<\/p>\n
ESPN\u2019s bet on sports betting only started recently.<\/p>\n
Major sportsbooks including FanDuel, DraftKings, Caesars, MGM, and Wynn were already spending millions on social and TV advertising as far back as 2022, and since then, FanDuel and other sports-betting brands have made their Super Bowl ad debuts.<\/p>\n
So ESPN Bet, the sportsbook created by ESPN and Penn Entertainment that went live this past November, has had some catching up to do in the marketing department.<\/p>\n
\u201cMost people\u2026certainly have their preferred [sports betting] platform, but we felt like we had an opportunity to come in and hopefully provide a better product and better experience to fans,\u201d Alex Healy-Lucciola, senior director of marketing for fantasy and sports betting at ESPN, told Marketing Brew.<\/p>\n
While the ESPN brand name may hold weight among sports and sports-betting fans, Healy-Lucciola and his team aren\u2019t relying on that alone to pull in users in an increasingly crowded market. Instead, their play also centers around a brand platform and campaign that\u2019s based on \u201cthe language of sports fans\u201d and is meant to \u201cdemocratize sports betting,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
For its inaugural campaign, ESPN tapped Arts & Letters Creative Co., an independent agency that has worked with ESPN for several years across properties including college football, espnW, and SportsCenter<\/em>, according to Molly Jamison, an ECD at the agency.<\/p>\n Together, the marketing team came up with the \u201cWhat a Play\u201d campaign, which rolled out in November with ads featuring on-air talent like Scott Van Pelt and Elle Duncan. The latest iteration, called \u201cPool Hall\u201d and starring First Take<\/em> host Stephen A. Smith, started running on ESPN platforms and paid channels in mid-May and is continuing through the NBA Finals. Smith is also set to lead the next ad in the campaign later this summer.<\/p>\n