SVG Sit-Down: Pro League Network Co-Founder Mike Salvaris on the Potential for Bettable Niche Sports Content

SVG Sit-Down: Pro League Network Co-Founder Mike Salvaris on the Potential for Bettable Niche Sports Content Expanded content production is on the agenda with new studio in Branson By Jason Dachman, Editorial Director, U.S.

Friday, January 5, 2024 - 1:26 pm

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World Putting League. CarJitsu. SlapFIGHT Championship. Ultimate Tire Wrestling. Major League Paintball. These sports may not be household names, but, for anyone looking for bettable content that's off the beaten path, Pro League Network is here to serve. PLN prepares and monitors each sport for wagering and produces, distributes, and monetizes each sport through wagering, sponsorship, and affiliates.

With an eye on sports fans and bettors looking for something a bit further off the beaten path, Pro League Network is ramping up its content-production operation with the launch of a studio in Branson, MO. Dubbed PLN Studios, the new facility will serve as home to coverage of PLN combat sports - SlapFIGHT Championship, CarJitsu Championship, Gorilla Games, Ultimate Tire Wrestling - and to weekly PLN-focused entertainment shows, such as BFC Extreme studio show, and entertainment programming.

Pro League Network's Mike Salvaris: We've got a good base for several of our sports, but there's no shortage of interesting new developments coming down the pipe.

SVG sat down with PLN co-founder Mike Salvaris to discuss the league's strategy, how it has evolved since its launch in 2022, what the new studio means for its growth, potential increase in distribution this year, and how PLN creates stars out of its unique athletes.

Why did you decide to launch PLN, and how does the wagering element differentiate it from other niche sports?

Previously, my co-founder Bill Yucatonis and I worked in thoroughbred racing. Roughly $12 billion is spent on racing in the U.S. every year. When people think about thoroughbred racing in the U.S., they think, of course, of the Kentucky Derby, the Belmont Stakes, etc. But Kentucky Derby is only 1.5% of that $12 billion. What makes up 50%-55% are claiming races, allowance races, and races that aren't necessarily of the highest quality but are what's on on a Tuesday afternoon, Wednesday afternoon, or Saturday before the big races.

If you apply that thinking to the U.S. sports-wagering market - where you've got four major sports, three of which have heavily overlapped schedules in terms of both months of the year and days of the week - there's a lot of gaps where there's just not a lot of good content available for wagering.

In the middle of an average day, if we were to go on FanDuel or DraftKings, you might find European handball or something like that [to bet on] but nothing that is fairly well-produced and aimed at a domestic market. Our concept is to acquire sports and develop sports designed to fill those gaps in the market. We are looking for compelling content that's highly bettable and engaging to a casual audience. If we schedule those sports during times when the market is underserved, we believe, there is real opportunity. And that is how Pro League Network was born.

How has PLN evolved and grown since it launched in 2022?

PLN has evolved into 12 sports that we own and operate and control primarily for a waging audience. We hope to grow that number to 15 or so by the end of the year. What's going to accelerate is just the amount of content we produce, from half an hour or an hour a week to 30-40 hours by this time next year.

How do you monitor the integrity of betting on these sports?

That's a strong reason for us to want to own our own sports and the entire PLN [ecosystem]. We employ the athletes, implement the doping policies, develop the wagering-integrity policies. We work with U.S. Integrity [which provides monitoring and analysis services] on everything that we operate to make sure that there's live monitoring of all the bets. Particularly for sports like ours, we have to make sure that integrity is at the forefront of everything that we do.

We also have to get our sports approved by the different state jurisdictions in order to enable wagering. We spend a lot of time on that to make sure there is fair competition and sufficient integrity for every sport.

CarJitsu is one of Pro League Network's established brands.

I think, because of our background [in thoroughbred racing], we go through the sports that we operate with a fine-tooth comb from an integrity point of view to make sure there's clarity in the rules, and that gives confidence to both the commissions and the average bettor that this is a fair and free bet. At the end of the day, we're just trying to be as open as we can with both the public and the commissions because that inspires confidence and will enable success.

How did you start working with SlapFIGHT Championship? Why did you acquire its studio?

When we started the company about 14 months ago, one of the first things we thought was how cool it would be if we could get slap fighting regulated for wagering. We managed to track down JT Tilley [founder/CEO, SlapFIGHT Championship] and flew out to Branson, MO, where he's based. Over a series of conversations, we did a deal where we became the wagering agent, if you will, for SlapFIGHT. As part of that, we got SlapFIGHT regulated in a bunch of states and got it listed on DraftKings and [other online sportsbooks].

As we started to develop a relationship with JT and see him on camera, we realized he's got some great comedic chops, and we really liked his on-camera presence. We started using him on some of our other sports productions, and, as we got to know each other more, it just made sense for us to acquire SlapFIGHT and have JT come aboard as creative director across all our sports. We felt that wo

LINK:	https://www.sportsvideo.org/2024/01/05/svg-sit-down-pro-league-network...
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