The day is here for ESPN Bet. No, not that day, logo day!
Yes, that’s right, the logo for the soon-to-launch legal sports betting collaboration between ESPN and PENN Entertainment was unveiled on Wednesday ahead of the site’s expected debut in November.
For starters, ESPN Bet is branded using mint as one of the main colors. Then there’s some dark blue and white, depending on which logo you’re looking at, but most certainly not the red ESPN viewers are used to seeing.
This is part of the “custom content identity” for the ESPN-branded sportsbook, which will get play all over the network’s “ecosystem,” according to a press release.
“The brand itself features the universally recognizable ‘ESPN,’ while the sportsbook app will be branded an ‘E’ in the ‘B,’ which creatively expresses the idea that ESPN, in partnership with PENN Entertainment, is launching a sportsbook for fans, but at its core is still ESPN, the most trusted brand in sports,” ESPN said in a press release. “The mint color was chosen to be welcoming, inclusive, unexpected, and fun.”
The ESPN Bet logo suggests (to me) they have a same-game parlay that can also freshen your breath pic.twitter.com/fMYZlkrkJA
— Geoff Zochodne (@GeoffZochodne) October 18, 2023
Exactly how welcoming, inclusive, unexpected, and fun bettors will find ESPN Bet remains to be seen. However, Wednesday’s press release reiterates that the plan is to launch ESPN Bet in November, which will let the up-and-coming brand try to capture customers during the uber-important football season.
The arrival of ESPN Bet will be closely watched in the legal sports betting industry, as the ESPN brand is fairly synonymous with sports in general.
PENN, which will operate the sportsbook, abandoned an earlier partnership with Barstool Sports and entered into what could be a $2-billion, 10-year arrangement with ESPN. The money alone strongly suggests the potential the partners believe the ESPN brand could have in the world of U.S. sports betting sites.
“Our conversations were positive around operators' ability to find new avenues to grow the business, including more personalization (i.e., targeted promotions) to convert handle at higher levels to the bottom line,” JMP Securities analyst Jordan Bender wrote in a note to clients earlier this week regarding the recent G2E convention in Las Vegas. “That said, new competition from Fanatics, Bet365, and PENN/ESPN was a hot topic; time will tell on the impact to the sector, but we see stocks in a wait-and-see mode heading into 4Q/1Q.”
