When Penn Entertainment announced it was rebranding Barstool Sportsbook as ESPN Bet it set some lofty goals for the new sports betting app. These included reaching a 20% market share by 2027, but the brand has struggled to find growth and latest estimates give it a market share of just 3%.
The 10-year $2 billion agreement included access to on-air ESPN talent and integrations with the ESPN mothership app and new betting app. We've all seen ESPN Bet featured heavily during broadcasts and pre and post game shows, but this is the first major step to integrating ESPN Bet with the current suite of ESPN products.
According to Sensor Tower, the ESPN app has an estimated 1 million monthly downloads and between 50 million - 100 million total users. It frequently sits in the top 3 free apps in the sports category in the App Store and Play Store.
Greater visibility in the ESPN app should help to raise brand visibility and fuel growth, but the real magic here is in the features it adds for current (and future) ESPN Bet customers.
ESPN Bet is currently promoting two major features with account linking: bet tracking and exclusive promos.
The bet tracking portion is particularly interesting because, if done correctly, it could replace the numerous third-party apps that offer the same service at a fee. ESPN Bet customers should be able to track upcoming wagers, live wagers, settled wagers, and their personal betting trends.
As an active ESPN Bet user, I did link my accounts and, quite frankly, couldn't find the bet tracking. What I did notice was that the two apps were seamlessly integrated. From a live score in the ESPN app, I'm now able to click on an available bet and it takes me directly to a bet slip with the wager already loaded. Hopefully the bet tracking gains more visibility in the ESPN app with a future update.
Looking at the promos part of this update, ESPN Bet announced this update with a $5 bonus bet opportunity. Existing customers are awarded a $5 bonus bet when they link their two accounts.
This promotion is available through December 31, 2024, your bonus bet is awarded immediately, and expires 7 days after receipt.
I found no other instances of promotions while browsing the ESPN app after linking accounts. That said, it would make sense to see some visibility into boosts within the live scores section of the ESPN app in the near future.
ESPN Bet promotions have been disappointing since the app's launch, with the best offers only available with new state launches, such as North Carolina in March 2024. As new in-app features and integrations are announced, look for ESPN Bet to get more aggressive with these welcome offers to try to make up ground on FanDuel and DraftKings and claw it's way towards that 20% market share target.