Penn Entertainment’s ESPN BET celebrated its one-year anniversary after launching in 17 states on November 14, 2023. The sports betting app has come a long way since then but is still trying to gain significant market share to challenge the industry leaders.
A Brief History
Penn Entertainment, under the helmsmanship of CEO Jay Snowden, took an enormous gamble when they tore down their half-a-billion-dollar investment in Barstool Sports to make way for a $1.5 billion expenditure over 10 years in the form of an agreement with ESPN to create ESPN BET.
The deal with the sports media giant stipulated Penn Entertainment had to divest themselves of the controversial bro-culture Barstool Sports brand, including the newly created Barstool Sportsbook, in order to complete the agreement. It was a bitter pill to swallow considering the deal with Barstool was only fully consummated in March 2023, only five months before negotiations began heating up with ESPN.
Ultimately, Penn agreed to sell Barstool Sports, minus the sportsbook, which was shuttered when ESPN BET went live, to its founder, Dave Portnoy, for the princely sum of $1 and an important caveat. The stipulation was that should Portnoy sell Barstool Sports in the future, Penn would be entitled to 50% of the sale price. Portnoy has vowed never to sell.
Integration Is Essential
Penn Entertainment has essentially taken out a long-term lease on four letters of the alphabet, ESPN, that costs them $150 million per year over the next 10 years. Despite that reductive perspective, the deal only begins to make sense for Penn once their new sports betting app, ESPN BET, integrates seamlessly with ESPN on multiple levels.
That essential integration was announced earlier this month, nearly one year from its launch date, and it is an invaluable tool that currently allows ESPN BET accounts to be linked directly to Disney ESPN accounts through ESPN BET’s settings tab as well as other offerings on the app. Moreover, the standalone ESPN app and ESPN.com also provide access to linking with ESPN BET.
“Bringing this new feature to market is an important step as we work to create a fully interconnected media and betting ecosystem between ESPN and ESPN BET,” said Aaron LaBerge, chief technology officer at Penn Entertainment. “Account linking allows us to better serve and engage our users by unlocking key personalization and promotional capabilities. This feature is just the beginning of deeper integrations that will further differentiate the ESPN BET experience.”
Mike Morrison, vice president of ESPN BET and ESPN Fantasy, added, “We’ve already seen significant uptake where you’re able to link your ESPN account, and that will deliver the payoff of that as you see your bets appearing on the home screen of the ESPN app. It is essential in taking the friction out, making it seamless and intuitive for the user from the very first time they use the app, and really enables us to deliver on personalization.
“Ultimately, we’re going to be able to serve you bets that are either things you typically bet on, types of teams you bet on, players, or sports you like.”
