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One of the remaining mysteries of the Missouri sports betting application process was solved this week, as Underdog announced a multi-year partnership with Major League Baseball’s Kansas City Royals.
While Underdog is better known as a daily fantasy sports operator, with games available in most US states, it does operate a sportsbook in North Carolina and has licenses in Colorado and Ohio.
Stacie Stern, senior VP of government affairs and partnerships at Underdog, said the Royals are good fit for the company.
“The Royals have forged a deep and authentic connection with baseball fans throughout the Kansas City region, in Missouri and beyond. We’ve built our products with the same approach – real, organic connection with sports fans to get to one goal: Make sports more fun. We are going to work with the Royals to bring the best sports betting experience possible to fans in Missouri, while we continue to drive innovation in sports gaming and expand our product offerings in new states.”
Underdog has had past ties with Royals
When Underdog applied for a Missouri license in June, it was initially believed the operator was seeking an untethered license since it wasn’t partnered with either a Missouri casino or a Missouri-based professional sports team.
The Missouri Gaming Commission (MGC) soon confirmed that Underdog was actually applying for a tethered license, so a partnership deal was probably in the works at that time.
Royals President of Business Operations Brooks Sherman did point to prior ties to Underdog when announcing the new partnership.
“The Royals look forward to continuing and enhancing our partnership with Underdog, which is our longest-standing relationship in sports gaming. We’ve partnered with them on some of our most engaging fan programs, like Bark at the Park and the Underdog Hot Dog Derby, and we look forward to working with Underdog to provide Royals fans throughout Missouri the opportunity to have even more fun while watching sports.”
Underdog is a growing company that is looking to make an impact in the sports betting world. A May article in Axios reported that Underdog had raised $70 million in Series C funding at a $1.23 billion valuation from Spark Capital, en route to a $100 million goal.
MO sports betting picture becoming clearer
The MGC recently revealed that up to eight casinos could offer in-house betting when Missouri launches online betting on Dec. 1. Several could also anchor mobile sports betting bids from Caesars, Penn Entertainment, and Fanatics.
FanDuel initially bid for one of the two untethered licenses Missouri was offering, but upon being passed over in favor of DraftKings and Circa Sports, forged an alliance with Major League Soccer’s St. Louis City SC to enable its tethered license bid.
The MGC has indicated that license decisions will be announced Oct. 22.
