
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 ...
07/10/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, today announced the latest Long-Term Supported (LTS) release of Dalet Flex. Build...
06/09/2026
June 9 2026, 23:00 (PDT) Dolby and MagentaTV Bring Fans Closer to the FIFA Worl...
04/08/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
29/07/2026
In this series, Grass Valley explores the seven paradoxes shaping the next era o...
29/07/2026
Thats a wrap on Season 1 of SVG Students to Watch! Across the country, these stu...
29/07/2026
The agreement will move Gotham Sports App subscribers to DAZN during the 2026-27...
29/07/2026
Longtime digital-media leader expands role overseeing conference branding, video...
29/07/2026
By Bailey Pennick
One of the most exciting things about the Sundance Film Festival is having a front-row seat for the bright future of independent filmmaking. ...
29/07/2026
Organisation team up with TI:ME USA
Founded in 2019 with the aim of helping educators to embrace new music technology, Technology in Music Education (TiME U...
29/07/2026
Doubling & chorus processor gets an overhaul
Acon Digital have just launched the latest version of their free voice-doubling and chorus plug-in. Multiply 2 ...
29/07/2026
New Pultec-inspired pedal revealed
The latest addition to the Origin Effects line-up brings the legendary Pultec EQ into pedal format. Based on the EQP-1A, ...
29/07/2026
SBS Appoints Chief Commercial Officer and Director of Marketing and Audiences
29 July, 2026
Media releases
SBS is pleased to announce the appointment of Ni...
29/07/2026
Rohde & Schwarz showcases unified next-generation broadcasting ecosystem at SET ...
29/07/2026
eds3_5_jq(document).ready(function($) { $(#eds_sliderM519).chameleonSlider_2_1({...
29/07/2026
Streaming Hits 48.6% of Total TV Usage in May
YouTube Leads in Media Distributo...
29/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/07/2026
Industry veteran joins Amagi to drive growth in Europe's leading broadcast market and advance cloud-native broadcast, FAST, and AI-driven operations.
LONDO...
29/07/2026
Work is ongoing to specify how to run RIST over WebTransport. This will deliver secure, stable, broadcast quality video playback and origination to any platform...
29/07/2026
Offline Files Makes the Drive Shelf Searchable on Mac
Brie Clayton July 29, 2026
0 Comments
A local Mac app for finding files, photos, and footage acr...
29/07/2026
Blackmagic Design Announces New UltraStudio Mini 12G
Brie Clayton July 29, 2026
0 Comments
New extremely portable Thunderbolt 4 capture and playback ...
29/07/2026
Brightline Lighting, a premier manufacturer of energy-efficient lighting systems for broadcast, videoconferencing, government, education and corporate applicati...
29/07/2026
Applications open for IFFI/WAVES Film Bazaar in Goa - Producer Delegation 28 July 2026
Image credit: Four Years Later
Screen Australia has opened applications...
29/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/07/2026
Foundry today announced that Academy Award-winning creative studio DNEG has implemented Hiero to support its editorial workflows. Part of the Nuke product famil...
29/07/2026
The Latest Addition to the Brand's StudioPro Ecosystem Combines Simple Deployment, Cloud Control and Professional Grade Wireless Reliability
QuickLink, a l...
29/07/2026
The Secret Master Adjustment Layer Hack in After Effects
Graham Quince July 28, 2026
0 Comments
Trish Meyer (who literally beta-tested the original Af...
29/07/2026
Post Completed with Blackmagic Cloud for Shane Kosugi's Feature Film SEEK
Brie Clayton July 28, 2026
0 Comments
Cannes Indie International Film Fe...
29/07/2026
Isabeau Miller Named Chair of Berklee Songwriting Department The Berklee alumna, who previously served on the Songwriting faculty, will begin her new role on ...
29/07/2026
Wednesday 29 July 2026
Hayu is coming to Sky, bringing fan-favourite franchises...
29/07/2026
RT launches Unsolved, a true crime podcast, presented by crime journalist Barry Cummins and presenter Katja Mia.
Unsolved is a weekly podcast exploring unsol...
28/07/2026
LiveU, the pioneer in IP-video transmission and cloud-based remote production, today detailed its historic performance records set during the 2026 FIFA World Cu...
28/07/2026
The NFL franchise rebuilt their off-site content operation for an era when teams...
28/07/2026
Longtime partners expand viewer choice, data-driven analysis, access, immersive ...
28/07/2026
There is a unique moment before every major production. The audience never sees it.
The cameras are ready. The talent is preparing. Directors review the final...
28/07/2026
The CW Network and ESPN have announced their highly anticipated streaming agreement to bring CW Sports' live events to the ESPN App will officially launch o...
28/07/2026
As more than tens of thousands of spectators filled Paris' Champ de Mars and...
28/07/2026
Appear's X Platform played a central role in Chile's first large-scale c...
28/07/2026
Responding to the broadcast industry's shift to embrace more flexible production platforms, Solid State Logic (SSL) is evolving its comprehensive System T p...
28/07/2026
Production leverages innovative camera technologies, AI, and data to capture the action in four-week inaugural competition
The first-ever professional dunking ...
28/07/2026
Prime Video to exclusively broadcast Wednesday night national NHL regular-season games in Canada...
28/07/2026
Every match will stream live on Paramount+ beginning in February,...
28/07/2026
Baxandall-inspired hardware EQ overhauled
TK Audio's Baxandall-inspired hardware EQ unit has just made a return, bringing the popular unit back into the...
28/07/2026
D700 system gains new live-focused rackmount surface
Asparion have just announced an expansion of their D700 control surface range, introducing a new model ...
28/07/2026
27 July 2026, Johannesburg - The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an a...
28/07/2026
Ad Intel AI is Nielsen's first in a new generation of AI products built to t...