ESPN Expands Influence with New Branded Sports Books

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Transcript

00:002024 marked the year ESPN Bet took over their own sports betting entity and looking to make a big

00:07impact, I know, in 2025. And so, therefore, part of their process, Pat, has been opening up a lot

00:12of these in-person sports books. And we just got word that several will be opening up across the

00:17country. What do you make of this news? Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, over on the LSR

00:22podcast that we do every week, we talk a lot about kind of the race for third, and ESPN is a pretty

00:28distant second-tier operator. And so, they definitely have a lot of room to make up and

00:34gain ground, and they certainly need to. I think a lot of what they've talked about in the last

00:39couple earnings reports of, you know, fully syncing with the ESPN app and the retention

00:44they have with customers they get from ESPN is actually pretty promising in the long run. Yeah,

00:52last week they announced they're opening 10 new ESPN-branded sports books at casinos across the

00:57country. That's Penn Entertainment. That brings their total up to 19. They're also in 19 states

01:02mobily. And I don't think that's a, you know, it is a brand. It's fun to go to an in-person sports

01:07book if you're a fan of a brand. But I don't know that that will move a needle much in terms of

01:12market share because, you know, I think as we've seen over looking over stats and everything,

01:18it's about 95 percent generally of wagers are made online. So, you know, it's not going to

01:23move the needle a huge amount, but it is fun to see branding up and customers going into a casino

01:29and saying, hey, maybe I should bet at ESPN bet versus, you know, DraftKings if they're at, you

01:34know, whatever casino they're at. So, you know, it is a move. It doesn't move the needle much.

01:40We'll see. But ESPN is certainly trying to make some ground up on, you know, a couple of the

01:46leaders in that second tier, maybe Fanatics, BetMGM, Caesars, the likes.