It took decades for ESPN, majority-owned by the Walt Disney Company, to become the worldwide leader in sports. Now it will try its hand at becoming the worldwide leader in sports betting.
ESPN shook the ground of the sports-betting landscape by announcing a partnership with established United States gaming operation Penn Entertainment to rebrand its Barstool Sportsbook as ESPN Bet starting in the fall of 2023.
ESPN Bet will take over Barstool Sportsbook’s sports-betting licenses – the sportsbook has operated in 16 states since 2020 – after Penn agreed to a $2 billion deal to license ESPN’s name for its online sportsbook. ESPN will receive a reported $1.5 billion plus $500 million in potential stock warrants over the next 10 years.
“We think this is an opportunity to really appeal to the masses,” Penn president and CEO Jay Snowden said on an earnings call, taking a not-so-veiled shot at Barstool, which has a history of controversy due to toxic and misogynistic comments made by staff and its ultra-loyal fans known as “Stoolies.”
Penn also reportedly ceded its ownership stake in Barstool Sports, which it paid a reported $388 million for in February, back to founder Dave Portnoy for a mere $1 as part of the deal.
ESPN U-Turn
ESPN’s decision to dive into the sports-betting world is an abrupt about-face from how it has previously addressed sports betting, even though it has committed to gambling on its airways previously. Disney CEO Bob Iger flat-out announced that the company would not participate in promoting gambling as recently as 2019.
“I don’t see The Walt Disney Company, certainly in the near term, getting involved in the business of gambling, in effect by facilitating gambling in any way,” Iger said on an earnings call that year.
Yet, here is ESPN Bet, ironically about to take operation after Iger’s second term as CEO – he retired in 2021 yet retook the reins as chief executive late last year.
The brand will also try to capitalize on its lofty status in the sports media space even though the terrain is uncertain in both the media and sports betting spaces. DraftKings and FanDuel have controlled the market shares in North America, yet ESPN is betting on its brand and highly visible programming to eat into that.
“This is really just the next step in the process for us,” Mike Morrison, ESPN vice president for sports betting and fantasy said. “We feel there is enough national attention and interest.”
It appears as though this foray into the gambling gold rush is ESPN’s latest effort to diversify, after stop-start attempts into another growing market, televised esports.
Gambling Far From a Sure Bet
Still, the sports-betting space is fraught with uncertainty. Rival FOX, which had partnered with Flutter Entertainment to create its own FOX Bet sportsbook, announced its decision to shutter the operation earlier this year, and Barstool also exited the sports-betting space after three uneven years of operation – which is why Penn ate the nearly $500 million in losses to rebrand.
Yet, accruing capital, from ESPN’s standpoint, is integral, with the ongoing uncertainty littering linear broadcast. ESPN has yet to recoup much of its lost revenue from cord-cutters, even though its streaming service, ESPN+, has surpassed 20 million subscribers.
Even though there are still logistics to hammer out – like whether its on-air talent can wager with the app or how to square ESPN’s journalistic reputation with it becoming a gaming house – the company feels operating a sportsbook is the continuation of its mission to give sports fans the best possible service available, especially for the next generation
“Basically our sports fans that are under [age] 30 absolutely require this type of utility in the overall portfolio of what ESPN offers,” former ESPN CEO Bob Chapek said last year.