A few weeks back I was wondering what the future of “sports betting media” was going to look like. You regulars know I’ve been a bit disappointed (often horrified) by the general direction from inception several years ago. There definitely are a lot of good things going on. But, there was too much that wasn’t about serving the audience. At worst, some segments/collaborations were designed to help predators EAT the audience. And, some stuff didn’t really belong under a “sports betting” banner even if it wasn’t predatory.
We may have had the clearest answer the other night when “Power Slap” did a “takeover” of VSiN programming. If you’re outside of Las Vegas, you may not be aware that Circa owner Derek Stevens has been heavily promoting Power Slap competitions, where people hit each other in the face as hard as they can for entertainment and betting inventory. It’s hard to know from the outside what Stevens’s business relationship is with VSiN these days. DraftKings technically purchased the network awhile back. All programming comes from Stevens’ properties.
Anyway, Stevens can obviously influence VSiN programming for marketing purposes. That’s clear. We don’t need to know his exact ownership stake if he still owns a piece. What’s also clear is that face slapping has NOTHING to do with mainstream sports betting. Really, the only connection is that a few people somewhere are hoping that betting on the “sport” helps it to grow. There’s never been a groundswell of support from sports fans in general thinking “Boy, I hope people slapping each other in the face hard enough to cause concussions becomes a sport so I can bet on it.” It’s hard enough to get people to bet on baseball or soccer.
The answer to “what will sports betting media look like in the future?” is pretty obviously “whatever ownership, or the power structure wants to promote.” Sports betting media was initially, and continues to be a marketing tool for promotional purposes. It’s not about “serving” an audience. A combination of “attracting” an audience, and “getting that audience to visit your resort, or buy products.”
In a sane world, you can’t really draw a line from “sports betting media” to “gushing about face slappers live in studio.” But, there it was.
By the way, nothing against the hosts who were doing the interviews. Big fans of both. Awkward position to be in because employees are supposed to be enthusiastic and supportive when a boss believes in something.
Big picture, it’s not something most of us could have imagined when VSiN was born. (Was face slapping as a sport even imagined back then?). Circa is a legitimately great sports book (as is the South Point, which also does programming from the studio that used to host VSiN). Not sure how the porridge will ever be “just right.” Would help if the people cooking the porridge were more focused on what the people eating the porridge want to eat.
That’s always going to be my take. May not be a relevant take for modern media. Anyway, onto our usual diet of nuts-and-bolts sports betting notes…