Pro franchise owners could get sports betting licenses.
Sometime during 2022, Ohio will be open for sports betting and one of the provisions within the Ohio sports betting law is that the owners of Ohio’s professional sports franchises along with the people behind an Ohio NASCAR event and the people staging Ohio professional golf events can apply for a Type B license for brick-and-mortar sportsbooks venues. Meaning that sports betting will be available for teams in Cincinnati, Cleveland and Columbus inside a venue or a place near to a stadium and or an arena. What makes this interesting is that the National Football League’s Cincinnati Bengals and Cleveland Browns franchises are nearing the end of stadium leases and generally that would give an owner a chance to play an incumbent city against a city that wants a major league franchise in the stadium game. The leverage chip but if sports betting licenses are so lucrative, would that mean if the Browns and Bengals ownerships got sports betting licenses that the franchise owners would be less inclined to play the stadium game?
The Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton already has plans for sports betting on its grounds. The Hall of Fame’s Fan Engagement Zone is where the sportsbook will eventually open. It is only fitting that the Hall of Fame will have a sports betting area, after all some of the original owners of NFL franchises including the New York Giants Tim Mara, who was a bookie, and the NFL’s Brooklyn Dodgers Bill Dwyer, a convicted liquor bootlegger, who turned sports buying teams and the Tropical Park Horse Racing Track in Miami, Florida where betting was legal, were involved in gambling. Cleveland Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert sold his two Ohio casinos last year but his Rock Ventures group that includes his NBA business, could get a license. Ohio will have sports betting.
Evan Weiner’s books are available at iTunes – https://books.apple.com/us/author/evan-weiner/id595575191
