As ESPN nears the launch of a transformative streaming service in the coming weeks, ESPN Bet has also delved deeply into its lab for a major product enhancement ahead of the 2025 football season.
The intersection between sports betting and fantasy sports has created a subset of sports fanatics with a dedicated interest in both. Internal research from ESPN Bet indicates that a user with a fantasy team is about three times more likely to place a wager on sports than a non-fantasy player.
Penn Entertainment, which has a partnership with ESPN through which it brands its online sportsbook, is about to take advantage of that tendency.
On Monday, the operator announced the imminent launch this summer of FanCenter, a personalised hub within ESPN Bet that will allow customers to easily find wagering markets based on their favourite teams, players and fantasy football rosters.
With the imprimatur of the Worldwide Leader In Sports, ESPN Bet and Penn Entertainment believe the product offers bespoke integrations that have not previously been available on the market. A fantasy football user eager to whet their betting appetite will soon discover a slew of customised wagers on the ESPN Bet platform based on their weekly fantasy lineup.
“FanCenter introduces a completely new level of personalisation for ESPN Bet players and represents our biggest product leap yet,” said Aaron LaBerge, Penn’s chief technology officer.
How it works
One of the key features of FanCenter is immediacy. Take the first week of the NFL regular season, for instance. Let’s say your fantasy team includes Saquon Barkley, Ceedee Lamb, Justin Herbert, Brock Bowers, Jordan Addison and the Kansas City Chiefs defence. In that example, your fantasy team will have players performing in games on four different days of the opening week from Thursday 4 September to Monday 8 September.
Instead of waiting for the result of the fantasy matchup on Monday night, ESPN Bet will offer a number of customised parlays with the potential for quicker payouts. You might receive a three-leg parlay option containing a Barkley anytime touchdown, the “over” on Lamb at 100.5 receiving yards, and a Chiefs defensive turnover. A winning ticket could be cashed by Friday. Using the same example, another parlay may add legs on Herbert to finish with at least two touchdown passes and Bowers to score against the Pats.
Bespoke integrations
While ESPN Bet teased its new offering last fall, the operator preferred to wait until this summer for the ideal launch point. Over the last several months, the product team has honed FanCenter for increased app speed and a sleeker look.
The offering also builds on an account-linking initiative that enables bettors to jump from the ESPN main app to ESPN Bet in a matter of seconds.
The launch of account-linking last November drove an uptick in betting volume and engagement, ESPN Bet’s Mike Morrison noted at the time. Linked accounts also produced a “stickier” customer, Barclays analyst Brandt Montour wrote in a research note, resulting in added time spent on the app, increased bet frequency and a higher parlay mix. Morrison is optimistic that FanCenter will do the same.
“FanCenter is the perfect combination of fandom, fantasy and personalised betting all wrapped into the ESPN Bet betting experience,” said Morrison, vice president of ESPN Bet and ESPN Fantasy.
“FanCenter showcases how we can serve fans across our platforms in a way that nobody else in the market can because of our industry-leading ESPN fantasy platform and account-linking capabilities.”
Driving customer acquisition
Based on the sophistication of the product, LaBerge views FanCenter not only as an acquisition tool for new users, but a retention vehicle for current ones.
ESPN Bet debuted in November 2023, and the new product should appeal to those who tried ESPN Bet before the current upgrades, LaBerge said. ESPN Bet will attempt to re-acquire those customers through FanCenter.
The next cohort comes from what LaBerge described as a “fanatical group” of core users that he predicts will love the new product. He anticipates that those players will continue to use ESPN Bet as their primary sportsbook. The final cohort comes from “new user acquisition,” a group LaBerge considers the most critical of the three.
Last season, more than 13 million unique players participated in ESPN Fantasy Football, according to Chris Jason, executive director of product management for the company. Besides curated player props and custom parlay offerings, FanCenter also contains “integrated functionality” that the operator says will enable users to browse player stats and trends to inform their prop selections.
Still, questions remain as to whether entrenched bettors from the app’s main rivals will use ESPN Bet as their exclusive platform. More pointedly, can ESPN convince a traditional DraftKings or FanDuel user to convert to ESPN Bet full time for their betting experience?
DraftKings and FanDuel in essence maintain a duopoly in online sports betting, with national market share of nearly 75% combined. No one else reached a double-digit share in June, according to data from Citizens.
Earnings preview
The FanCenter announcement came three days before Penn Entertainment is to release second-quarter earnings on Thursday. According to Zack’s consensus estimates, Penn’s revenues are expected to come in at $1.73 billion, up 4.3% from the year-ago quarter. The operator is expected to report a loss of $0.04 per share, up 77% from the same quarter in 2024.
In May, Penn Entertainment CEO Jay Snowden stated that the company’s digital business neared an “inflection point,” adding that the Penn and ESPN teams were working on “delivering a differentiated experience” for customers. However, Snowden wrote in a letter to shareholders weeks earlier that Penn had underperformed company expectations with market share and financial performance from sports betting. Upon the launch two years ago, the Penn CEO initially targeted long-term market share of at least 20% by the end of 2027.
ESPN Bet has not disclosed an exact date for the launch of FanCenter, but LaBerge indicated that it will likely occur this month.
Penn Entertainment CTO Aaron LaBerge describes new offering as ESPN Bet’s most impressive product leap in integrating with the ESPN brand.