Online sports betting has become an absolutely huge industry. And this covers every single sport, from NFL to soccer to baseball to basketball. Online bookmakers now offer you the chance to bet on a range of hundreds of different markets on your favourite sport or on your favourite team.
Basketball in particular is a growing part of this trend. It’s for this reason that you can enjoy LuckyKoala basketball betting as well as being able to bet on a range of different sports. And the sport itself is a lot bigger than you’d probably imagine. It ranks as the third most popular sport in the world, following soccer and cricket, with an estimated 2.2 billion fans worldwide.
It’s North American roots
And so it’s no surprise that basketball betting has become very popular, not only amongst fans of the sport but also among bookmakers themselves. The industry itself is very crowded when it comes to the number of online sites, so if there is any demand that they can cater to, they will make sure that they do so. The sport itself is probably the most popular in the United States. After all, the sport itself was created by a Canadian-American. It’s estimated that the average franchise value of a team playing in the NBA, which itself is the highest-level basketball league in the country, stands at $2.48 billion.
Valuable franchises
The most valuable team within the NBA is the New York Knicks, which are estimated to be worth around $5 billion and are owned by James Dolan, who is also the CEO of the Madison Square Garden Company. Also on the topic of the NBA, the average attendance per game is around 17,750, which may seem small compared to other sports such as the NFL, but the actual surface area of a basketball court relative to the stadium is proportionate to that of the average NFL stadium.
A loyal game following
It’s also due to the popularity of the sport itself globally that a demand has been seen for gaming. To the point where some of the best-selling basketball games for next-gen consoles and for PC gamers alike have generated an esports industry within itself with professional-level esports players. There is also a big, big market when it comes to merchandise, in particular footwear. Some of the biggest sponsorship deals in the history of all sports have been within basketball footwear. Such to the point where Michael Jordan, for example, became a billionaire in 2014 through his long-running sponsorship with Nike.
Great entertainment value
Although its influence as a sport spreads way beyond its borders, It’s played in many different countries around the world at a professional level. It provides great entertainment value to the audience who are watching the game, in addition to allowing the fans to engage with their teams and favourite players. It’s also a sport that, by nature, is fast-paced. Sometimes going down to the final few seconds to determine the winner of a match. This is what a lot of people want to see from a sport, especially if they are paying to watch the sport, whether it is on TV or in person.
In Summary
Hopefully, if you are a fan of basketball, this has given you some insight into just how big the industry is globally and particularly in the USA. It is one of the most popular sports in the world, ranking above both American football and baseball, and only beaten by cricket and soccer on the top rankings. And so it’s understandable to see why the demand is there to provide online basketball betting to the hundreds of millions of basketball fans.
