FanDuel owner Flutter Entertainment reported a favorable first quarter driven by the company’s U.S. sports betting business. 

Flutter — the world’s largest listed gambling group — generated $1.6 billion in revenue in Q1 2022, a 6% increase year-over-year. The company based in Dublin, Ireland saw its U.S. business pocket $574 million during the quarter, a 45% increase compared to the same period the year prior.

• Super Bowl LVI provided FanDuel with its largest day ever for new customers.
• FanDuel has 2.4 million U.S. customers with a 37% market share — the No. 1 U.S. sportsbook.
• It launched in New York and Louisiana during the quarter.
• Customers placed 19 million wagers over the entire men’s March Madness tournament.

Flutter bought Fastball Holding’s stake in FanDuel in 2020 for $4.2 billion, increasing its share from 58% to 95% for a total value of $11.2 billion. The investment is paying off now that 19 states have legalized online sports betting, providing access to over 100 million Americans. 

Struggling Partner

Flutter is also a partner of Fox Bet, which has struggled to be a leader in the U.S. betting market. Fox Corp.’s platform partnered with Flutter after the latter bought The Stars Group, the online gambling company that created Fox Bet, for $6 billion in 2019.

Fox Bet has struggled to gain traction due to its poor reach and overall technology. The app is only available in four states (Colorado, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey) and has less than a 1% share of the U.S. online betting market outside Nevada.

As expected, The Athletic has brought subscriber growth to The New York Times — at a fairly significant cost.

The sports news site lost $6.8 million in February and March after the $550 million acquisition closed earlier this year, which led The Times Company’s first-quarter adjusted operating profits, reported Wednesday, to dip 10.5% to $60.9 million. Operating profits were $68.1 million in the same quarter a year ago.

Making The Athletic Profitable  

The Times inched closer to its goal of 15 million subscribers by the close of 2027 as the 1.1 million Athletic subscribers boosted its paid-subscriber count to 9.1 million, according to the company. 

• The Athletic was founded in 2016 with an ad-free subscription model. Meredith Kopit Levien, president and CEO of the New York Times Company, told analysts on Wednesday that the company has “begun to lay the groundwork for introducing an array of advertising products to The Athletic later in the year.”
• The Times will introduce a bundled subscription with The Athletic “in the back half of this year,” Levien said. 
• The Athletic lost $55 million on about $65 million in revenue in 2021, and the changes implemented by The Times will result in “a slight reduction in operating losses” this year, according to NYT executive vice president and CFO Roland A. Caputo.

Meanwhile, Wordle — the online word game acquired by the Times in the first quarter in the “low seven figures” range — has been a hit. 

“Wordle brought an unprecedented tens of millions of new users to The Times,”  Levien said. 

Sinclair Broadcasting Group provided some insight into the company’s upcoming sports streaming service during a first-quarter earnings call, reporting revenue of $1.29 billion — a 14.8% year-over-year decline.

In early 2021, Sinclair announced the rebranding of the regional sports networks it acquired for $9.6 billion in 2019 from Disney, which now carry the Bally Sports name. A little over a year later, it valued the networks at $4.23 billion.

In June 2021, the company announced it was looking to raise $250 million for its new sports streaming service. This January, it secured $600 million and a broadcastings rights deal with the NBA.

On Wednesday, new details about the service were revealed.

• CEO Chris Ripley referred to the service as Bally Sports+.
• The service will cost $189.99 annually or $19.99 per month. 
• Comparatively, ESPN+ costs $6.99 per month, NFL Sunday Ticket is $74 per month, and NBA League Pass Premium costs $29.99 per month.

Sinclair owns broadcasting rights to 38 MLB, NBA, and NHL franchises that are already available on its stations. The broadcaster has streaming rights for all NHL and NBA teams, and is having “constructive dialogue” with other leagues and teams.

Q1 advertising revenue reached $371 million.

Tightening Things Up

During the quarter, the company consolidated Diamond Sports Group, which announced a new board of managers on Monday. DSG, a sports marketing company, is the subsidiary overseeing the Bally Sports regional sports networks and DTC app.

Sinclair says it will still hold “nearly 100%” of DSG’s ownership.