Last month, Boom Sports announced a deal with Penn National that will create a new mobile sportsbook for Penn and give Boom a foothold in five U.S. states: Ohio, Missouri, Louisiana, New Mexico and Mississippi.
Stephen A. Murphy, co-founder and CEO of Boom Sports, called the agreement “a pivotal moment” for the New York-based game developer, which aspires to be “the premier technology provider for the real-money online gaming industry.”
Established in 2015, Boom Sports may be best known for its partnership with NBC Sports; its free-to-play Sports Predictor games app, which kicked off in December 2018, lets fans win cash by wagering on sporting events including Premier League soccer, NASCAR, the PGA Tour and the NFL.
More than 1 million people in the U.S. subscribed last year, according to NBC Sports.
The deal with Penn National essentially is a barter. In exchange for multiple 20-year sports betting licenses, Boom Sports will develop regulated real-money games and content, plus a series of free-to-play games and products. The first in that series, NASCAR Finish Line, debuted in February. The second, under the Barstool Sports brand, is in the pipeline and will launch in the coming months.
GGB News talked to Murphy about his dissatisfaction with the current sports betting experience and his intention to “challenge the status quo.”
GGB: Why this group of states— Ohio, Missouri, Louisiana, New Mexico and Mississippi? Among them, only Mississippi has legal sports betting.
Murphy: We could have negotiated a deal for licenses in states that were already open, but we wanted to give ourselves enough time to build out what we think of as the mobile sportsbook of the future. So we purposely chose second-wave states to give us enough time to build the user experience.
So the products are still in development.
The real-money sportsbook is actively being developed. You know, a lot of companies might pull something off the shelf and put their brand and their colors on it. We’re looking to do something very different, and build a unique new product and experience.
Is it unusual the way this partnership was crafted, with Boom building free-to-play and real-money games in lieu of payment for the skins?
It’s a pretty unique structure, and speaks to the creativity on both sides. But when you look at what both sides are trying to achieve, it’s actually pretty well-conceived.
To clarify, you’re right in that effectively it’s a barter. They’re giving us their skins, but we’ll be getting paid for casino content. We’re building them regulated casino content that will live inside their online casino, and that will be a standard rev-share deal.
We’ve seen an acceleration of demand for iGaming since the shutdown. Do you think the current situation will propel more states to legalize online gambling?
States move at their own pace, and whatever happens, gambling legislation is just one of many things they need to look at in a given year. But I think you’ll see an acceleration in the next 12 to 18 months. From the land-based and pro sports leagues’ perspective, they’re more incentivized now than ever to get online games up and running.
You’ve said this agreement will allow Boom “to unveil its unique sportsbook vision directly to consumers.” So what is that vision? You’ve been pretty unimpressed by sportsbook apps in general, right?
There are a lot of things this industry does well, and land-based does well in terms of creating spectacular experiences. But one thing I’ve consistently seen the real-money gaming industry fall short on is innovative technology and innovative digital products.
We believe in community: user-to-user community in media-infused betting. We believe in challenging the status quo. We’re going to launch a sportsbook that looks and feels like a 21st century product—and most sportsbooks today really do not. We’re going to introduce brand new ways to bet that are social and fun and can result in life-changing wins.
Our philosophy is not to be a substitute. We’re not looking to compete head-to-head with the MGMs, Caesars and DraftKings of the world. We’re looking to convert new people into sports bettors and give current sports bettors something they’ve never seen before. In that way, I expect and hope to be additive to the industry.
Can you give an example of how your mobile sportsbook will depart from the current experience?
I would expect our product to have a lot more video and live streaming. There will be ways to interact with content while you’re betting. I can’t share specifics yet, but it’ll be a kind of bet you’ve never done before. I think PointsBet is an example of a company that does a little bit of this now; they have a way you can bet based on just how many points a team is going to win by. We’re going to expand on that kind of innovation and offer our own unique ideas to the market.
There’s talk now about how online gaming is filling the gap and perhaps, as people grow more accustomed to it, may be dominant even after casinos reopen. What are your thoughts?
I think the world is more increasingly digital and online, and when you think about casino gaming, we’ve been behind the curve on that. If you look at the amount of revenue generated from casino gaming worldwide, you’ll probably still see that 98 percent to 99 percent is still land-based. You’ve gotta think that’s going to change in a meaningful way in the next five to 10 years, with real-money gaming following those global-macro-digital trends.
However, I lived in Las Vegas for a couple of years and grew up in New Jersey. I’ve been to Atlantic City more than my fair share of times. I think there’s something unique and compelling about a land-based gaming experience. With Sears or Macy’s or Amazon or insert-your-brand-here, it’s much easier to have a better experience online. And while global gaming can make gambling more convenient, I’m not sure anyone’s really succeeded in making it more fun.
We’ll sure do our best to try and do things differently and better than a lot of our competitors, but gambling is still a social thing that will live on in both land-based and digital environments.
With the ongoing shutdown, is this a challenging time or the best time for you to jump in?
In some ways, now is the perfect time. From Penn’s perspective, we’re building them a bunch of gaming products and free-to-play products so they can invest in online gaming a bit more. From Boom’s perspective, we’re getting the sports betting and online casino licenses.
These states aren’t going to open up until 2021 anyway, so this allows us to sort of make it official, and build what we need to build on the engineering and technical sides so we’re ready for Day 1 launch next year.
