Why we’re going deep on Betr: The Entertainment-ification of Sports
My sports fandom started early. Because of my dad’s demanding work schedule I seldom saw him much during the week, leaving weekends as the chance for some “boy time.” This generally meant throwing a ball around, playing ping pong, and watching sports on TV. Linear, streaming, mobile — ha! These were the early 1970’s — we just called it TV. Four channels and so much opportunity! Wide World of Sports. The Professional Bowlers Tour. Baseball. Football. Basketball. Boxing. Horse racing. The Olympics (when they came around). And kitschy local sports (Brighton-Panorama TV Roll-offs during my formative years in Upstate New York). It didn’t matter — we just loved watching sports together. Sports were, without question, my favored form of entertainment. With the exception of Saturday Night Live, nothing else rated. But my sports-as-entertainment experience was largely limited to watching on TV and participating in-real-life. Now don’t get me wrong — watching sports with dad and playing sports with friends is really fun. But with the technology-fueled changes in how we communicate, collaborate, watch and play, it’s as if a whole other dimension has opened up relative to the days of my youth. More specifically, it is the aspect of making sports even more entertaining, engaging and immersive that gets me excited. And this is where I’ve now chosen to spend the majority of my time as an investor, a builder and a mentor, most recently through my co-leadership of the Series A-2 round in Betr. I have also joined Betr’s Board of Directors, my first board seat in the post-IA Ventures era.
I first met Joey Levy in the context of investing in Simplebet, the leader in sports micro-betting infrastructure that powers a wide array of domestic and global sports books. Now Joey may be a young(ish) founder, but he exhibits vision, drive and execution ability far beyond his years. When we first spoke, he told me that his real dream was to build a direct-to-consumer (d2c) sports betting product: it would leverage novel technology, have the best UX in the business and deliver a social, deeply satisfying, sticky experience that would change the way people engaged with sports through real-time micro-betting. Because of when Simplebet was founded and how early it (correctly) was in micro-betting, it pivoted to a business-to-business (b2b) strategy that has yielded significant benefits for itself and for the online sports betting industry. However, this left Joey’s original vision of a game-changing d2c experience unrealized. It was from this vantage point and competitive fire that Instabet — now Betr — was founded.
I invested in Instabet as it was being spun out of Simplebet, and really got to know Joey during this time. It was not only his experience in building Simplebet that was compelling, but his vision for how the worlds of sports betting, live sports and entertainment would converge: unlocking a massive untapped TAM while changing the narrative of sports betting from being largely the province of “degens” to a safe and enjoyable entertainment experience enjoyed by people of different ages, genders and backgrounds. This envisioned a radically different user experience, one that leveraged a state-of-the-art tech stack that is much more intuitive and social than traditional online sports books (OSBs) along with differentiated and exciting in-app content. Part of this involved building a “content factory”, a place where compelling personalities with interesting stories could engage with sports fans and built trust and affinity, not just around sports betting but around sports in general. It was this vision that caused Joey to partner with Jake Paul, the boxer/influencer/TikTok personality that had already captured the imagination of millions and brought a built-in social media network. Jake’s star power, both with his own following but also with his ability to enlist and engage other influencers across sports and media, is what hastened the creation of a different business model: one that was far less reliant on paid acquisition and bonusing and which created a deeper, less transactional relationship with customers than traditional OSBs.
But executing such an ambitious build on two fronts — OSB plus media — required Joey to recruit the most successful, ambitious and visionary leaders in each domain, and to sell them on the ability to disrupt what to many looks like an intractable oligopoly. Seems crazy, right? Well, Joey embodies my kind of crazy, the same kind that led me to invest in The Trade Desk (TTD: $37b market cap) and Wise (WISE.L: $8b market cap) in their earliest days: each faced similar competitive hurdles against far more entrenched and better-funded competitors, but were led by world-class visionaries who were able to bring along top talent to help execute the plan. The big vision, the market opportunity and Joey’s selling ability helped him onboard two fellow visionaries (and crazy people) to drive each of these critical initiatives, Alex Ursa (Head of Gaming, ex-FanDuel, Paddy Power Betfair) and Mike Denevi (Head of Media, ex-Bleacher Report). Each of them have built world-class teams to deliver the Betr value proposition in their respective domains, as well as the how the two interact to create a seamless in-app experience. Today Betr has the fastest growing media presence among all OSBs, enabling sports fans to enjoy Betr Media’s content as a fun, exciting entry point into their app-based sports micro betting product. This has led to a high engagement, high NPS early cohort of Betr users, informing the strategy that will carry it from a handful of licensed states to a country-wide strategy and beyond.
This approach is simply “better”, er, Betr, and I couldn’t be more excited for the future of the business. But truly, this relationship is more than “I” — it’s “we”. My sons Ethan and Andrew at Eberg Capital have also been instrumental in helping to establish and drive the Betr relationship, and their unusual ability to serve as “voice of the customer” along with their first-hand sports betting and related investment experiences have made them awesome partners in this journey. There aren’t two better people to help this 57 year old dog to learn some new tricks than two 20-something former athletes and sports bettors who have grown up in this world of sports convergence. Sports are everywhere; they have become fused into the fabric of our society as a vehicle for building bridges, creating a common language and just kicking back and having some fun. Betr has become a nexus in the Eberg Capital ecosystem for a set of companies that share this vision of an inclusive, exciting, sports-powered entertainment network. We’re so excited to be a part of it.
