- The Milwaukee Bucks and Betway have announced a multi-year partnership deal with the sportsbook brand becoming an ‘Official Gaming Partner’.
- Betway is now operational in five states: Colorado, Indiana, Iowa, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
- Betway has forged partnerships with a total of nine NBA teams.
Betway didn’t *really* announce partnerships with every team in the NBA during October 2021 but it sure seemed like it. In the last couple of weeks of the month, Betway announced partnership deals with the Dallas Mavericks, Minnesota Timberwolves, Philadelphia 76ers and Miami Heat. In early November, they added a NHL team for good measure as the Philadelphia Flyers joined the fold. Earlier today, they announced another NBA partnership deal–this time with the Milwaukee Bucks. Betway is now an ‘Official Gaming Partner’ of the Bucks which runs their NBA partnership total to nine teams.
Betway is a well known brand throughout Europe but one that is just now being established in the US betting market. Betway first went live with their mobile sports betting platform in Colorado and they’ve since picked up for more states for a total of five: Indiana, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Iowa. Betway has also indicated that they’ve got as many as eleven ‘market access’ agreements at their disposal though they haven’t added any new markets since Iowa went live in mid-November.
Like many other sportsbooks, Betway has aggressively leveraged promotional partnerships across a wide spectrum of sports to build their brand–both in Europe and in the US. At this point, it looks like they’re more concerned with building brand awareness and less concerned with focusing on areas that actively offer sports betting. In fact, Betway may have been the first US facing brand to target deals in states that have yet to create a regulatory framework for sports betting. This strategy is catching on, with recent investments of this type announced by PlayUp and PointsBet.
Betway has previously focused on states with big population numbers. Their other NBA partnerships are in California with the Los Angeles Clippers and Golden State Warriors, in Texas with the Dallas Mavericks, in Florida with the Miami Heat and in Minnesota with the Timberwolves. They have also inked a deal with the Cleveland Cavaliers that was in this group at the time it was made but Ohio is now on the cusp of introducing sports betting. They have two partnership deals with teams in ‘live’ sports betting markets in Illinois with the Chicago Bulls and in Pennsylvania with the Philadelphia 76ers.
This is a ‘low risk/high reward’ investment by sportsbooks and a pretty clever strategy. Betway gets the opportunity to build their brand in the biggest potential sports betting markets in the US as well as further establishing themselves on a national level. Wisconsin isn’t one of the biggest states in the country but it is in the top half, weighing in at #20 with a population of 5,893,718 putting it just ahead of Colorado and Minnesota. Another benefit to this strategy is providing a tangible sign to state lawmakers and media that there are a number of ancillary economic benefits to sports betting in addition to more tax revenue.
Specific to the Bucks’ partnership, Betway will get the typical ‘branding and digital access’ rights as well as sponsorship of a feature called the ‘Betway Game Rewind’. Here’s the particulars from today’s press release:
As part of the partnership, Betway will receive in-arena branding throughout Fiserv Forum and on Bucks digital assets as part of the Betway Game Rewind; a feature that highlights the Bucks’ last matchup against their current opponent across their popular social media channels.
Anthony Workman, CEO of Betway, mentioned his company’s already sizable NBA portfolio in announcing the Bucks’ deal:
“Adding to our already impressive portfolio in the NBA, we’re very happy to welcome Milwaukee Bucks to our family of partners. The Bucks are having a great season in the NBA and we’re looking forward to sharing the thrill of their successes together.”
The Bucks are the defending NBA champions and are part of a logjam atop the Eastern Conference where the top five teams are separated by a total of 2.5 games. Chief Business Development & Strategy Officer Matt Pazaras weighed in on the Betway deal for the team:
“We’re thrilled to partner with Betway and bring their world-class brand to Bucks fans. Betway has been a fantastic partner to work with from the start and we look forward to growing our relationship with one of the premier online betting and gaming brands in the world.”
Hopefully, we’ll see Betway in some new US markets in the months to come.
