NFL names Fanatics as non-exclusive sportsbook, casino partner

Fanatics is about to show up a lot more around NFL football. With the new season nearing, the league has signed Fanatics Betting and Gaming as a non-exclusive sportsbook and online casino partner, putting Fanatics Sportsbook and Fanatics Casino into the NFL’s official partner lineup.

The agreement is multi-year and gives Fanatics the right to use NFL intellectual property, including league, team, and event trademarks and terms such as the Super Bowl and NFL Draft. For sports betting, Fanatics Sportsbook also gets access to official NFL data via the league’s exclusive data distributor, Genius Sports.

For players, the practical change is visibility: the deal allows Fanatics to advertise its products during NFL games, strike media sponsorships with the league’s media partners, and show up at in-person hospitality and fan experiences and events. Fanatics’ apparel and merchandise business was already an NFL partner, and that relationship expanded earlier this year to include on-site retail operations at the league’s marquee events; now its real-money gaming arm is being tied directly to the league as well.

The “non-exclusive” label matters because it leaves room for other betting and casino partners. The NFL previously had “tri-exclusive” arrangements with three operators, but those multi-year agreements expired without renewals, leaving the league without an official sportsbook sponsor for the first time since it began making those kinds of partnerships. One factor previously cited around renewals was higher prices for official league data provided by Genius Sports, where the NFL is the largest single shareholder.

Negotiations with DraftKings and FanDuel are still ongoing, while Caesars is not expected to pursue a new partnership. Separately, there’s also the question of prediction markets: the NHL and MLB have partnered with prediction market platforms offering sports and other event contract trading nationwide, but NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell has said the league doesn’t want to rush into that area due to regulatory and legal uncertainty and the risk to the NFL brand. The NFL also sent comments to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission in late July saying a proposed prediction market rule falls “significantly short” on market manipulation and consumer protection, and Genius Sports CEO Mark Locke said earlier in August he would not expect the NFL to partner with a prediction market company for the 2026 season.