ESPN Bet Heads for US Sportsbook Cemetery as Penn Pulls Plug 

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RIP, ESPN Bet

The US legal sports betting market has delivered yet another high-profile casualty in the form of ESPN Bet, the much-vaunted 2023 venture between the country’s leading sports brand and Penn Entertainment.

contractual right to opt-out 

In a Thursday press release, Penn declared it had exercised its contractual right to opt out of the ESPN Bet deal early. 

As ESPN Bet was a white label job on Penn’s existing digital sports betting technology, termination of the deal gives Penn the opportunity to rebrand itself back to its Canadian-born identity, theScore Bet, and consign ESPN Bet to history, effective December 1, which the brand shared on X:

The news makes public the failure of ESPN Bet to prise out a significant US market share, with shareholders dissatisfied by its inability to mount a serious challenge to FanDuel and DraftKings. 

As a parting note, Penn CEO Jay Snowden said when his firm first agreed the $1.5bn deal with ESPN, both sides “made it clear that we expected to compete for a podium position.”

Instead, ESPN Bet’s market share prior to the news was estimated at under 3%, placing it well behind the leaders in seventh. 

An amicable break up

Snowden said that while Penn and ESPN made significant headway in upgrading the ESPN Bet product, “we have mutually and amicably agreed to wind down our collaboration.”

The news, for now at least, lays Disney’s wildly polarizing sports betting gamble to rest. For Penn, it represents its second major failure to make an impact on sports betting, after its ill-matched partnership with Dave Portnoy’s Barstool Sports that began back in January 2020, with Penn buying a 36% stake. 

No surprise, then, that Penn’s digital rebound plan is instead aimed at championing its iCasino business. Snowden said that Penn’s recalibrated focus on growing online casino would also continue to “capitalise on our omnichannel advantage as the nation’s leading regional retail casino operator.”

Snowden added that Penn’s Hollywood-branded iCasino brand will remain integrated into its sports betting product offering in legal online casino states.

What next for theScore?

While not much mention was made of the projected solo fortunes for theScore, Penn will simply white label all of its 19 ESPN Bet-licensed states starting December 1. This means its rebranded platform will also launch the same day Missouri’s regulated market debuts, giving Penn a 20-state sports betting footprint.   

a “seamless” brand swap

As Penn, not ESPN Bet, is the operating legal entity licensed in the above states that include Illinois and Pennsylvania, a “seamless” brand swap awaits ESPN Bet’s nearly 3 million users, thanks to user accounts, wallets, and underlying tech powered by Penn’s proprietary platform.

While Penn is concentrating on iCasino, ESPN’s rebound plans are a bit hazy. ESPN Chairman Jimmy Pitaro spoke fondly in the press release of the former partnership which, he said, “created a truly unique offering” and brought Penn over 2.9 million new users “with a strong uptick in first time bettors this fall.” 

Pitaro said ESPN appreciated the Penn collaboration and was “now pursuing other media and marketing opportunities within this space.”

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