The pressure is on Penn Entertainment to finally get sports betting right, as past failures, activist investors and expectations that the ESPN brand should be a winner all collide to make 2025 a must-win year for management.
“This is a such a make-or-break year,” Kyle Owusu, a credit analyst at bond market data and analysis firm Octus, said on a phone call. “Firstly, contractually ESPN has the right to terminate the sportsbook agreement if, at the end of year three, the market access is not at least a specified percentage of the total market access … The other reason is the activist pressure in the background.”
