After four years in business, Fox Bet announced it was closing its doors at the end of July. That move seemed inevitable after Flutter, the owner of FanDuel, acquired Terry Bradshaw’s favorite online sportsbook. However, it was also a mandate for sports brands thinking existing would equate to success in the gambling space.
Don’t tell that to ESPN who decided now was the time to try their hand at betting. The worldwide leader in sports signed a licensing deal with Penn Entertainment to create ESPN BET, replacing the flagging Barstool-branded outfit in the process—good riddance to that lot and their $1 venture.
Anyway, this move is curious, to say the least. The allure of using the ESPN brand for something in the betting sphere would be logical if we didn’t see something similar fail spectacularly days earlier. Fox Bets is plastered all over sports broadcasts on Fox as well as anything else related to it.
Now, there are a number of reasons Fox Bets failed. The most damaging was the fact it couldn’t roll out its app in a timely manner due to a legal dispute with Flutter. Even when it did launch, the application gained next to no traction despite a tremendous amount of visibility among viewers and readers of Fox Sports content.
Ultimately, FanDuel and DraftKings enjoy a first-mover advantage while BetMGM and Caesars Sportsbook have the Vegas prestige sports punters like. There was no room for Fox Bets without a huge investment and that didn’t make any sense for Flutter since it already owns FanDuel.
That brings us back to ESPN and its attempt at sports betting. Why will this be any different? Spoiler alert: it won’t be. Penn Entertainment made little headway with its Barstool offering. And all that move did was put them further behind in the race for bettors.
Meanwhile, ESPN will promote the crap out of an inferior product people have already rejected. Their logo and licensing won’t change anything just like it couldn’t change ESPN Baseball Tonight for Sega Genesis, one of the worst baseball games you will ever play.
ESPN BET is already doomed to fail. That doesn’t mean the network will lose any money. Since this is a licensing deal, it’s all upside for them. Fans, meanwhile, can enjoy numerous awkward product reads, digital logos all over broadcasts and crappy programs encouraging us to use something that no one asked or wanted.
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