SVG Sit-Down: Bleacher Report's Joe Yanarella Believes B/R Betting Is Just Scratching the Surface of What Is Possible' Why live betting content works and how in-game betting is the next big thing By Brandon Costa, Director of Digital
Tuesday, September 7, 2021 - 3:24 pm
Print This Story | Subscribe
Story Highlights
With college football season under way and the NFL just days from kicking off, it's the most wonderful time of year for the sports-betting market.
This season feels especially so for sports-betting books and broadcasters: 23 states currently offer live and legal sports betting in some form, and, in another nine states, it's currently legal but not yet operational (according to the American Gaming Association). There's promise for big numbers in bets and high numbers in sports-betting-related video content.
Bleacher Report and its sports-gaming-focused B/R Betting are geared up for the upcoming season with a menu of planned new live and on-demand content. That includes Squad Ride, B/R's live Sunday-morning NFL betting show that streams directly to the B/R app; new episodes of its hit series Bet$ Friend$ with former NFL receiver Chad Ochocinco; and the debut of Ride Along, a betting series that will feature B/R Betting talent onsite at marquee football games.
Bleacher Report's Joe Yanarella: We're seeing excitement in the [sports-betting] category grow at the same time the technology's evolving and allowing us to expand our creative experiences.
SVG caught up with Joe Yanarella, SVP/GM, sports betting, Bleacher Report, to discuss the video content that his team is planning for the new year, why building a community is important to them, and why real-time in-game betting is the holy grail.
What are your feelings going into this football season, both NFL and college? Football is already the kingpin of sports-betting seasons, and now we're entering a year when more states are on board. How does this feel for you in terms of excitement level compared with other years?
There's always excitement around football season because it drives more audience than anything we see around B/R in my history here, having been here 12-ish years. With betting, the groundwork has been laid, and now we're starting to see more and more momentum through partnerships with the [NFL]. It's really exciting: more states are coming on board.
The momentum is fantastic, and we're incredibly excited. We're already starting to see the results of that momentum. We did our first preview show of our Squad Ride Show, and we had our best video views and audience in our history. We had over 200,000 people watching our live show. Just to be able to create that sort of live destination interactive programming in our app is incredibly important to us as a brand and a company.
What content plans that you and the team are working on particularly excite you?
One is our weekly Squad Ride Show in partnership with DraftKings. That's our weekly NFL show on Sunday mornings. We've taken a different approach to it. It's not just expert picks and information. Our brand value is about being more relatable with the audience and authentic and interactive with them. We're having a conversation with the audience, and they send us UGC submissions with videos, their bet slips. We all do it together as a community.
I think one of the things we've found is, if you try to act more transactionally - which is what most of the traditional brands do: provide information in a one-way conversation - you are judged by the value of that information. Even the best people on the planet are wrong 45% of the time. So your audience dislikes you 45% of the time. What we try to do is build a communal experience where we say, Hey, we've all agreed on this together. This is a bet we all want to do as a community. They get the experience of riding along with us, and, even win or lose, they say, Well, that was fun. I enjoyed doing that together. We'd like to keep doing that. That's where we are right now in this stage.
In the future stage, we want to get to the point where we can integrate that into broadcast with Watch Parties and elements like that. We're not 100% there yet in terms of 5G and how quickly things move in real time, but that's the goal to get to, and I think that's the exciting part. We're seeing the community grow and excitement in the category grow at the same time the technology's evolving and allowing us to expand our creative experiences.
Do you think that community approach attracts the newer bettor? This is probably a question you've been asked a million times, but how do you guys approach the balance of welcoming in more raw bettors vs. people who have been doing this for a very long time?
We're trying to capture the hearts and minds of the next generation of sports bettors. Taking the age out of that, some of them are more casual, some of them come from a fantasy background, and some of them have no background.
[Sports betting] can be very intimidating if you don't understand the language, the numbers, the odds. But, if we just simplify things, it's easy.
I can have an opinion on [whether] Ezekiel Elliott or Dalvin Cook is going to score a touchdown this week based on their matchup. Everyone can feel like they are an expert when it comes to that: they have an opinion about it because they've watched football. We're really looking at the casual mainstream fan, who wants to be part of a connective interactive experience, more than the hardcore kind of sharp types.
In terms of live content specifically, company-wide, there's a huge push to put attention on the B/R app. But you do some live stuff on Instagram and other places. When and how do you make the creative decisio
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
04/08/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
04/07/2026
April 7 2026, 19:00 (PDT) Detective Conan: Fallen Angel of the Highway Opens in...
01/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
01/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
01/06/2026
Marshall Electronics is showcasing a comprehensive lineup of next-generation POV cameras, purpose-built to power today's connected AV environments, at InfoC...
01/06/2026
Adobe Announces Concept to Vector
Deepa Subramaniam June 1, 2026
0 Comments
One of the biggest frustrations we hear from designers is how difficult it...
01/06/2026
Vampire Feature Night Patrol Graded with DaVinci Resolve Studio
Brie Clayton June 1, 2026
0 Comments
Colorist shapes dark, gritty tone for horror thri...
01/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
01/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
01/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
01/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
01/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
01/06/2026
Mardi 2 juin 14h00
FilmLight (ARRI), 10 rue Ren Boulanger, 75010 Paris
Rejoignez-nous pour d couvrir comment FLAPI (l'API FilmLight) peut transformer e...
01/06/2026
January 6 2026, 05:30 (PST) Dolby Sets the New Standard for Premium Entertainment at CES 2026
Throughout the week, Dolby brings to life the latest innovatio...
31/05/2026
Olivia P rez-Collellmir to Premiere Original Work at Gaud Centennial in Barcelona The Berklee graduate and faculty member will debut her choral symphony with...
31/05/2026
Back to All News
Netflix Wins 15 Awards at the Canadian Screen Awards - See Pho...
31/05/2026
Taiwan is home to more than 500 NVIDIA ecosystem partners. More than 1 million N...
31/05/2026
As factories move from isolated automation to plant-wide intelligence, manufacturers need AI systems that can connect live machine signals, quality systems, wor...
31/05/2026
The NVIDIA AI Cloud ecosystem is accelerating the global buildout of AI factory infrastructure. Partners are expanding capacity to meet growing demand from ente...
30/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
30/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
30/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
30/05/2026
Zero in on one that says yes (and no)
Andy Marken May 29, 2026
0 Comments
Hero image courtesy of Deposit Photos
For content creators the most difficu...
29/05/2026
With InfoComm 2026 just weeks away, NDI is giving attendees plenty of reasons to...
29/05/2026
Reaffirming a partnership that has defined Canadian sports broadcasting since 19...
29/05/2026
Mobile/tablet is No. 2 device for watching TV, suggesting that the sports-production industry needs to take another look at the format
Ring Digital's Sprin...
29/05/2026
Berliner Ensemble, one of Berlin's five major theater companies, has expande...
29/05/2026
Solid State Logic will showcase its new compact, fly-away TCA Tour audio product...
29/05/2026
Gerald (Jerry) Pierce, a pioneering technologist who helped shape the digital transformation of the motion picture industry, passed away last month on April 12 ...
29/05/2026
Paramount+ will be the English-language U.S. home for Barclays Women's Super...
29/05/2026
Further strengthening its virtualisation strategy to fully support broadcasters ...
29/05/2026
Swiss broadcaster Canal Alpha has deployed Harmonic's award-winning, software-based XOS Advanced Media Processor to modernize playout operations across cant...
29/05/2026
PTZOptics will showcase a new generation of intelligent video workflows at InfoComm 2026, June 17-19, Las Vegas. Visitors to booth N8227 will see how PTZOptics ...
29/05/2026
Arizona's Family has launched the Arizona's Family Sports (AZFS) streaming app, a new direct-to-consumer destination for live, local sports. The app is ...
29/05/2026
Starting in 2027, DAZN will be the exclusive home of The Canadian Football Leagu...
29/05/2026
Comcast Business has detailed the advanced network infrastructure it has deploye...
29/05/2026
In two-day event, leaders from academia and industry explored solutions to chall...
29/05/2026
The Basketball Tournament (TBT), now entering their 13th year of competition, ha...
29/05/2026
Roku has launched FOX One as a Premium Subscription on The Roku Channel in the U.S. Roku customers can now subscribe to FOX One using their Roku account for liv...
29/05/2026
In its sixth year, the broadcaster's coverage has become a global brand and ...
29/05/2026
Ratings Roundup is a rundown of recent ratings news and is derived from press re...
29/05/2026
The days are getting longer, the temperatures are rising, and playlists are filling up for the season. With summer around the corner, Spotify's global edito...
29/05/2026
New retro-inspired MPC announced
There are few devices that have gained the status held by Akai Pro's MPC range, and in recent years, the company have s...
29/05/2026
Save up to 30 on acclaimed titles
Following a successful launch at Superbooth 2026, Bjooks have revealed that they will be continuing the Kickstarter campa...
29/05/2026
Binaural monitoring application improved
Genelec have just released an update that brings some powerful new features to their HRTF-based binaural headphone ...
29/05/2026
6 June 2026 at SAE Institute, London, UK
IMSTA FESTA 2026 is almost upon us, with some of the biggest names in pro-audio set to descend upon SAE Institute i...
29/05/2026
Gerald (Jerry) Pierce, a pioneering technologist who helped shape the digital transformation of the motion picture industry, died April 12, 2026, at his home in...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
SVG Sit-Down: Bleacher Report's Joe Yanarella Believes B/R Betting Is Just Scratching the Surface of What Is Possible' Why live betting content works and how in-game betting is the next big thing By Brandon Costa, Director of Digital 
