Hall of Fame Resort & Entertainment Company (NASDAQ:HOFV) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Benjamin Lee: I’ll take the first half on Betr, Mike, and if you want to jump in on Betr, it probably makes sense as well. But you know Mike talked about this in his opening comments. You know Betr is off to a great start. We’ve seen them beat the first couple of months through their results. What we were expecting to see and what they were expecting to see on both handle and gaming revenue. And you know I’ll just follow up by saying it’s been a big focus of ours is staying in tune with them throughout this initial couple of months of start-up and stand-up of that company.

Michael Crawford: Yeah, I’d only add that, you know, when you think about what how we structured the Betr deal, there are several forms of guaranteed revenue and then there’s obviously a percentage of the bet. We get an annual form of guaranteed revenue that increases over the life of the Betr deal, which is a ten-year deal. So there is guaranteed revenue coming in on that front. There is sponsorship revenue that comes in as well. And then there’s a percentage of the bet. Now with mobile betting, one of the things that you have to take a look at is engagement, customer acquisition, and then length of time spent with the app and the types of engagement and betting that occurs. I think on all of those fronts, we are ahead of where the projections we originally thought were going to be.

Recall also we have that shareholding interest that is continuing to be valuable and continuing to grow in value as they are successful in obtaining other licenses in other states. And so we feel very good about where we’re at. I mean, we’re three months into this and we’re really starting to put more effort around activation in a responsible way. We want to make sure that betting is, it’s a very regulated environment. This is not for people under age. We don’t want this to be something that we have to worry about in the context of bringing the wrong types of individuals. We want people to bet responsibly. I’ve talked about this enhancing the way you engage with sport, not necessarily becoming something that creates harm for you or the company or the organization Betr.

I think Joey Levy has done a really good job leading that company and again being thoughtful around how they continue to expand and grow. They’ve recently added more traditional betting where you can parlay and you can have over under and you can have a win lose versus just bet on the next play or bet on the field goal or whatever the case may be. I’ve enjoyed watching this environment continue to grow and our efforts have been solely focused on getting that environment stood up and stood up in a successful way. As it relates to the onsite location, Q4, we completed it, which we were excited about, and we’re in the process now of finalizing the partnership and the way in which we look at the partnership there so that we can continue to build out the inside of that facility and offer a compelling on-site retail sports book.

That’s something that we’ll continue to update everybody on as we make more progress. But I do believe that we wanted to be thoughtful around starting with the mobile and then turn our attention to the retail sports book, which also includes a significant food and beverage component to it as well. And so it’s slightly more complicated versus standing up the online booking and sports betting opportunities through a mobile app.

David Marsh: Do you have any estimate at this time when the physical retail location might be open for business?

Michael Crawford: Well, I think we’re going to take it in two parts. I think the first part would be the structuring of the food and beverage, because I think we have a demand for food and beverage on-site quicker. We’re in conversations with I’ll say we’re in conversations with some pretty high profile food and beverage operators that are incredibly excited. Remember, this location sits at the corner of Main and Main. I mean, you have view sheds into the stadium, you have view sheds to the Center for Performance to Play-Action Plaza. And so it’s a really unique position on our property. And so we’ll focus on that and try to have something like that open by the end of this year. And then the sports betting component will continue to make updates and announcements on as we make progress on that front.

David Marsh: Okay, thanks. Let me turn it over to someone else please. Thanks.

Michael Crawford: Thank you.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question is from Jack Vander Aarde with Maxim Group. Please proceed with your question.