail and fashion brands owner and they took this project as one of their significant growth engines. We see that they are investing in the content side of SI, which has in the last year significantly increased its position as a content provider in the US. There was some data that came out of the market [in the last few days] that showed that in the last 12 months they tripled their exposure, their online exposure, and their impressions. They’ve become the fifth most viewed sports editorial content provider in the US, that’s moving from 10th place a year ago. So, you can see that they’ve decided to acquire this asset and not just keep this hanging around but invest in this asset through the operational partnerships that they’re doing with different companies. Maven is running the editorial side, and with them we’re doing the betting side. They’re also doing other partnerships. They’ve recently launched SI ticketing, an online ticket service, mainly focused on sporting events along with several other ventures. Overall, the brand exposure and everything that they’re doing with the brand is showing that they’re a very proactive and collaborative partner on this project.

EGR NA: How important is having the right product and platform to springboarding 888’s growth as it moves into the SI sportsbook?

IP: I really think it’s essential because the US market is extremely competitive. Some of the competitors have great brands and some of them have great products. I think the combination of a great brand and great product that we’re bringing with the Spectate product to the US over our proprietary back-end system, combined with 888’s knowhow and data-driven marketing capabilities, is a unique combination within the US market at the moment, and I do think it will be able to create traction there.

EGR NA: We’ve seen two very big consolidations in the US over the last few weeks: Penn/theScore and DK/GNOG, both of which have been ostensibly to acquire readymade platform tech. 888 in contrast paid just £15m for BetBright in 2019. Given the premiums paid by US operators for platform tech, do you feel you got a bargain with BetBright?

IP: First of all, BetBright was a very good deal for 888. We also got it at an attractive price. It also added huge strategic value, which we’re seeing now. The performance of our sportsbook outside of America has been amazing with the launch of 888 Spectate, our internal sports platform. Yes, it was a very smart strategic deal but it also came with great value if you compare it to some of the other deals that you’re seeing around today. I’d like to find other attractive opportunities like this, but this was quite a unique opportunity to buy a really good team with a great product that needed some enhancements and to take it to market, and that’s exactly what we did with BetBright.

EGR NA: Caesars Entertainment and Wynn Resorts have both unveiled multi-million-dollar ad campaigns, both pledging to spend significant sums on marketing in the US. What’s 888’s stance on this?

IP: We are going to be more selective in our approach to it. In general, we will apply a similar level of discipline that we do in other markets. It doesn’t matter if it’s in America or if it’s in Europe or anywhere else in the world, you need to invest in order to create awareness to take share and the fact that we have the SI sportsbook brand should assist us in developing that market share in a more efficient manner. We will be investing but I think it’s going to be a bit more selective than some of the other operators in the market.

EGR NA: Canada has obviously begun a journey towards single-event sports betting and igaming in the province of Ontario, and Yaniv Sherman [888 US SVP] has previously said the firm will look to launch a Canada version of the SI sportsbook. How are those plans proceeding?

IP: The SI deal that we have in place applies to the US only. We have different options for other territories globally, but we’re very much focused at the moment on the US market as there’s plenty of states to focus on. Having said that, Canada is a very interesting market for us, it’s a market that we’re familiar with, and we are very closely following the developments and regulations there. I do think we will participate in the opening of the regulated market, beginning with Ontario. We’re very much looking forward to that market opening up and allowing us to be active there and to market our product under a regulated regime, like we do in other places in the world.