Month: May 2017

GAME Act seeks to legalize sports gambling

A new bill seeking to repeal the current ban on sports gaming was introduced into Congress on Thursday.

The bill is a likely response to the U.S. Solicitor General’s recommendation that the U.S. Supreme Court not take the sports gambling cases litigated in New Jerseys.

The Gaming Accountability and Modernization Enhancement Act or GAME Act was introduced on Thursday per an ESPN report.  The GAME Act would repeal PAPSA, the much-litigated federal legislation which prohibits sports gambling.

The GAME Act defines a bet or wager as “the risking of something of value including virtual currency or virtual items, upon the outcome of a contest of others, a sporting event or a game of skill or a game of chance, on the expectation that the person will receive something of value in the event of a certain outcome.”  This includes daily fantasy sports.

The Act, according to the drafter of the bill, is an opportunity to update the gambling laws.

Live eSports coming to Facebook

The Wall Street Journal reports that Facebook will pay eSports teams and others related to the industry to post videos on the social network platform.

The news comes at about the same time that Major League Baseball aired its first game on Facebook without regional blackouts.  The move is a new strategy for Facbook as it is bringing live content to the platform.

The eSports and MLB deals join Facebook’s deal in March with Major League Soccer to air its games.

No financial terms were disclosed although terms revealed state that “esports partners must produce a minimum number of hours of video” for Facebook.  But, most can publish to rival platform Twitch, which is owned by Amazon.com.

The new deal hopes to develop a new “ecosystem”  Facebook.  For esports teams, Facebook exposure should help teams with marketing and generating ad revenue.

17 NBA teams to participate in NBA 2K League

The NBA announced that 17 of the 30 teams will participate in the forthcoming NBA 2K League coming in 2018.

The league is a joint project with the NBA and Take-Two Interactive Software.  The NBA teams that are participating have agreed to a three year deal where each team will pay on average $250,000 per year.

The upcoming eLeague will be the first time one of the major sports leagues have directly collaborated to establish an eLeague of its own.

The investment in eSports shows the growing reach of the gaming community as well as the recognition that the sport will attract a younger demographic.

With the NBA involvement, it is likely that we’ll see more leagues collaborating with video game makers.

Twitter announces new live streaming sports deals

Twitter announced a number of new live streaming sports deals including the WNBA, PGA, MLB and collegiate games. The company lost out on a deal for Thursday Night NFL games to Amazon.com and is bolstering its efforts with more live streaming and content.  Amazon.com paid 10 times the amount that Twitter paid last year.

The company announced original content deals along with the live streaming at a Digital Content NewFronts Presentation.

The strategy seeks to bring more revenue to the company which is looking to monetize its platform.

The live streaming deals bring up the issue of the enforcement of the copyright as with those using Periscope to freely air sports content.  While this might be an ancillary issue at this time, with upgrades to technology this will come into question later down the road.