Top stories around our network this week
As ESPN viewers, non-PENN Entertainment sportsbook operators, other industry stakeholders, and wide-ranging sports bettors from your office mates to your Uncle Jake await the start of ESPN BET, there remains plenty to discuss about how the new platform will operate and perform.
PENN is in the process of rebranding its Barstool Sportsbook – an underwhelming performer in the online sports betting space – to ESPN BET under its expensive new partnership with ESPN. The joint PENN-ESPN hope is that the site will serve as a much more competitive challenger to the likes of FanDuel, DraftKings, and BetMGM after a relaunch in November.
While there are skeptics of just how successful those aspirations will be, heard a much more optimistic note from a leading venture capitalist, Wayne Kimmel of SeventySix Capital. He believes “ESPN has an amazing opportunity to do something incredibly special” through its ability to integrate its widely watched programming with the ever-escalating interest in sports betting.
One outspoken bettor is own slyly astute Jeff Edelstein, who developed a seven-point action list outlining the steps those running ESPN BET can take to assure its popularity with the betting public. This came in the same week that the pending platform’s minty new logo was unveiled.
In Massachusetts, regulators don’t appear all that interested in the logo, for now. The state’s gaming commissioners instead seemed a bit miffed this week that PENN has been short on providing relevant information about the changeover from its relationship with Barstool Sports to one with ESPN, and what that will mean about public (and potentially irresponsible) discussion of sports betting. They’ll be talking more about that at upcoming meetings, in light of licensing requirements.
will be closely following all of the ESPN BET developments in coming weeks, as part of our broad coverage of the entire industry, as shown by the linked stories below. And for additional gaming industry news, be sure to check out , including its weekly Double Down column and podcast.
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