ESPN strikes $1.5B deal to leap into sports betting with Penn Entertainment

You know ESPN the sports media big. Now brace your self for ESPN Bet, a rebranding of an present sports-betting app owned by Penn Entertainment, which is paying $1.5 billion plus different issues for unique rights to the ESPN title.

The deal, introduced Tuesday, may take Walt Disney Co.-owned ESPN into uncharted waters. Disney is fiercely protecting of its family-friendly picture, not usually related to the world of sports playing.

Penn will function ESPN Bet, which ESPN has agreed to advertise throughout its on-line and broadcast platforms to be able to generate “maximum fan awareness” of the app. ESPN Bet will even have unspecified “access” to ESPN expertise, the businesses mentioned.

Penn’s rights to the ESPN model will initially run for a decade and may be prolonged for an additional decade by mutual settlement. In addition to the $1.5 billion licensing deal, which can be paid out over a decade, Penn will even grant ESPN rights price about $500 million to buy shares in Penn.

“Penn Entertainment is the perfect partner to build an unmatched user experience for sports betting with ESPN Bet,” ESPN chairman Jimmy Pitaro mentioned in an announcement.

Disney has wrestled with the problem of adult-oriented leisure previously. Until about 15 years in the past, its Walt Disney World park in Orlando, Florida, featured a gated late-night space generally known as Pleasure Island – really a reference to the 1940 movie “Pinocchio,” whose characters visited a den of iniquity by that title. Pleasure Island featured bars, music venues and nightclubs along with eating places, purchasing and a nightly countdown to “New Year’s Eve” full with fireworks.

When attendance waned, Disney closed down the Pleasure Island nightclubs in 2008 and redeveloped the location as a restaurant and purchasing district now generally known as The Landing at Disney Springs.

ESPN added that it’ll use its platforms “to educate sports fans on responsible gaming” – as an example by persevering with to cowl the sports betting trade with “journalistic integrity,” making a “responsible gaming” committee inside the firm and growing advertising tips that “safeguard” followers.

Penn additionally introduced that it offered Barstool Sports, an irreverent sports media website, again to its founder Dave Portnoy. Penn took a 36% stake of Barstool Sports in February 2020 for about $163 million and subsequently acquired the rest of the corporate for about $388 million in February 2023. Neither Penn nor Portnoy disclosed phrases of the divestment deal.