UP408 What Just Happened? How the opening up of the US betting market explains the NBA's $75billion rights bonanza

Why has the value of the NBA's media rights tripled, from $25billion to $75billion this week?"Purely because of gambling,' says Sam Sadi, CEO of LiveScore Group, the media and gambling platform, referencing the opening up of the US gambling marketplace. 'Nothing else that would drive that. Everything was trending downwards until five years ago, and nothing changed in the environment. It can be easily isolated and all of a sudden you see these increases that are much higher than what were projected five years  And the NBA timed it perfectly."We recorded this conversation yesterday at LiveScore's Soho headquarters in London with fellow guest James Liddy, an investment banker with a hugely impressive track record as a deal maker in the gaming leisure and hotel sector, first with Deutsche Bank in London, and now at Jefferies's where he leads on that sector across Europe, the Middle East and Africa. This is a conversation that changed my view on what's happening in the macro environment for sport. Hopefully you'll find it as enlightening as I did.  Unofficial Partner is the leading podcast for the business of sport. A mix of entertaining and thought provoking conversations with a who's who of the global industry. To join our community of listeners, sign up to the weekly UP Newsletter and follow us on Twitter and TikTok at @UnofficialPartnerWe publish two podcasts each week, on Tuesday and Friday. These are deep conversations with smart people from inside and outside sport. Our entire back catalogue of 500 sports business conversations are available free of charge here. Each pod is available by searching for ‘Unofficial Partner’ on Apple, Spotify and every podcast app. If you’re interested in collaborating with Unofficial Partner to create one-off podcasts or series and live events, you can reach us via the website.