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Pat McAfee has made it very clear he’s not going out of his way to toe the party line since joining ESPN, and he once again proved that was the case by poking fun at the company’s sportsbook on its own network in the wake of an underwhelming earnings report.
ESPN is just one of the many broadcasting entities that have embraced sports betting with open arms in recent years as the practice has slowly but surely become interwoven into the fabric of of the industry.
In 2020, ESPN inked partnership deals with DraftKings and Caesars Sportsbook and subsequently integrated their odds and spreads into its coverage. The Worldwide Leader was fairly transparent about its plans to eventually launch a betting platform of its own, but as time progressed without any significant developments, it was hard not to wonder if it had missed the boat.
We learned we would get an answer to that question in 2023 when ESPN announced it had teamed up with Penn Entertainment (which had previously run Barstool’s sportsbook) to launch ESPN BET, which officially launched last November.
ESPN obviously had an invaluable opportunity to harness some good, old-fashioned corporate synergy in the hopes of driving its audience to a sportsbook that has managed to raise some questions about journalistic ethics, but it would appear its efforts have left a bit to be desired.
As Sportico notes, Penn Entertainment stock took a bit of a beating on Thursday after a quarterly earnings report revealed ESPN BET revenue had failed to meet its forecasted total after generating $208 million compared to the $237 million it was expected to generate.
It’s safe to assume ESPN didn’t want that development to become a topic of conversation on Thursday’s installment of The Pat McAfee Show, but the eponymous host couldn’t stop himself from poking fun at the underwhelming news after an ESPN BET ad popped up in the middle of a segment.
This is Pat McAfee laughing at ESPN Bet, saying "ESPN Bet's got a lot of room to grow," and then giving ESPN Bet a pep talk.
"We are on ESPN and obviously we're part of ESPN so we would like ESPN stuff to succeed."
Download the app today! pic.twitter.com/WayjxDUnfu
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) May 2, 2024
McAfee and Co. were in the midst of an unrelated conversation when they quickly pivoted to an impromptu roast of ESPN BET courtesy of the promo that appeared onscreen. There was a fair amount of laughter before McAfee attempted to enter the spin zone, saying:
“ESPN Bet’s got a lot of room to grow. You get knocked down, you come back…
Good luck. We’re pulling for it because we’re on ESPN, and obviously we’re a part of ESPN, so we would like ESPN stuff to succeed.”
I’m sure that’ll make his bosses happy.