Turner Sports and its Bleacher Report digital unit are going Vegas, baby.
WarnerMedia’s Turner Sports inked a pact with Caesars Entertainment to develop sports gambling content. Under the agreement, Bleacher Report will establish a studio inside the sports book at the Caesars Palace Las Vegas hotel and casino.
The new B/R-branded studio will be a central hub for the creation of a “wide assortment of gaming-related programming and editorial content,” which will be distributed through Bleacher Report website and the B/R app, Turner said. Details including when the B/R studio will launch and what kind of content it’s going to produce, are yet to be announced.
The move comes as sports betting has become a more mainstream American pastime: Last May, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a 1992 law that banned sports gambling across the country.
Turner sees gambling-related content as a way to boost engagement across all platforms, including time spent watching live sporting events on TV. “The sports gaming industry is rapidly growing and Turner is poised to be an industry leader in the development of gaming-related content experiences,” Turner Sports president Lenny Daniels said in a statement.
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Also under the deal, Caesars will be prominently featured as a Bleacher Report “gaming partner,” which will include sponsorship integration across content and distribution platforms. Caesars will also be a presenting sponsor of select programming airing across Turner’s linear TV networks, and the pact allows for co-produced programming and events.
Bleacher Report, which caters to millennial and Gen Z sports fans, claims to reach more than 250 million people monthly across Facebook, Instagram and Twitter alone. Turner bought B/R in 2012 for around $175 million.
