Disney CEO “working hard” on important sports betting deal
Bob Chapek confirms conversations with several platforms have been taking place for “quite a long time” with partnership announcement expected soon
Walt Disney Group CEO Bob Chapek has admitted the global media giant has held talks with several sportsbook operators over an ESPN-led partnership deal to expand into sports betting.
Speaking as part of Disney’s Q3 2022 financial results call, Chapek affirmed the advancement of Disney’s plans to diversify into sports betting to appeal to younger sports fans.
These plans, Chapek suggested had included discussions with potential sportsbook partners.
“In terms of sports betting, we have been in conversations for quite a long time now with a number of different platforms to add some utility to sports betting and take away some friction for that for our guests,” Chapek said.
“We have found that basically our sports fans that are under 30 absolutely require this type of utility in the overall portfolio of what ESPN offers, so we think it’s important.
“We’re working hard on it and we hope to have something to announce in the future in terms of a partnership there that will allow us to access that revenue stream and also make sure that our guests are having their needs met,” he added.
Disney was first linked with a move into sports betting in November 2021, when Chapek suggested the global media giant was heading “toward a greater presence” in online sports betting and that those talks were of an aggressive and immediate nature.
These comments were echoed by ESPN president Jimmy Pitaro in June, with Pitaro claiming sports betting was a “must-have” area of development for the firm.
In the call, Chapek suggested ESPN would serve as an appropriate vehicle for the partnership with its high coverage of US sporting events.
“In terms of the strategy on sports, we’re continually enamored by the power of sports in terms of viewership and what it adds to our overall portfolio particularly in an advertising-type world.
“We get strong cashflows on linear networks and it helps to pay some of the bills in the companies where we make some of our significant investments in content, and we also like the proposition of growth and expansion of our direct-to-consumer (DTC) offering,” Chapek added.
ESPN’s current rights include the Pac-12 college sports network, the Big-12 Conference, the Southeastern Conference, the Atlantic Conference, and the play-offs.
Disney has a 10-year rights agreement with the NFL and has also signed a five-year deal with the league for the Monday night wild card game.
The broadcaster also has a seven-year rights deal with the NHL with 75 of the league’s live national games being available exclusively on Disney streaming platforms ESPN+ and Hulu.
Expanding on his comments, Chapek claimed that Disney was preparing for the future of ESPN in a “true” direct-to-consumer fashion, a future which could include integrated sports betting.
“The way that we’re looking at this is that we want to proactively prepare for that future without prematurely disrupting the cashflow that we get from the linear networks right now,” Chapek explained.
“We’ve negotiated flexibility into our rights agreements across the board for any new rights that we have acquired over the last several years, but we’re still bullish on sports.
“We believe there’s tremendous degrees of freedom in terms of what ESPN DTC ultimately looks like.
“I think we’re very proud of what we’ve done to-date on ESPN+, but that no way limits how we envision what a true ESPN DTC proposition would look like going into the future,” he added.