NFL: Super Bowl viewers will see three sports betting ads during game

As reported by the Associated Press, Highhill confirmed the move during a press conference yesterday (30 January).

Super Bowl LVIII will see the Kansas City Chiefs take on the San Francisco 49ers on 11 February. The game will take place at the Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas.

Highhill said that one sports betting ad will be shown just before kickoff, with two others shown during the game. He added that the NFL had already implemented restrictions on the number of sports betting ads broadcast during matches.

“We’ve put some policies in place to limit the amount of advertising for sports betting that happens in our live games,” Highhill said. “It’s roughly one ad per quarter. All told, less than 5% of all in-game ads are sports betting ads.”

Also at the conference, NFL spokesperson Alex Riethmiller said that the three total ads is a much lower number than the maximum allowed by the NFL.

Sports betting ads shown elsewhere

In April last year, a number of professional sports leagues and broadcasters formed the Coalition for Responsible Betting Advertising. Made up of sports bodies including the NFL, MLB and Nascar, and broadcasting giants NBC Universal and Fox, the coalition follows principles on responsible betting advertising.

Continuing to talk about the ads, Highhill said that the NFL is sometimes blamed for sports betting ads that do not run during NFL games.

“There’s times when we’re held accountable for ads that are not running in our games, that are running on other sports programming or sports radio throughout the week,” he said. “Unfortunately, we can’t control all ads everywhere.”

The three ads in question come from three industry heavy-hitters: DraftKings, FanDuel and BetMGM. Earlier this week, iGB spoke to Sam Behar, BetMGM’s UK director about the importance of bringing the Vegas experience to the UK market.