Crypto, EVs and sports betting could be this year's Super Bowl stars
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The Super Bowl on Sunday is forecast to see a record 31.4M Americans betting a combined total of $7.6B, according to an estimate from the American Gaming Association. The betting handle is 78% higher than last year's tally with sports betting up and running this year in Arizona, Connecticut, Louisiana, Maryland, North Carolina, North Dakota, South Dakota, Washington, Wisconsin and Wyoming have legalized sports betting in the past year to bring the total number of states with legal sports betting to 30 in addition to Washington, D.C.
Over $1B is forecast by PlayUSA.com to be bet at retail sportsbooks or through a sports betting app. Nevada is forecast to produce the largest Super Bowl handle with $175M, followed by New York with a projection for $160M.
A partial list of stocks that touch sports betting directly or indirectly includes PlayAGS (NYSE:AGS), Bally's (NYSE:BALY), FanDuel/Flutter Entertainment (OTCPK:PDYPY), MGM Resorts (NYSE:MGM), Everi Holdings (NYSE:EVRI), Entain Plc (OTCPK:GMVHF), Boyd Gaming (NYSE:BYD), Penn National Gaming (NASDAQ:PENN), Churchill Downs (NASDAQ:CHDN), Playtech (OTC:PYTCF), Caesars Entertainment (NASDAQ:CZR), Genius Sports Limited (NYSE:GENI), Esports Entertainment Group (NASDAQ:GMBL), DraftKings (NASDAQ:DKNG), Golden Nugget Online Gaming (NASDAQ:GNOG), PointsBet Holdings (OTCQX:PBTHF), Sportradar Group (NASDAQ:SRAD), GAN Limited (NASDAQ:GAN), fuboTV (NYSE:FUBO), Rush Street Interactive (NYSE:RSI), Esports Technologies (NASDAQ:EBET), Elys Game Technology (NASDAQ:ELYS) and Paysafe (NYSE:PSFE).
What about the commercials? This year will see an influx of crypto advertisers with Coinbase Global (NASDAQ:COIN), FTX, Binance and Crypto.com all slated for prominent spots. And while "fortune favors the brave" may be the word from Matt Damon, the spotlight on crypto arrives with Bitcoin (BTC-USD) down 3.2% over the last 24 hours to $42,289 and Ethereum (ETH-USD) off 6.50% to $2,909.
Two of the mainstays of Super Bowl advertising are back in a very big way. Anheuser-Busch InBev (NYSE:BUD) purchased four minutes of Super Bowl airtime to promote the Budweiser, Michelob Ultra, Bud Light Next, Cutwater Spirits, Michelob Ultra Organic Seltzer and Bud Light Seltzer Hard Soda brands. Meanwhile, PepsiCo (NASDAQ:PEP) is running several celebrity-packed ads and is the main sponsor of the halftime show. Other companies that will be running spots during the game include Planet Fitness (NYSE:PLNT), Booking Holdings (NASDAQ:BKNG), Carvana (NYSE:CVNA), Uber Eats (NYSE:UBER), BMW (OTCPK:BMWYY), Google (NASDAQ:GOOG), Vroom (NASDAQ:VRM), Taco Bell (NYSE:YUM), Walmart (NYSE:WMT), Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:FB), Rocket Mortgage (NYSE:RKT), Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN), Boston Beer (NYSE:SAM) and Salesforce.com (NYSE:CRM).
The electric vehicle industry will be making a big splash during the game. General Motors (NYSE:GM), BMW AG (OTCPK:BMWYY), Nissan Motor (OTCPK:NSANY) and Kia Motors (OTCPK:KIMTF) all have commercials that feature EV models. SPAC Gores Guggenheim (NASDAQ:GGPI), which is taking electric vehicle maker Polestar public, will also have a high-profile spot. Last year Polestar announced it plans to launch three new cars over the next three years. EV battery charging specialist Wallbox (NYSE:WBX) is also going mainstream with a commercial aimed at the massive audience. Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) will stick with its DNA in skipping TV advertising.
If there is an early winner of the Super Bowl, it may be Comcast (NASDAQ:CMCSA). The media giant's NBC property announced last week that it sold out of Super Bowl ads, with some 30-second spots going for $7M each. The total payday for NBC could be close to $500M in ad revenue.
Some investors appear to have been making some Super Bowl momentum trades on Friday ahead of the big game. On a day the S&P 500 Index peeled off 2%, shares of DraftKings (DKNG) were up 2.4% and Wingstop (NASDAQ:WING) gained 1.0%.
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