ESPN Bet Set to Launch in New York Amid NFL Season

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00:00Yesterday, we found out the news we saw on social media.

00:06I saw and I know that you guys wrote about this illegal sports report ESPN bet is headed

00:10to New York.

00:11So Sam, thanks for coming on the show once again.

00:13Tell us more.

00:14Yeah, absolutely.

00:15Craig, always a pleasure.

00:17So yesterday, ESPN bet was approved to launch in New York, which is going to happen within

00:23the coming days, according to executive vice president Chris Rogers of Penn, who testified

00:29before the New York State Gaming Commission yesterday.

00:31Essentially, the Gaming Commission had to approve a transfer of license that wind that

00:37has and has had since 2022 when the state launched to Penn and to ESPN bet in order

00:43to get everything squared away.

00:44They bought this license back in February and had been pretty vocal about wanting to

00:49launch in New York before football season started.

00:52Obviously, we are now in the middle of football season.

00:55They've missed about the first four weeks of NFL.

00:59They might soft launch before this weekend, according to Rogers.

01:02So that would mean it would probably end up missing most of week four as well if they're

01:06not fully launched by then.

01:09Pretty interesting that they say they still have to check a couple of boxes before they

01:13launch because about a month ago when CEO Jay Snowden was addressing investors talking

01:20about New York, talking about how great it was going to be, he was saying that, you know,

01:23once we're approved, we'll be able to go live the next day.

01:26So sort of a strange delay that happened in New York.

01:28Now, often the commission does drag their feet on a lot of issues and just doesn't get

01:32around to things.

01:33I don't think they felt particularly felt a particular sense of urgency on their end

01:38because they already have a ton of operators in New York.

01:42Penn obviously probably felt a lot more urgency until they started submitting their paperwork

01:47in early May and it ended in August, even though there was no deadline.

01:51So they'll get up and running eventually.

01:54We'll have to keep monitoring ESPN.

01:57And when they do, we're probably going to have some different promos than we've seen

02:01in the past.

02:02They launched in 17 states at once in the middle of last NFL season, which led to a

02:07ton of downloads, a ton of people using them.

02:09But that's also because they're a new sports book for many people and people were using

02:13the free promos.

02:14Jay Snowden has been vocal about not doing the same thing in New York, which obviously

02:18is a much more expensive state to do business with a 51% tax rate.

02:22So we'll see how they lean into ESPN's branding power into their audience once they do eventually

02:28launch in New York.

02:29And it comes at a critical time when many investors are calling for a sale of the company

02:33amid their slow sports betting gains.

02:36So New York should be a really big key piece in trying to gain some share on the draft

02:41games and fan duels of the world, which hold about 47 to 35% of the market in New York.

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