During Thursday’s investors call, Penn Entertainment CEO Jay Snowden admitted he was not privy to many of the details involving this week’s blockbuster deal between ESPN and the NFL. The billion-dollar agreement will see ESPN acquire NFL media assets, including NFL Network, and distribution rights to RedZone and NFL Fantasy, in exchange for the NFL receiving a 10% ownership stake in ESPN.
Snowden said that anything that solidifies ESPN’s position as the “worldwide leader in sports” is good for the entire ESPN ecosystem, including Penn’s stake in ESPN Bet.
“As we’ve mentioned before, the launch of the direct-to-consumer offering is going to be deeply integrated with sports betting and that’s going to be the first time that we’ve seen anything like that in the space,” Snowden said during the investors call. “We’re interested to see what that means for the sports fans of ESPN and our ability to continue to provide a great betting option for people through those deep integrations throughout their digital and streaming ecosystem.”
“More football is better for fans and for bettors,” said Penn’s Executive Vice President, Operations Todd George. “FanCenter (which creates a personalized hub within ESPN Bet that will allow customers to find wagering markets based on their favorite teams, players, and ESPN fantasy football rosters) is going to launch this year with native integration to ESPN fantasy platforms. If you’re a linked user and you’re already linked when you draft a team or more than one team, those teams automatically show up in ESPN Bet, and will let you bet very creatively and easily.”
Penn Entertainment reported revenue of $1.4 billion in the second quarter. The total was comparable to revenue in the same time period of 2024, $1.3 million.
Snowden said that Penn turning a profit in 2026, a goal that has been previously stated, is possible if the operator hits its targets. He admitted that it will be a “Herculean” task, but realistic.
“We’ve got a really strong product offering,” Snowden said. “We’re enhancing the experience all the time, both in OSB and icasino. Much like our fourth quarter, which we’re anticipating being profitable to the tune of $5 million, we would be exiting with some real momentum heading into 2026 and we would build on that every quarter in 2026 as well. Those are the functions now. And as I’ve mentioned before, I think our focus, and you can imagine we’ve got all sorts of different sensitivity models on, there’s a lot of variables at play as we go into 2026.”
But the most important factor to Penn’s fortunes is something Snowden, or any other CEO, can’t control.
“There’s really one true macroeconomic factor that has a tight correlation to our business, which is employment,” Snowden said. “And employment has been strong. Americans have jobs. Americans spend money. It’s really quite simple. As it relates to the regional gaming business, at least as long as I’ve been doing this, and, you know, gas prices have been low and they’ve stayed low. So those are all helpful tail winds, and consumer confidence seems to at least be stable. It’s, you know, a bit volatile month to month, I would say, overall, but it’s pretty stable and seems to be moving in the right direction. And I think people, to some extent, have probably been putting off those destination vacations and trips to Vegas, and they’re staying closer to home. So all that, of course, would benefit us in the regional market.”
