As PENN Entertainment approaches its first earnings call since the launch of ESPN BET, the founding family behind theScore announced their departure from PENN Interactive on Wednesday.
The announcement comes roughly 28 months after PENN completed the acquisition of theScore, a Canadian digital media company, in a $2.1 billion cash-and-stock deal. John Levy, founder and executive chairman of theScore, will be leaving the division in mid-February, while Benjie Levy, head of PENN Interactive, plans to depart in April. Two other family members, Noah and Aubrey, will be stepping down from their positions alongside Benjie.
On the same month that Score and Media Gaming announced its proposed merger with PENN, theScore launched its own promotional and player account management (PAM) trading engine. By November 2022, theScore moved to a proprietary tech platform, one sophisticated enough to allow bettors to combine wagers from separate Same Game Parlays (SGP). The Levy family and the tech team at theScore played an integral role with Penn's migration from Barstool Sportsbook to the in-house tech stack.
Last November, PENN completed the launch of ESPN BET, in a deal that essentially replaced Barstool with ESPN as the face of the company’s sports betting brand. The transition plan comes at a natural inflection point for the company, according to PENN Entertainment CEO Jay Snowden, after it completed the migration to the in-house platform.