The start of football season was supposed to be the first real glimpse at just how powerful the partnership of ESPN and Penn Entertainment could be.
Last year, the app did not launch until mid-November. This year should be the first opportunity for the betting app to reap the benefit of full college and NFL football seasons, but a contract holdout with a major cable provider throws a wrench in ESPN Bet’s reach.
ESPN, ABC, SEC Network now off DirecTV
ESPN’s parent company, Disney, announced on Saturday that it could not reach an agreement to renew its agreement with DirecTV. On Sunday the company pulled its stations from the provider. The list of channels includes all the ESPN channels, ABC and the SEC and ACC Networks.
Disney contends that DirecTV is unwilling to offer a fair price for the portfolio and stands firm in its decision to yank programming.
“While we’re open to offering DirecTV flexibility and terms which we’ve extended to other distributors, we will not enter into an agreement that undervalues our portfolio of television channels and programs. We urge DirecTV to do what’s in the best interest of their customers and finalize a deal that would immediately restore our programming,” the company said in a statement.
DirecTV has roughly 11 million subscribers, putting it just behind market leaders Spectrum and Comcast, which each boast around 14 million accounts.
The outage came shortly before the kickoff of one of the marquee Week 1 NCAA football games of the week between two ranked teams, the USC Trojans and the LSU Tigers, began on ABC.
ESPN is also home to the NFL’s Monday Night Football. The first MNF game of the season is set for Sept. 9. Given that ESPN’s only game of the week is one of the island games and not competing against other NFL action, it usually is one of the most-watched games of the week.
DirecTV outage affects both individuals and businesses
The DirecTV outage impacts not only households but also businesses, many of whom turned to DirecTV as the previous rights holder of NFL Sunday Ticket for a comprehensive cable package to offer all NFL games to patrons. With that in mind, the outage equates to more than just 11 million sets of eyeballs not seeing ESPN Bet branding during programming around the game.
The impact on college football is arguably greater. With the popular program College Gameday Live and agreements with major conferences, most of the noteworthy games of the weekend air on one of the ESPN or Disney-owned channels.
This coming weekend, 14 of the 23 games featuring ranked teams will appear on an ESPN-affiliated network. The biggest showdown of the week between #3 Texas and #10 Michigan will be airing on FOX, but many other games, including top-ranked Georgia’s game against Tennessee Tech, will be blacked out on DirecTV if there is no resolution.
ESPN did actively develop a promotional plan for ESPN Bet that did not put it front and center during college sporting events. For example, none of the College Game Day hosts mention the brand, as they film on different college campuses in front of an audience that includes a large number of people under the age of 21.
Penn planned to save on acquisition costs through ESPN partnership
However, during the biggest acquisition period of the year for sportsbooks, the exposure of ESPN Bet across the networks during Week 1 factored into acquisition plans.
During the most recent earnings call, Penn CEO Jay Snowden spoke about how a big part of the push this fall is “seamless” integration into the ESPN app as was the improved parlay betting product. However, in the past, he has often alluded to Penn’s philosophy that key media deals can cut down on customer acquisition costs.
Snowden also said to expect ESPN Bet to roll out in New York by the end of August, but as of Tuesday, the app has not debuted in the Empire State.
As of Tuesday, there has been no progress between DirecTV and Disney either. Both companies have publicly pointed fingers at the other and remain in a stalemate.
