- John Levy launches criticism of PENN Entertainment at last week’s NEXT Summit
- Levy family bought out by PENN in 2021
- Levy: PENN’s Barstool deal was a “fiasco”
The hits just keep on coming for beleaguered PENN Entertainment following a report earlier this week about divestments and killing the underperforming ESPN brand amid a 13% drop in the company’s stock price this year.
Stock Takes a Dive
The founder of theScore Bet, which PENN acquired in October 2021, had some critical things to say about the way PENN has managed its acquired assets at last week’s NEXT Summit in New York.
John Levy founded theScore as a television broadcasting property in Canada before it transitioned into a sports media and betting industry product. theScore was the first media company to create and launch a sportsbook in Canada.
Levy Tees Off on PENN
In a story first reported by Awful Announcing, Levy made his first public comments since leaving the company he founded in February 2024.
PENN acquired theScore ahead of the regulated Ontario iGaming market going live in April 2022, and integrated theScore with its PENN Interactive unit under the leadership of Benjie Levy as head of interactive and John Levy as executive chairman of theScore.
Barstool Deal a “Fiasco”
It was a year ago that PENN Entertainment out of nowhere announced the founding family behind theScore in Canada – John Levy, Benjie Levy, Aubrey Levy, and Noah Levy – would be stepping down from their roles at PENN Interactive. Aubrey Levy had been taking theScore Bet down some creative roads on the marketing end, including setting up a HOLE ZERO market activation at the RBC Canadian Open at Oakdale Golf & Country Club in Toronto in 2023, featuring an actual 150-yard Par 3 golf hole built above No. 7 on the Oakdale course.
The company said at the time this was all part of a “planned leadership transition”.
Tumultuous Relationship
At NEXT last week, Levy commented about the relationship with PENN after they bought theScore:
I just think you had to give more trust to the people who brought you to the party, which was us. There was a bit of—we bought it and we’ll take it from here, thank you very much. When you’re as involved in the business as we always were and you can see where it was going, and when things you might have been doing were happening differently—it was very hard, very frustrating.”
PENN used the Canadian company’s technology to help start Barstool Sportsbook in September 2020, then ESPN Bet in November 2023.
PENN paid $551 million for Barstool Sports and then sold it back to Barstool founder Dave Portnoy in 2023 for $1 after the business relationship failed. PENN paid ESPN $1.5 billion over 10 years to launch ESPN Bet.
Picks From Pres
Portnoy, also known as “El Presidente”, made one trip to Canada during the partnership, in April 2022, touring Toronto, authoring a “Picks From Pres” section of theScore Bet, and even popping into various pizza restaurants in Toronto for posts on his popular pizza review social media feed.
“They had to settle this whole Barstool relationship which was a fiasco right from the get-go,” Levy told the NEXT audience. “Dave Portnoy’s not a stupid guy. He’s very smart. But it’s all about Dave, and unless you manage him properly, unless you control that properly, you’re not going to get the synergies you need. He’d go to a university, have his pregame parties, get a shitload of signups, and then there’d be no follow-up.”
theScore Bet Performing Well in Canada
Levy referred to the relationship between theScore Bet, Penn, and Barstool as “tumultuous”.
Penn Entertainment CEO Jay Snowden told investors and analysts in February that theScore Bet was a “very good story” for the company in terms of revenues, gross profit, and contribution, referring to Ontario as the company’s top market, and that their eyes in Canada were now focused on Alberta, which expects to launch a competitive iGaming market in 2026.
The post Founder of theScore Bet Opens Up About PENN Entertainment Relationship appeared first on Casino.org.
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