MLB embraces sports betting, strikes deal with MGM Resorts
Baseball’s leadership once viewed gambling as the sport’s boogeyman.
For generations, baseball’s leadership has viewed gambling as the sport’s boogeyman, a threat to the integrity of the game that must be stamped out.
So, when Major League Baseball announced an agreement on Tuesday with MGM Resorts as the sport’s first gambling industry partner, it signaled again just how furiously sports are rushing to embrace the industry since the Supreme Court effectively struck down a federal law earlier this year that had served to ban sports betting in most states.
Baseball’s agreement comes after the NBA and the NHL also reached deals with MGM this year. It allows MGM to promote its gambling options on platforms like MLB Network, MLB.com and the MLB At Bat app.
Commissioner Rob Manfred viewed the arrangement as a long-term partnership that he hoped would reverse a troubling trend: declining attendance. Attendance dropped by 4 percent last season — the fifth time in six seasons it had declined.
“Our research is really strong on the idea that sports gaming can be an important source of fan engagement,” Manfred said during a news conference.
In some ways, baseball seems better positioned than other sports to draw in gamblers because of the deliberate pace, with its built-in breaks between pitches. Those pauses, far less frequent in other sports, could allow fans additional opportunities to place bets during a game. For example, a fan could bet on whether Boston’s Mookie Betts hits a single, double, home run, a groundout or a strikeout in his next at-bat.
Those types of betting opportunities might put more people in seats — and keep them there whether the game itself is compelling or not.
“Baseball is perfectly suited for this,” said Jim Murren, the MGM Resorts chairman and chief executive. “It will extend the viewership of games throughout multiple innings, regardless of the outcome or the score in that given period.”
Terms of the deal were not announced.
