Week 1 of the NFL season saw the second-most downloads of sports betting apps since the launch of regulated betting in the United States with FanDuel and DraftKings leading the way.
Ready for Some Football?
According to JMP Securities, during the span of Tuesday through Monday, representing the NFL week, there were 972,000 downloads of sports betting apps and unsurprisingly the industry giants, FanDuel and DraftKings, led the pack.
It was reported to be the most during those seven days since the run-up to the 2022 Super Bowl between the Los Angeles Rams and the Cincinnati Bengals. Compared to last year at the same time, it showed a 15 percent increase with the most downloads occurring on Sunday, featuring the biggest slate of games on any given NFL week. However, Monday had the biggest year-over-year jump with 77 percent more downloads than the first Monday night game in 2022.
As for viewership, the opening night NFL contest between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Detroit Lions on Thursday night was up a whopping 24 percent from last season. The NFL Kickoff Game attracted a combined 26.8 million viewers pulling a 12.8 share and an audience peak of 29.1 million in the first half.
As one would expect, Kansas City and Detroit were the largest markets to tune in with the former delivering a 45.5 rating and a stunning 81 share which means four out of five TV sets in Kansas City were tuned into the game at any given time while the Motor City audience did a 30 rating and a 62 share.
Industry Leaders Continue to Lead
FanDuel and DraftKings were neck and neck for most downloadable apps with the former registering 34 percent while DK saw 33 percent of the downloads during that period. Fanatics and its recent acquisition, PointsBet, combined for 12 percent of the downloads.
Following the online sportsbooks category, BetMGM was next with 11 percent followed by Bet365 and Caesars Sportsbook both at 3 percent, while Barstool Sportsbook (2%), BetRivers (1%), and Bally Bet (0.1%) rounded out the field.
Is DraftKings Set to Take Over as NFL Red Zone’s Marquee Sponsor?
In a noteworthy industry rumor, it appears as though DraftKings will replace Amazon Prime Video as the marquee sponsor of the NFL’s Red Zone. For those unfamiliar, Red Zone and its affable host, Scott Hanson, have become popular amongst football fans.
An NFL release about the Sunday show says, “Scott Hanson kicks off your Sunday with 7 hours of live football, featuring up to 8 games at once within the octobox. NFL RedZone brings you every touchdown from every game, every Sunday afternoon during the regular season, and acts as the perfect Fantasy Football companion. Watch from anywhere across NFL.com, NFL Mobile, and other connected devices.”
It is a big get for DraftKings as NFL Red Zone allows football fans to watch the most critical moments of every game in real time. The cutaways are lightning quick and if several key drives are happening at once, the viewer can see all of them in separate boxes and focus on the one in which they have the greatest interest.
DraftKings is also one of three sportsbooks with an NFL sponsorship aside from the Red Zone tie-in with FanDuel and Caesars being the others.
