turnaround which are investments we are attracted to and because we brought to the table the ability to gamify and distribute AVP through our Sinclair relationship. If gaming licences are our first asset and media relationships the second, these two things have led to us collecting other assets in the form of IP rights to execute on the gaming and media side.
Finally, through our merger with Gamesys we have one of the world’s leading iGaming platforms. Alongside
Bet.Works, Monkey Knife Fight, SportCaller, and Telescope, we have brought in their people and technological databases to help us evolve to the next generation.
Our competitive advantages are the technology and people we have brought together, our media rights, distribution, and gaming licences. Media and gaming also come with large databases of existing customers that we can help bring on to this new product.
We have suffered from one main disadvantage, which was being really good at one thing. Because we’re trying to create a new thing and are in the process of collecting the assets to do it, it will take time for people to understand what we’re going to develop, but we’re okay with that. Te assets we have collected will become the core of our competitive advantage in the future.
If you think about the way a sports betting app works, they are all very similar. You have the teams, the wagers, the same buttons, the sports – they all look the same. I don’t think that’s a wonderful customer experience or journey. It is targeted to a skilled, sports interested audience and doesn’t attract casual gamers and non- sports fans. It has the power to, but it doesn’t expand the audience. It focuses it. Whilst I say we are not happy with it, we have bought a company that does just that. We have that ‘version’ – I call it 1.0.
2.0 will be an amalgam of bringing the Gamesys iGaming engine from Europe to the US with sports betting attached to it, but that’s not what we’re looking to ultimately build. What we’re trying to build is 3.0 – the next generation.
Employing a metaphor, it’s like Windows is 1.0 – it barely works but you understand the concept. 2.0 is like Windows 95 – the first version that delivers on the promise, but is still not what it was supposed to be. 3.0 is not Windows anymore, it’s something different. It’s an integrated product that delivers you media you can game with. It’s live, interactive, engaging, and builds audience.
If you think about the existing structure of the gaming industry, you spend a lot of money on advertising to bring audiences from sports distribution to a sports betting platform to engage with sports through that thing. I think it’s fine, but it’s a 1.0 experience. I feel there is a better experience to be had.
Has Covid created a unique set of circumstances and new opportunities, or had you set your sights on expansion regardless of the current climate?
Covid has been good for us in two ways: P72 WIRE / PULSE / INSIGHT / REPORTS
i) It created a lot of uncertainty in physical gaming, but we had a clarity of vision in terms of licence value, offline gaming, and its recovery from Covid. We could go and do what other people were unable to do and expand our footprint. Tat was an advantage on the offline gaming side.
ii) For online gaming, Covid proved that it has a future and accelerated its growth. Covid was a quickening event for the industry creating a lot more energy, belief, and capital.
Both we have taken advantage of because we are building an online business and have built a physical business with scale.
“If you think about the way a sports betting app works, they are all very similar. You have the teams, the wagers, the same buttons, the sports – they all look the same. I don’t think that’s a wonderful customer experience or journey. It is targeted to a skilled, sports interested audience and doesn’t attract casual gamers and non-sports fans. It has the power to, but it doesn’t expand the audience. It focuses it. Whilst I say we
are not happy with it, we have bought a company that does just that. We have that ‘version’ – I call it 1.0.” Soohyung Kim
Is this opportunism, or strategically adding components to create a singular omni-channel brand?
We are opportunistic by nature. I am an opportunist if that is someone who takes advantage of opportunity. We embrace that. To take true advantage of opportunity, you need to have a strategic vision. We were buying casinos not only because we believed they were going to recover in a physical gaming sense, but also because we believed they were good inroads to having a footprint of access for online gaming.
Tat extra belief and strategic vision we had helped us make clearer decisions. Opportunity is not just ‘that is a cheap tomato, I’m going to go and buy it’ and then you realise it’s overripe and you can’t eat it. It’s not just based on price. You need to know you can go home and whip up this wonderful meal with that fantastically priced tomato. Te best form of opportunism requires a certain level of strategic vision.
Bally’s has been through many cycles of growth, diversification, contraction and narrowing of focus. Launched in the 1930s on the success of its Ballyhoo pinball game, Bally Manufacturing and Bally operations went their separate ways years ago, but the story of ‘Bally’ as an operator of casinos, Total Fitness health clubs, Six Flags amusement parks and manufacturing, not just of slots, but Life Fitness gym equipment, is an epic saga that charts the rise, fall, rise of a diverse empire.
The fact that Bally’s sold its lottery division in the 1990s, to have that same company return to acquire Bally Technologies in 2014, is just part of its legend. Does the scale of the brand help describe the company you’re now trying to build and attract the level of investment required for your expansion?
Absolutely. It is serendipitous. It just turned out we had an opportunity to acquire the brand which really wasn’t being used. As you say, the brand had ties to carnival games, pinball machines, slots, amusement parks, and gyms. Because of what we want to do with this brand, it will make it easier to spend the investment. In terms of brand building, we don’t have to do that much because it is being built every day. We just need to deliver on the customer promise.
How significant is the rebrand of the Fox Sports Network to Bally Sports Network in what you are trying to achieve?
Te rebrand was critical if you think about our continued transition from being a physical gaming company to an online gaming company. In the physical gaming world, regional brands exist. It consists of regional advertising and customers are within a 60-mile radius and this means you can have operators that own multiple brands -offering an illusion of choice. But if you are operating on a national scale, it doesn’t make sense to have what we see today where we have, quite literally, 16 different casinos with 16 different brands.
We always knew there was going to be an opportunity at some point to buy a brand or establish a brand to unify the whole system. We were waiting for the right asset at the right price so the ability to acquire the Bally’s brand name was critical. It gives us a corporate identity nationally from our casino footprint and allows us to lever the footprint online. Applying that same brand to what was previously called Fox Sports Network was an incredible opportunity.
Bally’s is a brand that has good name recognition as it has been around for 100 years and has no negative connotation. To apply that to the home for half the baseball, basketball, and hockey games globally, you can’t turn on sports without seeing us. Tree quarters of the time viewers are watching a match they are seeing the brand. Te impression numbers are in the billions and that’s a wonderful thing.
When we do deliver on how we would redefine our customer experience, Bally’s will mean something. Currently, Bally’s is a soft call to sport, gaming, and entertainment. We will make it mean something. Tat is the current journey we are on, and we are very happy about distributing that brand across multiple
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