Pointspread.com Back on Board with FoxSports.com

A dispute over who will supply betting odds to FoxSports.com appears to have been resolved with an agreement through which Fox will continue to provide exposure for five online sports books.

The odds are supplied by Pinnacle, BetGameDay, Skybook, Blue Grass Sports, Sportingbet USA, and Legendz Sports and delivered to FoxSports.com via Pointspread.com, a non-wagering sports information site.

FoxSports.com had been featuring odds from the five books on its Web site, but they were replaced April 8 solely by odds from Bodog.com, the Costa Rica-based online sports book, after Pointspread failed to make a payment to FoxSports.com.

But Pointspread.com since come up with the funds, and despite signing a $1 million deal with Fox for exclusive rights, Bodog's stint at FoxSports.com lasted less than two weeks.

Pointspread complained that Foxsports never gave official notice that it intended to terminate its deal with Pointspread, which was still under contract, so Pointspread and its legal team pressured Foxsports to revert to carrying odds from its sports book clients.

To pay off the $80,000 owed to Fox, Pointspread's owner, Steven Slone, sold 51 percent of the company to Clear Media, an advertising firm that specializes in advertising for entertainment companies. As a result, the CEO of Clear Media, Richard Jardine, became CEO of Pointspread and Slone remained on board to sell advertising inventory as the company's sales manager.

Now that the confusion is settled and Pointspread has appropriate funds, it appears that Pointspread's clients' odds should remain on Foxsports.com throughout the remainder of the contract term, which runs for another four years. Bodog.com's $1 million will likely be refunded.

Perhaps the most important thing to note about the whole situation is that five sports books (Pinnacle, BetGameDay, Skybook, Blue Grass Sports, Sportingbet USA, and Legendz Sports) are continuing to get exposure from FoxSports--a major sports media and entertainment outlet--at a time when most U.S.-based sites are discontinuing all online gaming advertisements.

Foxsports also prohibits the advertisement of online gambling on its Web site, but it has no such restrictions on providing gambling odds on sports matches. The odds section of Foxsports can be reached with just one click off the home page and features a Pointspread.com banner. Surfers click which sports league's odds they would like to view and are taken to a page that displays the odds for each of the five books. Logos for each sports book appear next to each odds line, and clicking any logo takes the surfer to the Pointspread homepage. From there, surfers can again pick which league they wish to see odds for, and on the next screen the sport books' logos appear again, but clicking a logo this time takes the surfer directly to the sports book's homepage.

Jardine said his companies "are hoping to set legal precedence by providing odds as content to major media corporations in the United States." He added, "I truly believe we are the future of advertising in the U.S. market. There is no other legal way to advertise an online sports book right now."

Pointspread recently signed a similar deal with Citadel Media, which represents the Theinsiders.com, a sports network of more than 150 sites. On May 2, Pointspread will become the official odds provider for Theinsiders.com, which according to Alexa Web Search and Nielson Ratings, is the 14th most popular sports network online.

While the format of FoxSports' odds page makes the surfer journey a little further before eventually landing on the homepage of a sports book, Theinsiders' network will make the path quicker. Surfers who click the "Odds" button at the top of any site on Theinsiders' network will be transported directly to the Pointspread homepage, thereby eliminating one extra step that the Fox network takes.

The companies also have other plans for online gaming companies seeking exposure. They are currently selling sponsorships for large parties that attract much media attention, such as the ones thrown by Playboy magazine. The rationality is that gaming companies will gain attention when the parties they sponsor are covered in magazines and on television programs.