The National Hockey League is expanding its presence in the US sports betting landscape by announcing a streaming partnership with gambling and fantasy sports company FanDuel Group.
FanDuel Sportsbook, the company’s online sports betting platform, will stream up to two regular-season games daily in states where online sports betting is legal for the remainder of the season. The out-of-market games will be available only to “customers who have a funded sportsbook account or placed a wager on the event”.
FanDuel Sportsbook is currently available in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Indiana, and West Virginia.
“Once we made the jump to allowing our brand to be associated with sports betting companies, this was not a far leap. We’re supplying footage, we’re supplying feeds of our games,” NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly told ESPN.
The deal was created in partnership with IMG Arena, the sports betting arm of the IMG agency, which last month expanded its deal with the NHL by securing rights to provide US sports betting operators with live streams of select out-of-market games.
IMG has been offering the service in legalised European markets for several years. In October 2018, the agency renewed its multi-territory betting rights deal with the NHL until 2020-21, having held rights since 2013.
The agreement continued the relationship between the NHL and IMG, which also has a deal in place to sell the NHL’s international media rights, from 2016-17 to 2020-21. That agreement excludes the US, Canada and Nordic territories.
In November, MSG Networks partnered with FanDuel in a deal which will give New York Knicks and New Jersey Devils broadcasts on the regional sports network’s channels a sports betting feel.
The NHL has sports betting partnerships with William Hill, MGM Resorts International and FanDuel.