If you practice online gambling at Royal Vegas casino, or basically any other online gaming venue – social or otherwise – you’ll see that, although there are many sports-inspired slot machines out there, none of them are tied to any teams, players, not even leagues. The Royal Vegas has a nice collection of sports-inspired games, including some more “serious” ones inspired by soccer, rugby, and basketball, but not even the outfits of the players on the reels match any teams. The only exception is Shoot!, one of the Royal Vegas’ retro slot machines, a tribute to a long-running British soccer magazine featuring legendary names of the sport. Otherwise, no Royal Vegas sports slot is tied to any team, any player, not even a league. The reasons for this are multiple, including brand value and licensing fees.
Team names are brands
The names of the teams and even those of the athletes are brands that have quite a serious monetary value. The world’s most valuable athlete brands include “LeBron James”, with a value of $34 million, and “Roger Federer”, with a price tag of $36 million attached to his name. Team names are also valuable: the “Dallas Cowboys” team name is worth $577 million this year, while the “New York Yankees” brand is worth $660 million. With such high values, the brands’ owners surely want to associate their brands with “safe” products and services, to preserve their value for as long as possible.
The negative connotations of gambling
Although gambling is a legit business that pays billions in taxes each year, it is still considered to be a risky business in 2016. Although sports and gambling often go hand in hand – just think of the flourishing sports betting industry or the number of high-profile sports events taking place in casinos – it seems that associating a high-value sports brand with gambling is not a desirable direction for many owners.
The licensing fees would be stellar
With such valuable and recognizable brands, the world of professional sports would most likely charge quite a lot for licensing their brands to gambling companies. Entertainment brands have done it in the past – Israeli game developer Playtech has released a whole series of successful Marvel slot machines, and the Isle of Man based developer Microgaming also has quite a few slot machines inspired by successful movies (Jurassic Park, Terminator 2 Judgement Day), TV series (Battlestar Galactica), and video games (Tomb Raider, Hitman) in its library. Note that Playtech has struck a deal with Marvel long before the Avengers became a worldwide phenomenon, and the movies and TV series Microgaming featured in its games were also far from being the latest hits of the market. But think of how much NFL, NHL, NBA, or even MLS would charge for having its logo on a slot machine…