While the extra attention that legal sports betting in Tennessee could bring to Tennessee Titans games is definitely a benefit, the Titans stand to profit in another way. How much Titans sports betting profit there will be depends on how things play out, however.
Part of the state’s law ensures the Titans have a stake. How much that will pay off depends on bettors and books cooperating with the NFL’s wishes, however.
How the Titans sports betting profits could skyrocket
The Tennessee sports betting law requires sportsbooks to use “official” data to set in-game wagers. Those include in-play prop bets such as which team will score first, player statistics and others.
For Titans and other NFL teams, the provider of that data is Sportradar. Sportradar doesn’t provide that data to sportsbooks free of charge. On the contrary, the cost can be significant.
The terms of the deal between Sportradar and the NFL aren’t publicized. But when Tennessee sportsbooks start operating sometime next year, operators will have to pay Sportradar if they want to offer bets covered under the law.
How that gets to the Titans requires a little more explanation.
The path from bettors’ pockets to the Titans’ coffers
As with many other businesses of Sportradar’s scale, there are multiple investors. Those investors get a cut of the profits from the business.
In Sportradar’s case, one of those investors is the NFL. While the relationship between the NFL and the Titans is much more complicated than a simple McDonald’s franchise model, that’s a good analogy on a simplistic level.
While the Titans provide a lot of value to the NFL, the NFL in turn provides some revenue to the Titans. Much of that revenue comes from the NFL’s several broadcast rights deals, but there are many other sources.
One of them is the return from the NFL’s investment in Sportradar. That return could be buoyed if sportsbooks do what the NFL wants.
The NFL’s cut grows as Sportradar enforces its will
Other states with legal sports betting like New Jersey and Pennsylvania don’t have requirements for books to use official data for in-play bets. That doesn’t mean Sportradar isn’t providing data in those states.
Sportradar has recently made moves to get books in those states to voluntarily purchase its data feed. While Sportradar has to prove its product is superior and/or offer competitive pricing to compel those books to do so, in the case of the NFL, it’s the exclusive provider of “official data.”
The more books buy in, the greater the revenue for Sportradar, which mean more money for the NFL as a stakeholder, which mean a bigger check for the Titans as one of the NFL’s 32 franchises. It’s simple.
How much money the Titans get from sports betting remains to be seen. What’s certain is that the team will get a cut.
