Penn partners with ESPN and sells Barstool Sports
Penn Entertainment has recently entered an agreement with ESPN and offloaded its Barstool Sports brand.
The collaboration between the two firms will involve the rebranding of Penn Entertainment’s Barstool operations, which will soon become ESPN Bet. The change will take place in the Fall of this year, with the media company’s wagering brand planned to be run by Penn Entertainment.
This contract will be valid through the next decade via the operator’s exclusive rights to the media company’s upcoming wagering brand, with the two firms having the option to extend it by a further 10 years in the future.
Additional terms of the deal include total combined cash payments of 1.5 billion dollars to ESPN over the course of the initial decade, along with a grant of a 500 million dollar warrant that will give the media firm the option to purchase just under 32 million of Penn Entertainment’s shares. This number will then be expanded by 6.4 million shares if its wagering brand meets certain performance targets in the first three years of its operation.
Alongside announcing its collaboration with ESPN, Penn Entertainment also published about the sale of Barstool Sports. The purchasing party of the brand was its founder, David Portnoy, who has also agreed to certain non-compete and other restrictions.