FanDuel Dispute Could Escalate Further With Advertising Ban

The dispute between Rupert Murdoch of the Fox Network and Flutter Entertainment could escalate rapidly after it was reported over the weekend that Fox Sports part of the Murdoch Empire will ban all FanDuel advertising on its sports channels in its ongoing dispute over share in FanDuel.

Fox Sports is the second most popular sports channel in the US and all sports betting companies use it to promote their products, however with FanDuel having some 40% of the sports betting market in the US Flutter would be very concerned if a major advertising avenue was removed from them.

The argument stems from a deal Fox says they had with Flutter Entertainment allowing them to buy some 18.6% of FanDuel shares back in July last year at a discounted rate, in fact the same rate Flutter bought their majority stake in FanDuel in December the previous year.

But Flutter say that is letting Fox secure a “major windfall” on the share value and Fox should pay a fair price for those shares.

Fox has already started legal action against Flutter for the right to the share price valuation in a New York court and should the threat of banning FanDuel from advertising airwaves in the Fox Sports network that would mark a serious escalation in hostilities between the two.

One person close to Flutter told the iGaming Post, that if Fox does ban FanDuel advertising it will use those blocks of advertising to promote its own FoxBet brand, but in essence this is where it all started, Flutter are annoyed with Fox for promoting FoxBet and Flutter are punishing them by refusing to let Fox have the shares at the reduced price now that Fox realises that FanDuel will always be more popular than FoxBet with sports betting fans.