MLS commissioner Don Garber is planning to embrace sports betting and said that even though gambling is spreading nationally, his league is considering Las Vegas as a potential new market.
The league is currently comprised of 24 teams, but franchises in Miami, Nashville, and Austin and set to launch over the next two seasons. In April, MLS announced that it intends to add another three franchises to bring the total to 30. Sacramento and St. Louis are in advanced discussions, but final decisions on the next expansion markets have yet to be made.
Former MLS Commissioner Lamar Hunt chatted about the idea with Las Vegas mayor Oscar Goodman during Goodman’s tenure, and Garber said the former mayor and deputy commissioner Mark Abbott held recent discussions with current Vegas mayor, Carolyn Goodman—Oscar Goodman’s wife. For Garber, the market is attractive not only because of the sports betting opportunity but also because Vegas is a burgeoning sports market now with the NHL’s Golden Knights and the impending move of the Raiders from Oakland to the Strip.
“The story of Las Vegas is not about people going to a casino and then going to a hockey game, it’s the people who live in Las Vegas that are becoming fans—people underestimate that,” Garber said. “Mark and I met with the mayor of Las Vegas 20 years ago about putting a team in there, and it was really verboten back then to think that pro sports would go there. Now it’s a mad dash to go to Vegas. It’s an exciting market. And I could see it being on our list for future teams.”
MLS has been a vocal advocate of sports betting, supporting the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision last year that overturned PASPA and opened the door for states to legalize sports betting. The league believes that this level of gamification will help further entrench fans within the MLS ecosystem.
“We were advocates for a long time on sports betting being legal,” Abbott said. “All the research shows, and it’s intuitive, that if somebody is engaged in wagering on a game, they’re going to be more engaged in that game, they’re going to consume more games, they’re going to watch other games. That’s what we all see: increasing both the number of fans that are engaging with us and the depth of that engagement.”
MLS announced a multi-year partnership with gaming operator MGM in March that will see the two collaborate on the development of a gaming app that would leverage official league data. Regulation ensures that the league can keep tabs on integrity and ensure the quality of games, Abbott said. The league hopes to leverage mobile sports betting and its long-term deal with MGM to increase engagement in the years to come.
“If we’re able to plant all these seeds with teams throughout North America, soccer will become a dominant cultural force like it is in the rest of the world,” Garber said.
Much of the sports gambling market thus far has been tied to mobile betting. Despite talks of kiosks one day populating arenas as they do in Europe, and enabling in-person betting at live sporting events, Garber said he thinks that concept is relatively far off in the U.S. Though Vegas might be an exception.
“I personally think it’s going to be some time before you’re going into an NFL stadium, basketball arena, hockey arena and betting inside,” he said. “It will be very interesting to see what they do in Las Vegas, because they have that right, and you now have an NFL stadium, basketball arena, and hockey arena. Las Vegas is a remarkable situation.”