Disney is bouncing out of its gambling partnership with Penn Entertainment, the operator behind the crummy ESPN Bet sportsbook platform. The unholy partnership, forged in 2023 between the wheezing multinational entertainment conglomerate and the trumped-up regional racetrack operation, was intended to run through at least 2033, and involved Penn Entertainment agreeing to pay Disney $2 billion in cash and stock warrants. The mismatched partners hoped to develop ESPN Bet into a digital gambling powerhouse, but the framework of the deal reflected the long odds of that ambition, allowing either side to terminate the agreement after the third year, pegged to performance against specific benchmarks. ESPN Bet didn't even make it that far: The partnership, per a joint press release distributed Thursday morning, will close on Dec. 1, shy of 28 months after it was first announced.
That wasn't Disney's only gambling-related press release of the day. About one hour after announcing the breakup with Penn Entertainment, ESPN announced a new "multi-year agreement" with DraftKings, the less competent of the two behemoths astride the exploding North American digital gambling industry. Per this second release, on the same day that Disney officially shuts down its ESPN Bet sportsbook, DraftKings will become "the exclusive Official Sportsbook and Odds Provider of ESPN," with deals to push the DraftKings sportsbook and spread of offerings into the faces of ESPN's viewers, users of ESPN's App, and subscribers to ESPN's confusing direct-to-consumer streaming product, ESPN Unlimited.
All corporate PR-speak is yucky, and the language used by U.S. gambling concerns, always angling away from any acknowledgment that their business exists to exploit, is particularly nauseating. Calibrate that a few ticks further, for the plucky falsetto of an anthropomorphized mouse, and you have a very potent emetic. "As an innovative leader in digital sports entertainment," says DraftKings CEO Jason Robins, in the Disney release, "DraftKings is uniquely positioned to integrate our technology and products with ESPN’s iconic brand and storytelling power. Together, we’re delivering a seamless, engaging, and responsible experience that elevates how fans connect with live sports." That is a suitably warped and Mickey-coded way of saying that Robins hopes the visibility boost, for which DraftKings is presumably paying some ungodly sum, will feed into his company's pitiless maw an increased share of another several generations of fresh-faced problem gamblers.
ESPN long ago tossed out any pretense of uneasiness over the fitting together of sports journalism with sports gambling. Its shows and personalities make only insulting, token efforts to grapple with the obvious conflicts; lately a handful of its most prominent workers have been shilling online for a hilariously sketchy gambling app, fronted by Stephen A. Smith, and operated by a digital gaming company that was recently popped and sued for tricking users over a four-year period into playing real-money contests against bots disguised as fellow humans. There is no point anymore in looking to ESPN for integrity on this (or really any other) matter. By nuking ESPN Bet, ESPN is getting out of the sportsbook business, sure, but only technically: Instead of having its name affixed to a betting app run by a third-party gambling outfit, it will now return to splashing the logo of a third-party-branded betting app into every possible advertising space and programming window it can offer.
That space has expanded in the time since Disney joined the Penn Entertainment partnership. To help along ESPN Bet, the app, ESPN launched ESPN Bet Live, the show, and that is going nowhere. The syllables of "ESPN Bet," in reference to the show and the app, have become an inescapable constant on ESPN programming; the company even used the app as a standalone sponsor, slapping "presented by ESPN Bet" on NFL Live, First Take, and Monday Night Countdown, and clunkily rebranded a NASCAR Cup Series race "The Hollywood Casino 400 presented by ESPN BET." Though I hate them with the intensity of a supernova, those are now valuable syllables, at least for the new corporate partner. Per the deal with DraftKings, ESPN Bet will now "shift to a sports betting content brand with DraftKings Sportsbook integrations," and will be anchored by ESPN Bet Live. ESPN chairman Jimmy Pitaro, per the release, says that the deal with DraftKings will allow ESPN to continue to "super-serve passionate sports fans," which is a particularly jazz-handed way of not saying that they're expecting growth in the portion of their balance sheet that tracks income from misspent tuition funds.
As for Penn Entertainment, you almost have to admire their persistent determination to operate a national sportsbook; you could call it gumption if it were particularly shrewd, or showed even the faintest sign of meaningful success. The operator's first leap at big-time prominence, the $500 million purchase of Barstool Sports, was such a monumental flop that Penn Entertainment returned the media company to its previous owner for the discount price of one dollar. This deal with ESPN was both much more aggressive and up to four times as expensive, and it too has now bombed.
But Penn Entertainment simply will not retreat: "We plan to realign our digital focus on our growing iCasino business," says Penn CEO Jay Snowden, "while continuing to capitalize on our omnichannel advantage as the nation’s leading regional retail casino operator." Snowden says Penn will rebrand its online sports betting product as "theScore Bet" and will launch that new identity on the date of its formal divorce from ESPN. Apparently Penn Entertainment has been operating theScore Bet in Ontario for a while, and Snowden figures that his company will be able to "leverage" the approximately four million monthly users of the theScore media app, which just feels very sweetly insane when you consider that they are breaking up with a company that is to theScore what Godzilla is to a security guard waving a nightstick. To be perfectly frank, before this morning's sudden news releases I'm pretty sure I had forgotten theScore even exists.
Gambling is one of, like, two total industries in the western world that are thriving and have the tailwind of broad public support. Both of these industries happen to be scams, but the point is Penn Entertainment, a company whose entire business is wagering, has all the incentive in the world to stay in the game for as long as it can. Lord knows there are suckers out there, and some of them might even have a few bucks left in their pockets. It's nasty, desperate stuff. ESPN had a chance to get out of this business altogether with the failure of ESPN Bet; instead they waited not even a day to make clear that they intend to keep suckling from this teat. It's the business they're in, they've rebuilt themselves for it, and there may simply be no turning back.
