Interestingly, the revelations come just a few weeks after Disney CEO Bob Iger said Disney doesn’t “intend to go into the gambling business.”
“We’ve already done some things that we would integrate it into our programming, but not to the extent that we would be facilitating gambling as an entity,” Iger said on a conference call with analysts following the company’s second quarter earnings report on May 8.
“In other words, we’ll provide programming that will, I guess, be designed to enlighten people who are betting on sports. But that’s as far as we would go,” Iger added.
Last week, however, ESPN announced that it was partnering with Caesars Entertainment to open its own television studio inside The LINQ Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas. The set, scheduled to open in 2020, will be used to produce sports betting content for its new “Daily Wager” show and other related programming. With the deal, Caesars became ESPN’s official odds data provider.
Disney also intends to use the studio to have a presence at sports betting events that are hosted in Las Vegas, where sports betting has been legal for several years.
Disney and DraftKings have been flirting for years. In 2015, the Wall Street Journal reported that Disney had invested US$250 million in the daily fantasy sports site, though nothing ever came from those reports.
Whether Disney ever actively does anything with its stake in DraftKings remains to be seen. Disney has spent millions of dollars opposing gambling in the past and Iger has made clear the company’s stance on facilitating gambling beyond just reporting the news and educating the mainstream market.
Source: GMB / SportTechie
