The Walt Walter Elias Disney Company (NYSE:DIS) continues its cover of sports wagering, and is looking to spread out its online wagering footprint, perhaps in striking fashion.
On the company’s fiscal fourth-quarter earnings group discussion telephone Wednesday afternoon, CEO Bob Chapek said Disney — the parent accompany of ESPN — can buoy leverage musical scale to partner with 3rd parties in the regulated sports wagering manufacture “in a rattling meaningful way.”
Suffice to say, we persist in to control enormous opportunity in sports, and all of this, the redress steels, our innovative programming, and the flexibleness achieved through our DTC business, which saw ESPN+ subscribers, increased by 66 percent over the past tense fiscal twelvemonth alone,” Chapek told analysts. “All of this is a testament to the elucidate dream we make in sports.”
ESPN+ is the streaming political program mien the make of the “worldwide leader in sports.” The sports network has long signaled that fantasize sports and wagering are avenues to long pillow the streaming divine service and the web at large. ESPN accelerated its exposure to the sports betting blank space inward Sept 2020, inking separate, multi-year accords with Caesars Entertainment (NASDAQ:CZR) and DraftKings (NASDAQ:DKNG).
No Impact to Walt Disney Brand
There was a clip when the idea of a Disney/gambling wedding would make been off-putting to investors and, more importantly, consumers.
However, attitudes towards sports wagering inwards the US are changing, with surveys and studies telling adults don’t experience the negative sight of betting that were held inwards years past. For its part, Walt Disney is researching the matter, with Chapek noting a deeper run past the companion isn’t potential to impairment its iconic make — i often associated with family line friendliness and compatibility. Rather, a more open connection with wagering could prop upward the ESPN brand.
“We hold done real search inwards terms of the impact to not only when to the ESPN brand, but the Walter Elias Disney brand, inward terms of consumers changing perceptions of the acceptableness of gambling,” said the Walter Elias Disney chief executive. “And what we’re finding is that there’s a real important isolation.”
Chapek adds that inward following consumer trends, Walter Elias Disney finds it has “to earnestly turn over getting into play inward a bigger way,” adding that ESPN is the saint program for doing that.
In terms of brand recognition, ESPN has plentitude of that. Earlier this year, it was reported the web held talks with gaming companies, including Caesars and DraftKings, regarding usage of the ESPN trademark at a $3 one million million cost tag. No deal on that look has been announced.
No Acquisition Talk…Yet
On the conference call, Chapek noted sports wagering is something Disney is “pursuing aggressively.” However, no mention of a possible acquisition related to to that travail was made.
In September, speculation surfaced that ESPN could live a player for Benjamin Rush Street Interactive (NYSE:RSI) — an operator Walt Disney could easy afford, and 1 that would significantly rise the buyer’s sports wagering profile.
Fanatics was of late tied to acquisition rumors involving RSI, confirming ESPN could face competition in a potency quest of the gaming company. Recently, speculation most RSI’s fate as a possible takeover butt cooled. But consolidation remains a undercoat idea inward the sports betting industry.