• by Wayne Friedman , August 31, 2021

Major sports booking operations have been ramping up national TV marketing efforts -- paid-advertising and promotional -- in August, largely to promote sportsbook operations for the fall.

In total, some $2.8 million in national TV advertising was spent from July 31 through August 29 by the casino/gambling category, according to iSpot.tv.

A year ago over the same month-long period, a total of $129,429 was spent on national TV by the gaming/casino industry. In August 2019, the total was $234,497.

Much of this came from Casears Entertainment to promote its sportsbook activities, luring users to download the app. Fall TV sports betting focuses on high volume NFL game action, and to a lesser extent, Major League Baseball and the NBA.

Caesars placed some 146 airings, totaling 407.9 million impressions from $2.4 million in national TV spend in August.

After Caesars, BetMGM earned 64 million impressions — 53.9 million from local TV stations ad time. Fox Bet had 54.5 million impressions, during the month -- 34% from local TV, and 61% from national TV networks.

Fox Bet, which has Fox Corp. as a co-owner, has seen the bulk of its national TV impressions coming from Fox TV networks/channels.

Caesars, along with BetMGM and Fox Bet, are three of seven approved NFL league sports betting operations for the upcoming season. Each will get special access to NFL advertising TV inventory. This season, NFL games will run on Fox, CBS, NBC, ABC/ESPN, The NFL Network, and Amazon.

To date, 22 U.S. states have now allow legalized sports betting in some form -- through any combination of physical location, online, and/or mobile platforms.

In 2019, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a federal ban on sports betting.