Word emerged over the weekend that Bob Iger was returning to the Walt Disney Company, raising plenty of questions about the massive media company's long-anticipated embrace of sports betting. So far, it has prompted nothing but speculation from the industry, much of it probably unfounded.
It's way too early to think this means Disney, which has majority ownership of ESPN, will no longer dive headlong into an embrace of sports betting. That certainly would go against the grain of the American sports landscape at the moment.
The outgoing Disney CEO, Bob Chapek — who either left voluntarily, as the company claims, or was forced out, as the reported — had signaled that the company was in talks with several sports betting operators as it looked to gain a stronger position in the field. Some people are speculating that the management shakeup could signal a change in direction, since the 71-year-old Iger made comments in a 2019 Disney earnings call that the company wasn't too keen on rushing toward regulated sports betting partnerships. Iger was at Disney from 2005 to 2020.
“I don't see The Walt Disney Company, certainly in the near term, getting involved in the business of gambling, in effect, by facilitating gambling in any way,” Iger had said. “I do think that there's plenty of room, and ESPN has done some of this already and they may do more to provide information in coverage of sports, as a for instance, that would be relevant to and of particular interest to gambling and not be shy about it, basically being fairly overt about it. But getting into the business of gambling, I rather doubt it.”