• by Wayne Friedman , October 10, 2019

With a growing number of states legalizing sports gambling, sport-fantasy game marketers -- which are now expanding into sports-gambling services -- have increased their TV advertising spend during the first month of the NFL season.

Two of the major sports-fantasy game companies -- FanDuel and DraftKings -- have placed more commercial airings with estimated higher national TV spend during the past month than over the first five weeks of NFL regular-season games.

From September 1 through October 9, FanDuel placed 3,875 commercial airings coming from 19 different creatives, with an estimated $12.6 million in national TV spending (992.3 million impressions), according to iSpot.tv.

DraftKings is at 1,330 airings from 14 different commercials, with $3.6 million in TV spending (431.1 million impressions).

A year ago over the same period, FanDuel placed 1,606 airings from seven different creative commercials -- $10.8 million (683.8 million impressions). DraftKings placed 1,036 airings from 15 commercials -- with a $2.7 million spend (382.4 million impressions). This was the result of a higher viewership period for NFL games this season.

After five weeks, TV viewership across all national/regional TV games is up 4% to a Nielsen 16.2 million average viewers.

Since a Supreme Court ruling on sports gambling in May of 2018 -- lifting a federal ban on sports gambling -- 11 states have now legalized sports gambling. Seven other states passed a law making it legal, but have yet to begin.

Twenty-four other states have pending legislation.