How to break down sports betting user engagement data from Super Bowl Sunday

Yahoo Finance sports reporter Josh Schafer highlights the Super Bowl Sunday user data from sports betting platforms, while also talking about the lackluster execution of FanDuel's ad featuring Rob Gronkowski.

Video transcript

[AUDIO LOGO]

- All right, let's take a look at gambling stocks because those finished today in positive territory after last night's Super Bowl. Josh Schafer has been tracking the latest in that space. And, Josh, we're expecting big numbers. What are we seeing?

JOSH SCHAFER: Yeah, so big numbers. They really did come to what we were looking for here. And so, kind of, we don't have all the numbers yet. It's still a little early as far as how much did these companies make, how much was fully bet from a dollar amount? But what we do have that we can look at is geo comply data.

So you've heard a couple people talking about this today. And what that is is it is the platform that checks your location when you sign into a sportsbook. So it is not how many bets, but it is when you check in, and it makes sure you're in a legal area. And so they recorded over 100 million geolocation checks on Saturday and Sunday.

- Wow.

JOSH SCHAFER: To put it in perspective, that's up 25% year-over-year, so 25% more people checking in. And what you're seeing here now, this is State Farm Stadium specifically. So they have this cool little video you can see where you can see people checking in. And you obviously see it gets bigger as it gets closer to game time. That video starts at about 10:00 AM on Sunday and went through the end of the game.

They saw over 100,000 check-ins at the stadium yesterday. So we had talked about that on Friday, guys, you know, how many people are gonna be live betting during this game? And it seems like there was quite a few people, Dave, that got excited like I did when Patrick Mahomes got hurt and might've hopped on it.

- Touche.

JOSH SCHAFER: You know?

- Nice play there.

[GIGGLING]

- Is there any way to track who might have been the winner of these platforms, DraftKings, or FanDuel, or BetMGM, and so forth?

JOSH SCHAFER: So we can certainly know that later this week, New York, for example, will have their numbers out on Friday. We'll know concretely who literally made the most money. Right now, I know FanDuel is telling me that at one point, one point last night, 50,000 bets per minute was their peak, per minute--

- Wow.

JOSH SCHAFER: --fielding 50,000 bets per minute. And from my knowledge, I didn't hear of any outages either, which I think is, perhaps, the most impressive part of that number, right?

- You're right. You're right. When you really think about--

JOSH SCHAFER: I was on the apps a lot of the night. of the And they were working [INAUDIBLE].

- --fielding 50,000, I was sort of just checking them to see if they were all working. And they were. And then-- you know, just to see if they were working.

- 50,000 a minute?

I wanted see if they were working. 50,000 bets per minute was the peak.

- Wow. You're right. Then FanDuel also saying that they had more than 2 million active players bet throughout the game, so pretty eye-popping numbers there as far as how many people were on the bet-- were on the apps. We'll find out again later this week exactly what the numbers were on how much those people were betting and how much they won.

- Yeah. A BetMGM spokesman called it the most successful Super Bowl and the most bet-on single game sporting event ever, for some context. While on the subject of sports gambling, the most hyped up ad campaign leading into Super Bowl LVII was FanDuel's Kick of Destiny, Starring legendary Patriots tight end, Rob Gronkowski. But did it live up to the buzz to all this hype? You be the judge.

- Rob Gronkowski kicking for $10 million, his trainer, Adam Vinatieri, with the Gronkowski family, looking on. Here we go. The kick is up.

- Yeah!

ROB: No!

- It's no good, he missed it!

- So that was a shank. And I'm not talking about the kick. I'm talking about the ad. My wife turned to me and she said, is that the ad you were excited to see? It was supposed to be live. It certainly didn't feel like it. There was no buildup. It really did not deliver. Or am I wrong, guys?

- No, you are spot on--

- (CHUCKLING) Oh, OK.

- --at least from my perspective. What do you think? You're right. Think the hardest part about that ad, like you said, Dave, as far as the live aspect goes, is it-- when you go to a remote location like this, it just doesn't quite look live, whether it is or isn't. I-- You need to be on the field if you're gonna do a live ad. Because you're trying to get your attention.

- We all sort of pop our heads up and we're like, oh, it's the FanDuel ad, oh, OK. Now, I do think from a business perspective, I think you could still argue they win, in the sense of they're giving everyone the money still. They still gave out $17 million worth of free play. I think customers are happy. So maybe you didn't get new people excited, your wife wasn't overly excited about the ad.

[LAUGHTER]

But I think there are plenty of people sitting with some credit on FanDuel that are excited to go and use it. And that's sort of the point of the ad.

- Yeah, of course, now could be the win. And that would probably be the angle that FanDuel goes with. But even just the angle that we were looking at for the kick. I couldn't even tell, and I watched it back, what, 10 times this morning. I still wasn't sold, until you freeze that exact frame that I could see that it actually kicked-- from my perspective, I actually thought he made it. It just shows how they missed the mark. They could have had another angle there with the camera, lots of hype going into it. I don't know. Didn't do it for me.

- It was a great plan.

- It was. It certainly drummed up a lot of the hype ahead of the game.

- Yes.

JOSH SCHAFER: Right.

- But did it deliver? It just went wide left.

JOSH SCHAFER: Well, maybe if Gr-- maybe Gronk needs to be a better kicker.

- Eh.

JOSH SCHAFER: I [INAUDIBLE] could have better angle, I agree on better angle, better angle.

- I don't think the make would have changed it. It was the feel, the buildup. They need a reporter live.

- And you couldn't even see it.

- I need Kay Adams there on the field broadcasting. But anyway, we won't--

JOSH SCHAFER: Maybe we'll produce it next year.

- (GIGGLING) [INAUDIBLE]

- Next year, give me a call, OK, FanDuel? Thank you.

- Oh, my goodness. Appreciate it, Josh.

- All right--

- Anyhow, give me a call.