Mark Shapiro has been watching ESPN’s morning programming long enough to know what he no longer wants to see.
The TKO Group Holdings president and former ESPN exec told Sports Business Journal he hopes the Worldwide Leader’s decision to terminate its ESPN Bet partnership with Penn Entertainment means the end of the constant sports betting content that has saturated the network’s programming this football season.
“I just hope that this means we will not have to endure sports betting conversation infiltrating ESPN’s programming in the way it has, especially this football season,” Shapiro said. “It’s just bad programming. Of course, young sports fans are betting. But they are not tuning in from an appointment perspective to see non-stop conversation on every game with props and parlays and over-unders. It’s just not the case. In fact, it’s a total turnoff.”
ESPN and Penn Entertainment announced Thursday morning that they had mutually agreed to end their 10-year, $1.5 billion deal less than two years after launching ESPN Bet.
The termination freed ESPN to sign an exclusive multiyear sponsorship and promotion deal with DraftKings, which will become the network’s official sportsbook and odds provider. DraftKings will be integrated into ESPN’s betting tab and app, with special promotions for ESPN Unlimited subscribers. ESPN BET will continue as a content brand, anchored by the ESPN BET Live show, which airs weekdays at 6:30 p.m. ET on ESPN2.
Whether ESPN BET, as a content brand, will dial back the constant gambling talk remains to be seen. Shapiro seemed particularly irked that Get Up had leaned in so heavily into sports gambling content.
“[For Greenberg] to have to sit next to a sports betting expert and talk about props and betting non-stop just so they can truly accomplish what they’re really trying to do, which is push people to ESPN Bet, is abysmal,” Shapiro said. “I just hope this new DraftKings arrangement doesn’t call for this to continue.”
The ESPN Bet partnership was doomed from the start. Three months after the November 2023 launch, Penn’s stock tumbled when the rollout lost $334 million. By May 2024, Pat McAfee was openly mocking the sportsbook on ESPN’s own airwaves. The product never distinguished itself from DraftKings (37 percent market share outside Nevada) and FanDuel (35 percent) despite heavy promotion from network personalities.
The deal also created ethical complications that became impossible to ignore. ESPN’s Get Up erased an ESPN Bet banner from its screen in October while covering FBI arrests of Heat guard Terry Rozier and Trail Blazers coach Chauncey Billups on gambling-related charges, highlighting the conflict of interest that existed when the network was promoting its own branded sportsbook while covering betting scandals.
Penn previously exited its partnership with Barstool Sports to rebrand as ESPN Bet, selling Barstool back to Dave Portnoy for $1. The company believed that promoting sports media personalities would establish a foothold in the sportsbook market. Neither attempt succeeded.
Whether the DraftKings deal reduces the gambling content Shapiro criticized remains to be seen. ESPN no longer has its name attached to a struggling sixth-place sportsbook, but DraftKings now has exclusive access to the network’s platforms and audiences. Which means Shapiro might still be stuck watching Greenberg talk props every morning.
