PENN VP: March Madness an Ideal Time to Push ESPN BET Model

Posted on: April 7, 2025, 04:15h. 

Last updated on: April 8, 2025, 06:53h.

Mark Keast Read More

Expertise: Canadian Gaming, iGaming, Las Vegas, Sports Betting, NFL, Boxing, UFC.

• ESPN BET has been struggling to gain traction in U.S. market
• PENN’s theScore BET well established in regulated Ontario market
• ESPN BET looks to emulate theScore BET model

Negative business news and analyst takes on the future of ESPN Bet and theScore Bet in Canada aside, it’s business as usual, according to Jason Birney, Vice President, Operations, at PENN Interactive, and “tent-pole” events like March Madness will only help as they work to draw more bettors onto their platform.

National Championship Tonight

Tonight, Florida and Houston, both No. 1 seeds, face off in the March Madness men’s college basketball finale (8:50 p.m. EST on CBS).

For Birney, it’s a good opportunity to assess where the ESPN BET platform is, with all the betting interest around NCAA basketball.

[March Madness] is a huge opportunity to attract and retain customers ahead of the NBA and NHL playoffs,” said Birney. “It has also provided us a chance to showcase our recent improvements – account linking, livestreaming and expanded wagering options – which have made ESPN BET a much more dynamic product. Through these enhancements, we’re able to better connect with and more deeply engage bettors.

“We’re also looking at this tournament, and our recent enhancements, as a springboard into the NBA and NHL playoff season, which presents a great opportunity with ESPN as the lead programming partner.”

Leveraging a Unique Formula

It’s interesting to watch, as ESPN BET looks to gain more traction across the U.S. sports betting landscape, chipping away at behemoths like DraftKings and FanDuel, in part by emulating theScore Bet model in Ontario. Recent news reports have them floundering with a 2-3% share of the U.S. sports betting market. PENN can opt out of its ten-year deal with ESPN Bet after Year 3, in 2026.

And according to H2 Gambling Capital – the global specialist gambling sector market data provider – ESPN BET is currently the fifth largest sports betting operator in the U.S. with a 2.6% market share.

Those north of the border remember when theScore was a sports broadcasting property, before transitioning to a sports betting and digital casino platform. PENN acquired theScore BET from the Levy family in Canada in October 2021.

ESPN BET Launched in 2023

ESPN BET of course has a similar model – tied to a content rich sports cable channel founded in 1979, now a powerhouse brand and multipurpose platform in tens of millions of U.S. households.

The ESPN BET app and website, formerly Barstool Sportsbook, launched in November 2023, is now available in 19 states as well as Washington D.C.

Like theScore BET in Canada, PENN leveraged an established sports content platform and built a sports betting platform out of it, with their own proprietary in-house technology, where the other major sportsbook operators go in the other direction – creating their own content platform from the betting lines of the sportsbook.

App Re-Design 

Advantage or not, only time will tell. But Birney sees events like March Madness as an opportunity to really dial up their formula.

“Rather than swipe back and forth between apps to get news and information, then look at lines and place wagers, we want to offer our users the ability to see odds and available wagers within the news and content they’re already visiting before easily transitioning over to place the wager in ESPN BET,” Birney said.

“Between ESPN’s linear programming, media app, fantasy products and massive social following, there’s a myriad of daily touchpoints to reach the recreational bettor, who at the end of the day is a sports fan looking to heighten their entertainment through wagering. 

Revenue Jump in Ontario

Since we launched, ESPN BET continues to be more and more integrated into ESPN’s content and products, allowing us to authentically engage with the most passionate sports fans. our proprietary sports betting technology platform is built with custom features that allow us to integrate with media products. The same features that allow cross-platform integrations between theScore and theScore Bet are being deployed across the ESPN media app and ESPN BET.”

It’s hard to argue the success in Ontario, a market with 49 licensed operators that generated CAD$7.1 billion (CAD$280 million revenue) in total cash wagers in February, according to iGaming Ontario data.

Sluggish ESPN Bet Results 

And according to H2 Gambling Capital, theScore BET is estimated to have a 5% market share in Ontario in 2024, making them the 8^th biggest operator in the province.

According to PENN Entertainment Q4 financial results (ended Dec. 31, 2024), theScore BET saw “record monthly NGR” in January (22% year over year growth in revenues FY24 versus FY23).

Birney said they’ve worked hard to enhance the product offering at ESPN BET, making promos more player friendly, with instant withdrawal methods, and streamlining the app experience via redesign.

Last fall they introduced account linking between ESPN and ESPN Bet accounts, key to unlocking additional personalization capabilities that curate the player experience for a user based on their preferences and interests, he added.

“Account linking allows us to serve fans markets for their favorite teams, or fantasy rosters,” Birney said. 

The teams at PENN and ESPN have worked to make ESPN Bet omnipresent across programs like Get Up, First Take, and the Tournament Challenge Marathon, and there’s been betting analysts across SportsCenter and other shows to discuss tournament betting, as well as integrating ESPN Bet into the Bracket Challenge. 

NHL and NBA Playoff Fast Approaching

Birney pointed to a variety of special markets from ESPN talent and special promotions such as the “March to 2 Million Challenge” and the Early Victory promotion, which pays out moneyline wagers in-game whenever a team goes up by 17 or more points.

Will all of this do enough to quell the chatter about PENN divesting itself of the ESPN BET sportsbook, with PENN stock hitting a 52-week low of USD$13.49 three days ago? Who knows. 

But with the NBA and NHL playoffs coming up fast, we’ll soon have a clearer picture as to the viability of the path they are on.