Madison Kwiecinski, Editor-in-Chief
mvk5945@psu.edu

Disney is known for its family-friendly viewership and brand as a whole. However, they have recently been acquiring other streaming platforms, such as their purchases of National Geographic, Marvel, ESPN, and more. Some of these assets have been easy to integrate into Disney’s existing platform and brand, while others have been more complicated as they are meant to attract a more mature audience than who Disney has typically targeted in the past.

In 2018, the U.S. The Supreme Court struck down the federal sports betting ban, allowing for apps like FanDule and DraftKings to pivot their market from strictly fantasy teams to including mobile gambling. Disney had previously been opposed to the idea of integrating any form of gambling into any of its platforms.

According to an article from 2019, Bob Igler, Disney’s then CEO was asked if, as sports betting became increasingly common in states across the U.S., if gambling and the family-friendly Disney brand could coexist together. Igler simply answered, “I don’t see The Walt Disney Company, certainly in the near term, getting involved in the business of gambling, in effect, by facilitating gambling in any way,” he said.

Disney owned ESPN at the time of Igler’s statement, as they still do today, so it shocked many fans to know it was not a route Disney was previously exploring. However, Walt Disney Co. Chief Executive Officer Bob Chapek has recently put out statements explaining that ESPN connections are critical to his next vision for the company, including sports betting within the app.

“Sports betting is a part of what our younger, say, under-35 sports audience is telling us they want as part of their sports lifestyle,” Chapek said in an interview at Disney’s D23 fan event in Anaheim, California. Asked if the company was developing an ESPN sports-betting app, Chapek said, “We’re working very hard on that.”

Chapek has stated that as football season reopens, he has received hundreds of offers to purchase ESPN, specifically from organizations who wish to use it to profit off sports betting. Chapek has made it clear that not only does he think these offers under-score the value of ESPN, but also that he has no intention of selling regardless.

Chapek has stated they are working on developing ways to bet in the app easily, and that instituting sports betting is one of the main reasons they have not entertained the idea of accepting any financial offers for ESPN, as this is something the Disney brand itself plans to profit from.

“Sports betting is a part of what our younger, say, under-35 sports audience is telling us they want as part of their sports lifestyle,” Chapek said at a Disney D23 fan event in California, “We’re working very hard on that.”