ESPN has established its presence in the wagering platform and is now active in seventeen states in the U.S. According to Front Office Sports, ESPN will be facing a big challenge from two key betting platforms that are currently dominating and they are FanDuel and Draft Kings.
ESPN Bet’s backers project they can attain 20% of the country’s sports gambling market share by 2027.
The biggest obstacle: A dominant duopoly holds roughly 73% of that share.https://t.co/31b9aWMv1A pic.twitter.com/6fnsYXeKiC
— Front Office Sports (@FOS) November 19, 2023
These two betting giants currently control around 73% of the market. Other platforms in the races are BetMGM/Borgata, Caesars/William Hill, and BetRivers/SugarHouse.
However, ESPN Bet’s backers predict that by 2027 regardless of the competition, they will be able to attain twenty percent of the market share. However, many believe it will be a tough challenge to accomplish.
FanDuel CEO Amy Howe shared this at the CNBC Global Evolve virtual summit, “You’ve got to have a superior product experience, right?”
“At the end of the day, if your product doesn’t work, it doesn’t matter how great your brand is, you got to have a really phenomenal experience.”
Max Bichsel, vice president of sports betting media company Gambling.com Group, also shares, “You’re going to have somebody that yesterday or last week was betting on DraftKings, that this week, they’re going to be betting on ESPN,”
Grove, also a partner emeritus at EKG, expressed, “I think any competitor that says they’re not worried about ESPN Bet isn’t telling the whole story.”
According to the Financial Times, Steve Bornstein, ESPN’s former chief executive of betting data group Genius Sports’ North America division, also expressed, “People that think this battle has been fought and won are way ahead of where I think the market is,”
“Obviously there are some very dominant players . . . but we’re still in the go-go growth stage, the market is not calcified.”
