ESPN and Penn See Possibilities to Maximize Expansion by Launching Full Connectivity for Football Season

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Penn plans to roll out more features that will remind the ESPN app’s 28 million monthly users to head to ESPN Bet in time for football season.

In the six months since ESPN Bet relaunched in 17 states, Penn has noticed that usage of the app doubled to roughly 700,000 monthly active users and ranked third in weekly assets, FanDuel and DraftKings, according to app analytics firm Sensor Data. From February 19 to April 22, ESPN Bet’s percentage of weekly active sports betting users remained solid at 17% to 18%, well ahead of an unnamed sports betting site that ranked fourth (likely BetMGM or Caesars), which ranged from 11% to 12%.

But its share of the U. S. market is less than a third. In February, the most recent month reported across the 14 states that hold bets on individual sites, ESPN Bet accounted for 4% of the total, Caesars in fourth place across two editions and second-placed DraftKings, up to 31. March reports formaient. de the same way.

ESPN Bet, long expected to be the rare, if not the first, disruptor in a sports betting fight in the United States that unfolded like Groundhog Day in state after state, ESPN Bet began to analyze the role entirely.

Open just 17 days and part of November weekends, ESPN Bet more than doubled Barstool’s combined amount in 10 traceable states, raking in $464. 6 million in bets. The immediate expansion continued in December, with ESPN Bet earning a combined percentage of 8%. in those 10 states, nearly triple the 3% Barstool had in October.

It is vital to note that ESPN Bet climbed to 3rd place, FanDuel and DraftKings, in five states: Illinois, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Massachusetts, and Maryland. It ranked fourth in Michigan, Kansas and Iowa, and 5th in Arizona and Indiana.

But when the schedule shifted to January, ESPN Bet began a steady decline. Some of this was inevitable, a product of the kind of inflated attention seen when bookmakers praise new sign-ups with betting credits that count as a few. In Ohio and Maryland, the only two states to report promotional expenses, ESPN claimed $29 million and $13 million in cancellations. Over time, some samples stay, but many leave. There’s also seasonal inactivity as football and then basketball disappear from the menu. .

North Carolina threw out the first pitch in a state where ESPN bet on the starting line along with its competitors. During Penn’s latest earnings call, CEO Jay Snowden said the bookmaker earned a “mid-to-upper single-digit share” in the state, an indication that resembles its predecessors.

In a forecast Penn presented to investors when the deal was announced with ESPN in August, Snowden laid out scenarios in which the deal would produce adequate returns on investment, based on achieving a market share of 10% to 20% through 2027. After flirting with the declining end of that range, he said he remains confident in that assessment.

“2027 is the component that, in one way or another, is overlooked,” Snowden told Quail Hollow shortly before McIlroy’s decomponentization. “We never said it was month 1.

“A lot of teams need to vindicate their good luck or their failure after six months. I think it’s crazy.

The executive who oversees ESPN’s betting and fantasy first ventured into sports betting while leading the network’s business development, researching at betting meetings where ESPN might have compatibility as a legal bet.

Six years later, Mike Morrison says he’s less impressed by the recent stock drop than by the achievements of the first six months. In a recent survey, those familiar with ESPN Bet are 10% more likely at most to respond favorably to the broader ESPN brand, while those who show affinity for ESPN Bet are 20% more likely to rate ESPN favorably at most. Unsurprisingly, it’s punters who react most favorably.

“I think what’s amazing here is how temporarily we’ve scaled, how many downloads we’ve seen, how much activity there’s been on the app,” said Morrison, vice president of ESPN Bet and ESPN Fantasy. “We’ve already had a significant impact on the market. We created a new logo almost overnight. We’ve developed market-leading creatives with ESPN’s iconic talent. We’ve only just begun to expand what will be a market-leading experience from one product. and generational attitude on both platforms.

“I like our hand here. “

“Both sides have a shared vision for ESPN Bet’s true long-term pricing proposition, which is the convergence that is taking place between sports media content and sports betting,” Snowden said. “We can offer a differentiated experience. We will remove the friction between sports content intake and sports betting. And all of this comes from those integrations.

Although Penn and ESPN moved mountains in some ways, the rush to get out in time to capitalize on the most-watched (and highest-stakes) game on the network’s airwaves left it short on a few key fronts.

Despite being solid and withstanding the weight of big-stakes events like the Super Bowl, the school football playoffs, and March Madness, ESPN Bet lacked the parlay-centric features that made its competition popular and profitable. In a study this month, ESPN betting users who place the most of their bets said that the increased parlay features attracted them to other sites.

ESPN Bet allows for almost the same parlay setups as FanDuel or DraftKings and with similar odds, but it offers few pre-packaged parlays (recommended combinations in an app, around popular players or themes) and has none on the home screen. the case until the start of the football season, Snowden said.

“We know we have work to do to deliver parlay and parlay in the same game,” Snowden said. “These are the main objectives. We just want to close those holes and get closer to parity in the spaces that matter, where 90% of betting activity takes place. We want to close the hole and get closer to parity within the first week. And there we go.

Those who want this option will need to sign up through a new “Bet Mode” feature that Penn has tracked from Score Bet, which operates in Canada. This subscription technique has helped ESPN executives put more emphasis on integrating odds.

“There’s a real appreciation among our executives and key executives for the content, product, programming and marketing that Penn understood, and they understood that this was a wonderful way to approach this from an ESPN standpoint: the right way to serve sports fans,” Morrison said. he says. ” We are very proud of this capability. . . in what we’re starting to do with cross-platform connectivity. “

Full connectivity envisioned through ESPN and Penn from the start is planned for later this year, when users will be able to link their sports betting accounts to their ESPN accounts.

“You can believe how much more personalized we can be in everything we provide to an ESPN Media/ESPN Bet shared account user,” Snowden said. “And that applies to fantasy and your fantasy list as well. When you set up your lineup each week, we’ll be able to offer you a player accessory that shows how many touchdowns Pat Mahomes is going to throw because he’s their starting quarterback.

“When you link those accounts, that’s when the true strength of that relationship will be unleashed. “

Truth be told, at this point, catching FanDuel or DraftKings turns out to be a possibility for any competitor. ESPN Bet will likely start the upcoming football season in more than 30 numbers between the two. But Snowden failed to get started. That trail was based on calculations that required Penn to be the leader. And the two competitors that have achieved this like Penn, from the land-based casino sector, will also start the season in the single digits.

“I think over time (call it 15, 18, 24 months) the products for the major players will be broadly comparable,” Snowden said. “Someone might have something. There will be a new debate in the same game. But we. ” We’ll all have it 3 months later. The product will reach parity over time.

“At this point, what’s going to make the difference is what’s unique. What is the price proposition? That’s why we made this deal with ESPN. Because no one else will be able to stand the friction of eating sports, reading sports stories, and checking scores when betting on sports. Play fantasy and then bet on sports. No one will be able to do it like ESPN Bet, because of the appointments we have with ESPN.

https://www. sportsbusinessjournal. com/Articles/2024/05/20/betting

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