NBA Launches New Live Betting Friendly Streaming Service

• The NBA announced this week that they will be launching a new streaming service called NBABet Stream that will feature live odds and game spreads using virtual reality.
• The announcement comes after MLB announced a similar move with their new virtual reality enhanced streaming.
• This move is yet another instance of a major sporting league increasing their ties to sports betting.

The NBA announced that it will now stream some of its games on an alliterative cast service catered to live sports bettors in an attempt to get bettors more engaged with the NBA. The new service will depict overlays on the screen showing live odds and betting information.

NBA Following MLB’s Lead?

In a move that may have been inspired by MLB, the NBA is seemingly attempting to turn the Corona-crisis into a win for its fans at home since now there is not an option for spectators to support their teams in person.

Weeks ago MLB announced that it was going to start broadcasting its games with added virtual reality including hovering live stats and projections of baseball flight trajectory in real-time.

A part of the announced NBA live stream will feature aspects that are present in the MLB overhaul, including new exciting camera angles and simulated crowd noise.

NBA Getting in Bed With Sportsbooks

The NBA seemingly is following in the footsteps of MLB but is rolling out their version, called NBABet Stream, catered to betters and especially live bettors. This move solidifies a trend with the NBA to become more friendly with sports betting.

In early October 2019, the NBA announced a partnership with Sports Betting giant Caesars Sportsbook. In the agreement, Caesars Sportsbook gained the rights to official NBA betting data to use on its betting platforms across the US. The deal also said that the NBA would promote the sportsbook across the NBA’s assets including their app, website, and social media accounts.

Organized Sports Moving Closer to Organized Sports Betting

This move by the NBA to get in bed with sportsbooks is in line with the overarching theme of major sporting leagues attempting to cash in on the sports betting action that is sweeping the United States.

With legal sports betting coming to more and more states every year sporting leagues are left looking around at the billions of dollars flowing into sportsbooks and state treasuries (through taxation) and are left wondering where their piece of the pie went.

Organized sporting leagues have been aggressively lobbying for what they have taken to call “Integrity Fees”. An Integrity Fee is the term used by the league’s lobbyists for a fee they claim should be put on sports betting to be returned directly to the leagues and their owners as a way for them to profit from sports betting. But, as we all know it is illegal for anyone in a league to place bets on that league in an attempt to keep the integrity (ironic we know) of the matches and keep them clean of tampering and fixed matches.

The lobbyists and lawyers of the major American leagues have thus far been unsuccessful in implementing these fees and they’ll have some serious legal arguments to overcome, including the one above, but that hasn’t stopped leagues from inching closer and closer to a marriage between sports betting and the sports they bet on.