Madison Square Garden eyes sports betting move
The parent company of New York’s Madison Square Garden (MSG) could be set to move into the sports betting market after applying to trademark its MSG brand for sports wagering purposes.
Madison Square Garden Company – which operates MSG, as well as sports and entertainment venues in Los Angeles and yet-to-be-completed venues in Las Vegas and London, plus a number of sports franchises – has filed an application with the United States Patent and Trademark Office referencing the use of the MSG brand across online, mobile and social media.
The filing requests the MSG brand be trademarked for downloadable mobile applications for sports wagering, as well as organising, arranging, conducting and participating in sports wagering tournaments, providing information related to sports bets, and competitions and contests.
MSG also requests that the mobile section of the trademark covers fantasy sports contests, managing and participating in fantasy sports leagues, and for providing sports and esports programming, news, previews, alerts, replays, video clips, web cam feeds and information.
The application also references the use of the MSG trademark for the provision of betting and online gambling services, with a view to arranging and conducting interactive peer-to-peer gambling competitions and interactive real-time gambling under the brand.
In addition, MSG makes specific reference to social media, saying that the trademark would apply to social networking in the field of gaming, provided via a website and web-based services.
However, the application does not feature any language related to land-based betting or in-venue gambling at the arena. MSG is home to a number of major league sports teams including NHL ice hockey team the New York Rangers and NBA basketball franchise the New York Knicks.
MSG is yet to respond to a request for comment from iGamingBusiness.com.
New York is yet to legalise sports betting, but Senator Joseph Addabbo last month pre-filed a bill setting out a regulatory framework for land-based, online and mobile sports betting across the state, to be debated in the 2019 legislative session. Addabbo followed this by filing a separate bill to legalise online poker in New York earlier this week.
Both bills have been allocated to the Racing, Gaming and Wagering Committee.