EAST RUTHERFORD -- As NHL commissioner Gary Bettman settled in for an interview with BetChicago on Monday afternoon after announcing a landmark partnership with FanDuel, a man with slicked-back hair sidled up to the soon-to-be Hockey Hall of Famer and offered a hand. "This is the best commissioner in sports," he exalted. "Aw," Bettman said, "I bet you say that to all the commissioners," before breaking into a wide smile. This was Bettman's day, it seemed. But first, some history: On June 1, 1785, 18 months removed from the bloody affair that would result in the independence of the United States of America, U.S. ambassador to Great Britain – and future second president – John Adams had his first audience before King George III. Quaking in his boots at the mere sight of his great adversary, Adams’ fears were allayed when the king received him warmly. “I was the last to consent to the separation,” King George was said to have told Adams, according to Adams himself, “but the separation having been made and having become inevitable, I have always said, as I say now, that I would be the first to meet the friendship of the United States as an independent power.” And so it was on a rainy Monday morning at the Meadowlands Race Track in East Rutherford, New Jersey, that Bettman appeared the most ebullient man in the room while the league announced yet another partnership in the sports gaming industry, this time with FanDuel Sports, which also announced a partnership with the New Jersey Devils. This, just one week after announcing a [marketing and data-share agreement with MGM](https://www.betchicago.com/nhl-nba-sports-betting-mgm) and just seven weeks after the NHL announced a partnership in Las Vegas with sportsbook William Hill. In announcing a multi-year deal making FanDuel the exclusive official daily fantasy partner of the NHL, as well as an official sports betting partner of the league, Bettman came to a screeching halt before skating back in the opposite direction of the league’s anti-gambling stance. If it was an about-face, there was a smile on it. Bettman – joined by FanDuel CEO Matt King and COO Kip Levin, and Hugh Weber, President of Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment, which owns the Devils and Prudential Center, as well as the NBA's Philadelphia 76ers – beamed while talking about the new partnerships, which came about thanks to the [Supreme Court’s ruling in May](https://www.betchicago.com/welcome-to-betchicago) that overturned the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act of 1992. Despite protestations from Bettman and his fellow commissioners about the damage to the integrity of the game that legalized sports betting would cause, and despite the leagues' lawsuit in 2012 to halt sports betting in New Jersey, Bettman was ready to turn a new leaf on Monday. “My concerns were one, would it change environment at games themselves, and two, what would it do to the position of athletes as role models as opposed to devices for betting?” Bettman said to a semicircle of reporters. “Those concerns, whether or not they’re legitimate, they’re irrelevant once the Supreme Court ruled. I don’t need to get into a debate about the lawsuit, it’s ancient history.” This is a guy who once said, "By making sports gambling a widespread institution tied to the outcomes of NHL games, the very nature of the sport is likely to change for the worse." On Monday, Bettman explained his conversion in simple terms. “You can either put your head in the sand or you can embrace it,” he said. In an exclusive interview Monday with BetChicago, Bettman said major steps such as the one set in motion with FanDuel had been in the works for a long time, even before the Supreme Court ruling. “I’ll just say we anticipated the possibility,” Bettman said. “Despite the fact that PASPA had been affirmed multiple times, the fact that the Supreme Court granted the cert led us to believe this might happen. We’d been aware of and involved in the daily fantasy space, and we had a team in Las Vegas and a number of interactions with MGM. None of this was new to us. Internally, we had a pretty good sense of what may be appropriate if it happened. When the Supreme Court ruled, it was ‘OK, lets go to plan B.’” For those on the other side of the coin, those who had been fighting the leagues for years, trying to push toward nationwide sports betting legalization, this is no time to gloat. “We’re in the end of the first period, to use an NHL analogy, with this thing,” King told BetChicago. “It’s too early for anybody to feel vindicated about anything. This is just the evolution of sports. We got into the business to disrupt how people consume sports and to make that better. We want the ability to work with partners and create the flexibility to create innovation. Sports betting is a big innovation, but there are a lot out there.” That’s quite a modest approach from the prevailing side, but understandable given the new partnerships. If anything, it shows the sports betting business now has the leverage – perhaps even the upper hand – in the battle for sports fans’ eyeballs and dollars. As for Bettman, he is shucking the stodgy and ancient ways of the past, when sports gambling was viewed as taboo, even if fans desired it. “As you’re connecting with your fans, you have to give them what they want, how they want, when they want it,” said Bettman, sounding more like a Silicon Valley start-up CEO than the 25-year commissioner of one of the country's four major sports leagues. “Your characterization is that it’s a leap forward. That’s not how we function. You have to evolve. It’s the continuation of things. In this fast changing environment, whether it's tech or DFS or sports betting or how you get your games, whether there’s more data than ever before, it’s all part of staying vibrant and staying current.” Bettman repeatedly touched on the technological advances that helped make a day like Monday a reality. He pointed out that the league’s investment in data technology, such as the kind that will be shared with FanDuel and its DFS and betting users, began as broadcast enhancements. Those two things the commissioner touched on – the consumption of NHL games and the influx of data – are dear to King’s heart. “It’s not just a shift about sports betting, it’s an understanding by the leagues themselves that things need to change,” King said. “If you go back 18 months ago and talk to a big media exec or sports exec, they were all convinced that people need a big-screen TV and that’s the way they’re gonna consume sports. There’s been just as radical a shift in the recognition that’s changing, too.” For FanDuel, much like the leagues they’re partnering with, old battles are a thing of the past, and we’re in a brand-new day. “At its core, every constituent in the debate about sports betting wants to do the right thing for the fans,” King said. “They had vastly different ways of reflecting that, and vastly different views about what that is, but if you do go down to the base fundamentals, they want to do the right thing. No one is sitting here saying, 'I want to do something that’s bad for the fans'. Some are more conservative, some more aggressive, but in the case of sports betting, even just the (PAPSA) case being heard, it did make it real. What it triggered was a lot of constituents investigating globally on if this could be good for fans. That did accelerate the process of this. But it was never a nefarious, people sitting in a dark room, they don’t want to play ball, kind of thing. It came from a genuine place.” Bygones being bygones, King said that FanDuel was most interested in partnering with leagues that didn’t just want a cut of the multi-billion-dollar pie, but those willing to invest their time, energy and brainpower into it as well. “If we don’t have a partner willing to roll up their sleeves and think creatively about what can we do together to do right by the fans, then that’s not the partner for us,” King said. “The reason we did the NHL deal wasn’t because I wanted to promote brand awareness, it’s because I found a partner who was in for it. They said here’s a list of 85 things that we can try that will be cool for the fan. A bunch isn’t going to work, but some does, and that’s great.” Bettman, like King, stressed that Monday’s announcement was not the culmination of anything, but the beginning of a new sports landscape. “I’ve said to the owners of NHL clubs, it’s going to take three-to-five years for this to sort itself out,” Bettman said. “But as we form these partnerships, dealing with people in this industry, we think it gives us a seat at the table.”