As BetMGM has embarked on its growth into the UK market, sponsorship and advertising has enabled the firm to showcase the authenticity in bringing Vegas to the UK.
Catching up with CasinoBeats, Sam Behar, LeoVegas Group Director of UK, Ireland, and Sponsorship emphasised that the firm’s ambitions to breathe life into what had become a relatively stale market were accelerated through engagement with impactful partnerships.
One of the main ambassadors of the brand that BetMGM has brought to the UK is comedy legend Chris Rock, and Behar revealed that he epitomised the freshness they are seeking to enrich the UK market with.
“He’s been very important to us”, stated Behar, “we really wanted a hero name and a hero ambassador to help launch the product and to drive some credibility in what we’re trying to achieve, the way that we look and the energy we are bringing to the market.
“We take your expectations and raise them – so whilst other brands have retired footballers, we have Hollywood A-listers.”
“It comes down to not how we one up the opposition, but how we 10 up the competition? So when we looked at ambassadors and we were presented with lots of different talent options that were from lots of different nationalities, what was clear to us is that we just didn’t wanna be another operator taking some old retired football talent.”
He continued: “It’s laboured, it’s boring, it’s lazy, and it’s stale. And for us, what we delivered with Chris Rock is something completely different, something that no one has ever done in this space in the UK. And we took the entertainment of one of the most recognisable names in show business, delivered it to the UK betting market.”
Behar emphasised this is symbolic of the brand that BetMGM has built over the last three or four decades – describing it as a “critical element” of their expansion into the UK.
He also lauded Rock in terms of work collaboration – revealing that the on-screen personality is just as funny off screen, with the Fargo star oozing energy and charisma.
The firm has also been bolstered by a myriad of sporting collaborations – with company alignment also being pivotal in shaping the firm’s strategy.
Behar stated: “We felt that in alignment with sports partnerships, sports media was a very important ally for us and certainly something that has allowed us to gain increased visibility and awareness. Our UK sponsorships and our sponsorships on the ground are very much in line with our overarching strategy that we are continuing to invest in sports and in our sports offering.
“We are engaged with five clubs in the Premier League, the proud sponsor of the White and Jordan Show on TalkSport where we dial in every day and engage with that audience, a partner of ARC, and of course – we are the title sponsor of the PDC Premier League Darts. I think that broad spectrum of alignment with various sports across markets and across different audiences helps to bolster our visibility.”
Commenting on the growth of darts and how the operator had the hindsight to leverage this, Behar praised the usage of data.
“We knew when we started to engage with the PDC last year, we knew that the World Championships was going to be a significant event – there was momentum in darts, and we were one step ahead of the market because no one else spotted it. We used data and insights, broadcast figures and gained an understanding of the swell of Google Trends across darts.”
He revealed that data truly enabled them to gain a deeper understanding of what engages sports fans and ‘what it was that the audiences were engaging with in sport’.
“There’s a reason why people love football. There’s a reason why people like rugby less. And we use that data to understand what sports would be of particular swell and interest. Darts was a clear front runner and that’s why we engage with the PDC. We are confident that the swell will continue.
“The World Darts Championship final is the biggest non football event that Sky have ever broadcast in the UK. It’s important to us that we make alignments with our partners that are ambitious and that are going to grow and that are keen to extend their reach, but we believe that the dark swell has only just begun.”
He added: “We’ll always use data to assess performance and to assess our return on ad spend across our entire portfolio of sponsorships. Data is also a key tool to assessing potential opportunities, but at the same time, we use it to assess ongoing performance.
“As a business, we have always done that, and LeoVegas Group has always lent on data with a particular focus on our active performance data to make decisions on how we maintain our position.”
In terms of activating partnerships, Behar cited being innovative as key under restrictive UK frameworks like the UK as he revealed they have numerous things planned, especially with the darts. “It’s always in our interest to make sure that we activate and engage with our partners as much as we physically can. We are restricted in the UK market and what we can and can’t do. But that won’t stop us being innovative and it won’t stop us working with people like TalkSport to activate and engage audiences.”
