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SportsTranscript
00:00Yesterday, we found out the news we saw on social media.
00:06I saw and I know that you guys wrote about this illegal sports report ESPN bet is headed
00:10to New York.
00:11So Sam, thanks for coming on the show once again.
00:13Tell us more.
00:14Yeah, absolutely.
00:15Craig, always a pleasure.
00:17So yesterday, ESPN bet was approved to launch in New York, which is going to happen within
00:23the coming days, according to executive vice president Chris Rogers of Penn, who testified
00:29before the New York State Gaming Commission yesterday.
00:31Essentially, the Gaming Commission had to approve a transfer of license that wind that
00:37has and has had since 2022 when the state launched to Penn and to ESPN bet in order
00:43to get everything squared away.
00:44They bought this license back in February and had been pretty vocal about wanting to
00:49launch in New York before football season started.
00:52Obviously, we are now in the middle of football season.
00:55They've missed about the first four weeks of NFL.
00:59They might soft launch before this weekend, according to Rogers.
01:02So that would mean it would probably end up missing most of week four as well if they're
01:06not fully launched by then.
01:09Pretty interesting that they say they still have to check a couple of boxes before they
01:13launch because about a month ago when CEO Jay Snowden was addressing investors talking
01:20about New York, talking about how great it was going to be, he was saying that, you know,
01:23once we're approved, we'll be able to go live the next day.
01:26So sort of a strange delay that happened in New York.
01:28Now, often the commission does drag their feet on a lot of issues and just doesn't get
01:32around to things.
01:33I don't think they felt particularly felt a particular sense of urgency on their end
01:38because they already have a ton of operators in New York.
01:42Penn obviously probably felt a lot more urgency until they started submitting their paperwork
01:47in early May and it ended in August, even though there was no deadline.
01:51So they'll get up and running eventually.
01:54We'll have to keep monitoring ESPN.
01:57And when they do, we're probably going to have some different promos than we've seen
02:01in the past.
02:02They launched in 17 states at once in the middle of last NFL season, which led to a
02:07ton of downloads, a ton of people using them.
02:09But that's also because they're a new sports book for many people and people were using
02:13the free promos.
02:14Jay Snowden has been vocal about not doing the same thing in New York, which obviously
02:18is a much more expensive state to do business with a 51% tax rate.
02:22So we'll see how they lean into ESPN's branding power into their audience once they do eventually
02:28launch in New York.
02:29And it comes at a critical time when many investors are calling for a sale of the company
02:33amid their slow sports betting gains.
02:36So New York should be a really big key piece in trying to gain some share on the draft
02:41games and fan duels of the world, which hold about 47 to 35% of the market in New York.