ESPN personality Pat McAfee is voicing his thoughts on PENN Entertainment’s latest financial results for its online sports betting product.
The host of the network’s “The Pat McAfee Show” made several remarks during a segment on Thursday about ESPN Bet and its viability as an operator in gaming.
“Reports have come back,” said McAfee in a joking manner during Thursday’s airing of his program. “ESPN Bet has a lot of room to grow.”
The former Indianapolis Colts punter made the comments as his show displayed an ESPN Bet ad. ESPN reportedly pays McAfee around $15 million per year to license the program.
“Let’s go ESPN Bet. You get knocked down, you come back,” McAfee continued. “We are on ESPN and obviously we’re part of ESPN so we would like ESPN stuff to succeed.”
McAfee is responding to lackluster earnings in Q1 2024 for PENN. The entertainment and gaming giant reported $1.6 billion in revenue during the quarter, a 3.6% decrease year-over-year. The company attributed the decline to drops in revenue for its Midwest, West, South, and Interactive segments. Its Interactive business includes ESPN Bet, which generated $207.7 million in revenue in Q1 but posted an adjusted EBITDA loss of $196 million.
ESPN Bet’s revenue in Q1 2024 fell short of analyst projections of roughly $237 million.
“Our online sports betting results were negatively impacted by a slightly lower handle per user than we modeled and well-documented unfavorable hold in the quarter, which continued through March Madness with the favorite UConn winning their matchups by large margins,” said PENN CEO Jay Snowden on the company’s Q1 earnings call.
ESPN Bet launched in November 2023 as a rebrand of Barstool Sportsbook.
Last year, PENN sold Barstool Sports back to its founder Dave Portnoy for $1 after acquiring a 36% stake in the media company in 2020 for $163 million. PENN purchased the remaining 64% in a deal valued at approximately $388 million. Now, the company is committed to ESPN Bet after paying the “Worldwide Leader in Sports” $1.5 billion to launch the sportsbook with the opportunity to later purchase 31.8 million shares of PENN stock.
PENN also has a presence in Ontario’s gaming market where it operates theScore Bet.
