LPGA Tour Gets Serious About Sports Betting, Strikes IMG Arena Partnership

The LPGA Tour is hoping to capitalize away expanded sports betting past path of increased devotee engagement. Today, the leading women’s professional golf game tour announced a partnership with IMG Arena, a data statistical distribution steadfast focussed on the emerging US sports betting industry.

Under the deal, IMG Arena will take in the sole(a) information and distribution rights to the LPGA Tour’s unrecorded on-course statistical feed.

IMG Arena testament dispense unrecorded LPGA Tour information to licensed sportsbooks who opt to purchase the stream. Those books can, inwards turn, proffer an raiment of in-tournament and in-round betting opportunities.

This is a substantial commercial partnership that helps farm the spirited with thrilling mental object reaching young audiences and impulsive fan engagement around the world,” said Brian Carroll, SVP of the tour’s worldwide media distribution department.

The LPGA Tour and IMG Arena system includes to a greater extent than 30 tournaments a year, rootage immediately. The women’s circuit is a world-wide surgical process that conducts events inwards Frederick North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia. The circuit is highlighted past five major championships.

Luring Men to Women’s Golf

IMG Arena is single of the largest sports betting information dispersion services in the world. The keep company reached a similar sell with the PGA Tour inward 2019. IMG says the LPGA Tour information will follow included inwards its Golf Event Center.

“Our feeds combine with unrecorded streaming to take into account fans to ‘step inside’ the ropes. Live and historical event statistics, detailed visualizations, and ultra-responsive markets are presented via 2D and 3D interfaces to create a unique buff experience,” IMG Arena explains of its golf product.

Sports that otherwise pallid inward popularity compared with the NFL or college football game have seen an uptick inwards audience engagement because of sports betting. In Colorado, for instance, $7.8 billion was wagered on tabular array tennis inwards November alone.

The LPGA Tour reaching a sports betting sell with IMG Arena could outcome inwards best telecasting ratings for its unrecorded events by right smart of attracting to a greater extent manly viewers.

The effectual US sports betting marketplace is hard male. DraftKings and FanDuel write up that their sportsbook client bases are almost 90 percent male. It would seem to live a strong bet that bringing LPGA Tour in-round betting options to the smartphones of the millions of manful bettors testament increase interlocking in the women’s sport.

LPGA Tour Commissioner Mollie Marcoux Samaan told Golf Digest recently that sports betting is a “huge opportunity” that can buoy “help us recount our story more sharply and catch a wider lover base.”

Ratings Increase

The LPGA Tour is already amid a surge inward interest. Television viewership for the women’s circuit increased 21 percent inward 2020, spell the PGA Tour ratings climbed only if quaternary percent from 2019.

The spindle has been credited to the LPGA Tour having an abundance of pop stars, including sisters Jessica and Nelly Korda, Danielle Kang, Inbee Park, Lydia Ko, Brooke Henderson, and Lexi Thompson. The Korda sisters, Kang, and Homer Thompson are US-born and raised.

“The LPGA Tour features some of the to the highest degree talented athletes inwards the domain and hebdomadal tournaments of the finest quality, which will deliver a vast and compelling straddle of data-led sports betting mental object for operators and their players,” said Max Wright, IMG Arena’s senior VP of commercial message operations.