In the sport betting category’s increasingly crowded battle for customer acquisition, FOX Bet found a new weapon in 2020: politics.
The company’s free-to-play Super 6 prediction app created contests for the presidential debates last fall, drawing over a million entrants across two nights and posting its best download day of the year on the Sunday following the second of those events. Its election night contest garnered a million entries alone, with subsequent NFL Sunday Challenges—where the game had previously focused much of its marketing push, using Fox talent including Terry Bradshaw and Howie Long—averaging over 1.2 million entries thereafter.
Today, politics returns to the app with questions based on the Georgia Senate races. The game’s managers are also planning contests around upcoming tentpoles like Joe Biden’s presidential inauguration and his address to a joint session of Congress in February.
The election contest “certainly exceeded the expectations we had of how people would engage,” said FOX Bet CEO Kip Levin. “People sort of naturally want to have some skin in the game…. If there’s an audience, we think there’s an interesting opportunity to build fun games to drive additional engagement.”
FOX Bet launched in 2019 as a joint venture between Fox and The Stars Group, which was later acquired by gambling giant Flutter. FanDuel, which is also owned by Flutter, experimented with political games as well in 2020.
While Levin said Super 6 is talking with potential sponsors for in-app activations, the product’s main purpose continues to be customer acquisition, giving the company a nationwide vehicle to reach consumers while sports betting rolls out state by state. FOX Bet’s sportsbook is available in Colorado, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and–soon–Michigan.
Even if and when the sports betting market is more mature, though, Levin said there will be a place for free games that keep customers engaged. “We have regular meetings with the Fox Sports team to figure out new things we can do,” he said. “We want to do a better job this year of always having interesting games and content.”
Future games could be aligned with FOX entertainment properties “because of the success we saw with politics,” Levin added. “We’re just getting started.”
