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The NBA season ended Monday night with a raucous fête inside Ball Arena, as the Denver Nuggets and their fans celebrated the franchise’s first-ever league title.
As Nikola Jokic attempted to poke the ball from Heat guard Gabe Vincent late in the third quarter, a camera captured a PointsBet ad banner behind the center’s left shoulder. PointsBet, which maintains a glitzy Denver hub, received the signage through a deal with Kroenke Sports Entertainment (KSE) in 2020. Now, as Fanatics approaches the next steps of its proposed acquisition of PointsBet’s U.S. assets, it is fair to wonder whether Monday’s game will mark the final time that the signage will appear inside the arena.
When Fanatics announced its proposed PointsBet acquisition last month, the news jolted the U.S. sports betting market. For one, the proposed $150 million purchase could be the most impactful transaction in the space since Caesars Entertainment completed an acquisition of William Hill in 2021. If completed, the deal will give Fanatics market access to as many as 14 states, as the nascent sportsbook gears up for its first full season of football. For now, investors await PointsBet’s shareholder meeting on June 30, one where the Fanatics deal could be approved.
The transfer of the Colorado assets before the start of the 2023-2024 NBA regular season would give Fanatics signage at Ball Arena when the Nuggets lift the championship banner. A Fanatics Sportsbook spokesman declined comment on Monday when reached by Sports Handle.
A breakdown of the assets
Three months after Colorado went live with sports betting, PointsBet signed a multi-year partnership with KSE in August 2020. As part of the agreement, PointsBet became the exclusive gaming partner of the NHL‘s Colorado Avalanche, the National Lacrosse League’s Colorado Mammoth, and the Nuggets.
PointsBet opened an eponymous sports bar at Ball Arena and became a sports betting partner of KSE’s Altitude TV and Altitude Sports Radio. The operator also received signage on Nuggets’ hoop stanchions and Avs’ dasher boards, gaining additional national exposure in title runs from both teams over the last two seasons.
PointsBet followed that up by inking a five-year, $500 million partnership with NBCUniversal, completing one of the largest media deals by a U.S. sportsbook since the 2018 PASPA decision.
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From the conclusion of the shareholder meeting to the completion of the Fanatics transaction, PointsBet will have a funding requirement of approximately $21 million for its U.S. business, the company wrote in a statement announcing the deal. As part of the deal, PointsBet’s commercial commitments to NBCUniversal will be transferred in full to Fanatics Betting and Gaming, according to the companies.
Beyond PointsBet’s obligations to NBC, the companies have been fairly mum on the transfer of certain state assets not specified in the sale agreement. The companies expect the initial portion of the deal to be completed on or around Aug. 31, according to a stock and equity sales agreement released in May.
Upon initial completion, Fanatics will acquire the entities that own and operate PointsBet’s business in at least three states. When the company issued notice of the general shareholders meeting last month, the operator listed 10 states of PointsBet subsidiaries that accept wagers in U.S. jurisdictions. Besides leading sports betting states such as New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, Colorado was included on the list.
By next February, when the initial portion of the transaction sunsets, the companies are expected to begin the second phase of integration.
With disparate verticals ranging from jersey sales to NFTs, Fanatics CEO Michael Rubin views the company as a one-stop shop for sports fans looking to place bets through a common wallet. While Fanatics can draw upon its database of more than 95 million customers to attract new bettors, some investors are still calling on the company to market its sportsbook product heavily this fall.
When rumors of the PointsBet acquisition circulated last month, an industry expert told Sports Handle that he was interested in how much the company will spend on marketing in the first year of sportsbook operations. One of the industry leaders, DraftKings, spent more than $1.1 billion on sales and marketing expenses in 2022 alone.
A transfer of the KSE assets will give Fanatics signage in one of the few arenas nationwide that is home to an NBA and NHL team.
Shareholder support for sale
Last week, PointsBet released an update that illustrates the backing of the sale from key shareholders. As of June 7, eight of PointsBet’s top 10 shareholders had either voted in favor of the proposal or advised the company that they intend to vote in favor of the sale absent a superior proposal.
In total, the eight shareholders represent about 44.6% of the company’s issued capital. (Among the top 10 shareholders, PointsBet did not disclose the two holdouts.) The proposal requires 50% approval from shareholders that take part in the vote.
Last June, SIG Sports Investments Corp. became the largest shareholder of PointsBet when it purchased 38 million shares at a price of A$2.43 per share (A$94 million). Sig Sports is a division of Susquehanna International Group of Companies, one of the world’s largest proprietary financial trading firms.
Despite the sale of its U.S. assets, PointsBet will continue to operate in Australia, Canada, and India. Fanatics Sportsbook currently accepts online sports wagers from select customers in four states — Ohio, Tennessee, Maryland, and Massachusetts — and intends to take bets in a host of the nation’s top markets by the start of football season.
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