Podcast Episode Details

ESPN Nears Large New Partnership With DraftKings & 6 Other Stories

---

Episode 25

---

This week: ESPN to potentially partner with DraftKings, Podcasting unions make headlines, Netflix confirms two independent measurement companies, advertisers reflect on 2023 spend, and two new podcasting hosts arrive in the US. ESPN Nears Large New Partnership With DraftKings

Manuela: Last Thursday Ed Hammond and Crystal Tse of Bloomberg covered an anticipated deal between ESPN and sports-betting firm DraftKings. According to an update to the piece, DraftKings’ stock rose as much as 8.8% in response to the news on Friday.
“ESPN has already invested heavily in sports gambling, though it has steered clear of taking actual bets. The broadcaster has betting-related shows such as Daily Wager and marketing deals with DraftKings and Caesars Entertainment Inc. where links to the sportsbooks are integrated into ESPN’s website. Disney also acquired a stake in DraftKings as part of its acquisition of Fox’s entertainment assets in 2019.”

Disney has long avoided gambling in pursuit of upholding its wholesome family image. As Bloomberg points out, none of the Disney cruise ship fleet have casinos aboard, nor are Disney characters licensed to slot machine manufacturers. Clearly, their attitudes appear to be changing as they search for a sports betting partner for ESPN.

Sean Russo, Research Manager of Magellan AI, offered this when asked about the growth of sports betting and adjacent categories:

“As of August, the Fantasy Sports industry is up 22% year to date, although historically spending in the industry has peaked in September. Last year spend more than doubled between August and September, primarily driven by brands like Fanduel and DraftKings”  ESPN is a major podcast network and sports betting, as well as its cousins like fantasy sports, continue to climb in popularity. If this deal comes to fruition, it could be a big deal indeed. Podcasting gains new union, hears from two recently affected by Spotify layoffs. Shreya: In this first segment we have two stories fitting in a theme of organized labor in podcasting. Last Tuesday, Audacy’s Pineapple Street Studios announced last Tuesday that roughly 75% of their proposed bargaining unit signed up to officially join WGA East. Ashley Carman reported for Bloomberg:

“The employees said they’re looking for increased transparency around pay, rights to their intellectual property, protection against favoritism at work and improved health insurance, according to the letter.”

Later in the week, the utility of unionizing was highlighted when Spotify pruned their walled garden. Last Thursday Tech Crunch’s Lauren Forristal reported on Spotify canceling multiple shows at once from two of the four Spotify in-house content production companies. Three podcasts from Gimlet and eight from Parcast are either canceled effective immediately or set - in the case of Horoscope Today - scheduled to end in the second quarter of 2023. Spotify also announced this would cause “less than 5% of layoffs of Spotify’s podcast staff.”  Last Friday both the Gimlet Union and Parcast Union took issue with that number in an official letter Published on 2 years, 6 months ago