ESPN BET went live on Tuesday, and PENN Entertainment, which partnered with ESPN to launch the branded sportsbook in the U.S., has goals of trying to replicate some of the success PENN has seen north of the border in Canada.
PENN in 2021 acquired Canadian sports media outlet theScore and has found a way to develop an app that utilizes content from theScore and gives bettors a place to wager. The company’s approach to connecting with its customer base in Canada is something PENN CEO Jay Snowden said they want to see happen domestically in the U.S.
“We don’t see any of the competitors in Ontario, or in the U.S., that have really focused on this deep integration between sports media and sports betting,” he said. “I think we’ve got it to a point in Ontario where it’s pretty frictionless. You don’t know when you’re in theScore media app and you’re populating a bet slip … and we envision getting there very quickly here in the U.S. with ESPN.”
Snowden wants ESPN BET to occupy as much as 20% of the U.S. betting market share. And while he understands that PENN is only licensing the ESPN brand for this U.S. sportsbook, there are elements that translate from the success of theScore as ESPN BET gets on its feet.
“What’s really different for us is this deep integration behind the No. 1 sports media brand in the world and those sports who like to bet and want to bet, and the trust factor to do this seamlessly is something we take very seriously,” Snowden said.
