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Five schools that have been testing free-to-play digital gaming throughout basketball season have fully implemented the mobile technology for football season.
North Carolina, N.C. State, Oklahoma, Ole Miss and Texas A&M are offering customized gaming on their mobile apps and official athletic websites. While these games are free to play and do not provide cash rewards, they offer other types of winnings, such as an autographed ball or apparel.
Perhaps most interestingly, the free-to-play games give the schools some foresight into what sports betting might look like one day if it becomes legal in college sports venues.
“In my mind, this is a precursor to five years from now, 10 years from now,” Sidearm Sports President and CEO Jeff Rubin said. “If and when there’s legalized sports wagering, we’ve already got a captive audience. … That’s not the strategy today because you can’t do it today, but why does Genius Sports have a relationship with the NCAA today? The answer is that they believe sports wagering someday will be legalized.”
Low6, a U.K.-based company that specializes in mobile gaming, is providing the platform for the free-to-play games. The firm has partnered with Learfield to help it scale its games because of Learfield’s breadth of 180 collegiate properties. Sidearm, which produces official athletic websites and mobile apps, is a Learfield company.
Jamie Mitchell, Low6’s CEO, said Learfield’s school relationships will facilitate the growth of mobile gaming. The company also works with the PGA Tour, UFC, a handful of pro sports teams in the U.S., and several European sport properties.
College sports showed up on Low6’s radar last year.
“As we’ve grown into North America over the past six months, and we’ve added employees in the U.S., you really start to understand the collegiate landscape and see how passionate American sports fans are about college sports,” Mitchell said.
Cardinal Sports Capital, which has been providing guidance for Low6 in the U.S., introduced Mitchell to the leadership at Learfield. Cardinal partner John Libro, the former CAA Sports, Circle Media and Van Wagner executive, is Low6’s chief adviser.
From there, they developed a testing program for the five schools, all of which are Learfield clients. They immediately identified several benefits from the free-to-play games.
? Free-to-play gaming provides Learfield and the operator with first-party data collection, so even if third-party data were no longer available, the first-party data from mobile gaming will be there.
? Gaming delivers strong fan engagement. The five schools that tested the games during basketball season enjoyed a 15% click-through rate. That means when a fan received a notification about a new game, he or she clicked on it 15% of the time. “Those are some really high numbers,” Rubin said. “We’re clearly engaging the fan base with this.”
? The games can be monetized by selling sponsorships against them.
“It gives the passionate sports fan a chance to interact with their school in a prediction-based game,” Mitchell said, not unlike the March Madness brackets that so many people fill out.
Low6 just completed another round of fundraising in January, raising $5 million to fuel its growth as the company prepares for an IPO later this year.
Moving into the U.S. has been an important component of that growth.
“First of all, you just don’t understand the scale until you start working there,” Mitchell said. “We’re still getting a grip on just how big and vast the opportunity is in the U.S. We’ve onboarded 60,000 new North American users in as little as eight or nine weeks. It’s hugely exciting how the public is taking to the gamification we’re bringing.”
Takeaways from the NCAA; Ohio State football ticket sales strong and three stadium developments to keep an eye on
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