GME3: Broncos Player Bets Wrong, Advertising Meta-Morphosis, and X Marks the Spot

In this week’s edition of the GME3, we’re covering yet another NFL player who has been suspended over the league’s gambling policy, an update to Meta’s approach to targeted advertising in the EU, and what we can learn from the X branding update to Twitter. Read on for more!

Gambling

Broncos Player Bets Wrong 

Denver Broncos player Eyioma Uwazurike is facing an indefinite suspension after violating the NFL’s gambling policy by betting on several games during the 2022 season. The policy bans NFL players from;

• gambling at a team’s facility, including its hotel during road trips; 

• having others make bets for them; 

• entering a sportsbook facility; and 

• playing daily fantasy football.

This is the 10th player that the NFL has suspended for gambling this year. It’s good that the league is taking this seriously, as not having this policy in place could have an impact on the legitimacy and quality of the games. However, the fact that 10 people have violated the rules only halfway through 2023 is concerning.

The league provided educational material for the players, but as Broncos coach Sean Payton said, “If you’re a teacher and half your class gets a D, you better look at yourself. It’s not the policy, but it’s the implementation, the understanding, and the educating of the policy.”

The increase in regulated gaming markets in North America is fantastic for the gaming industry, but it comes with new rules and regulations which can be difficult to adapt to. All (Canadian) eyes will be on the Canadian Football League as it launches its Authorized Gaming Operator program and implements its Match Manipulation Policy.

Media

Advertising Meta-Morphosis

Due to evolving regulatory requirements across the EU, Meta has to change how it obtains consent for targeted advertising. Until now, users of Facebook, Instagram, and even Threads had essentially opted into targeted advertising when they signed up for the platform and agreed to the terms and conditions. This will no longer be the case. Now, users of the platforms must explicitly consent to have their data collected for targeted advertising.

While targeted advertising will still be a part of Meta’s business strategy, this will certainly lead to more people opting out of the practice. However, the company has released a statement claiming that this will have a minimal impact on their services, and advertisers will still be able to run personalized ads on their platforms. In a now-deleted blog post, Meta expects that it will be at least three months until any changes are rolled out.

This situation will continue to evolve over the coming months. For now, it remains unclear the impact this will have on targeted advertising as a practice, but it seems possible that the advertising landscape will be altered significantly if the change goes through.

Entertainment

X Marks the Spot

The whole world is watching the rebrand underway at Twitter/X headquarters. Unfortunately, the company did not have control of the @X username on the platform prior to committing to the rebrand.

Gene Hwang, who held the username since 2007 (and is currently the 322nd best pinball player in the world according to the IFPA), received an email from X: they were taking the name, and there was nothing he could do about it. To compensate Hwang for his loss, the company offered him X merch, a visit to X headquarters to meet the team, and the pick of any inactive or unclaimed username to replace his old one.

While this may appear to be a relatively insignificant issue, the hijacking of Hwang’s username is only one of many branding and intellectual property concerns that have been raised by the rebrand. For one, “X” is an extremely popular brand name in the tech sphere – over 100 tech and social media companies have trademarks involving the letter X. Furthermore, the new logo seems to be adapted from Unicode (an international nonprofit group that standardizes how letters and other characters appear on computers). In this case, X seems to have adapted a character called “Mathematical Double-Struck Capital X”. A spokesperson from Unicode has said that Elon Musk and X are free to do what they want with the character – just like everyone else. 

The simplicity of the new brand could pose some issues when it comes to trademarking the new branding. While it is possible to trademark a single-letter logo (companies like Pinterest have done so previously), doing so will make it very difficult to sue for infringement, or avoid lawsuits from the other companies that use X.

Hwang has stated that he likely won’t be visiting the X headquarters, but is hoping to receive some sort of alternative compensation, maybe even in the form of the old Twitter sign the company is in the process of taking down from the building.