888 inks US-led Premier League sponsorship deal with NBC

888 has sealed a deal to sponsor English Premier League (EPL) coverage on US broadcasting network NBC. The localised agreement is geared towards NBC coverage in New York and New Jersey but could potentially expand across other NBC networks as the operator expands into other US states. 888 is primed to launch its new Spectate sports betting proprietary technology platform across the US in 2021, with the aim of winning market share from operators including BetMGM, FanDuel and DraftKings. Speaking exclusively to EGR, 888 SVP, head of commercial development Yaniv Sherman, said: “As a main sponsor and as a support sponsor, we have content inside the main shows and in the pre-game and half time shows. “The EPL deal, while mainly geared towards the US, gives us the opportunity to go after specific player demographics and audiences in a more focused manner. “That is the idea behind that, because soccer is popular in the US, particularly in the North East region. That popularity is growing and the idea was to leverage that opportunity. “We’ve seen a lot of multicultural, multiregional activity geared around soccer within the traditional NFL weekend, which is typically Saturday and Sunday afternoon, so if we have content before these games, then we capitalise on that opportunity,” Sherman added. NBC’s sport networks include an NBC Sports app, which allows account holders to watch live streaming coverage of Premier League matches, as well as interviews and a radio podcast featuring former professional footballers Robbie Earle and Robbie Mustoe. NBC already holds an existing content and media deal with PointsBet, a deal which has seen the operator’s odds, games and content integrated into the NBC Sports app. In September, 888 inked a deal to become the official sports betting partner for the NFL in the UK and Ireland, which includes 888 advertisements during UK and Irish broadcasts of Monday Night Football, as well as the NFL play-offs and Super Bowl on Sky Sports. “A lot of this involves deploying the latest technologies needed to effectively optimise the value from marketing opportunities,” Sherman explained. “We’re not saying we’ll only do big marketing deals in the US, and we’re not going to abandon efforts on the smaller marketing deals, it’s just about having that technology there to generate as much value as possible from these deals where you can. “Budgets in areas like marketing are limited because of the nature of the opportunity, so we need to use that money effectively. I’d rather see us pursue eight to 10 deals which all use marketing spend effectively than one big deal which is costly and ineffective to operate,” Sherman added.