As reported by the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Caesars Entertainment Corp. and ESPN have announced a deal to bring a new ESPN studio to the Las Vegas strip. The studio will make its home at The Linq Hotel & Casino, a Caesar’s property, where ESPN will produce its new sports betting show Daily Wager and create other sports betting content.
“The sports betting landscape has changed, and fans are coming to us for this kind of information more than ever before,” Mike Morrison, VP of Business Development at ESPN said in a statement from Caesars and ESPN.
The announcement comes on the one year anniversary of the Supreme Court overturning the ban on sports wagering outside Nevada, the Professional Amateur Sports Protection Act, commonly referred to as PASPA.
Sports media, leagues make moves
Since the landmark decision, leagues, sports media, and betting operators have made major changes in preparation for widespread regulated gambling in the U.S.
Fox Sports was the first to introduce a sports betting-centric show last fall, followed up by ESPN’s Daily Wager in March. FanDuel recently inked a deal with Sportsradar to pair betting lines with live streams of European tennis and soccer.
The ESPN-Caesars partnership also comes on the heels of Fox Sports joining The Stars Group to introduce their own betting app, FOX Bet.
Most notably, the NFL Draft will be held in Las Vegas next year, where the Oakland Raiders will join the Vegas Knights as the city’s second professional sports team once construction is finished on their stadium in likely 2021. Not to mention the fact that after years of shunning Vegas, the NFL made Caesars its first ever official casino sponsor in January.
Vegas is still the Mecca of sports betting
It was speculated that legalized sports betting outside of Nevada would harm the Las Vegas industry. That’s not the case as the Silver State’s sportsbook set records in the months of November and December and taking a record $5 billion total in action in 2018, the first year with sports betting operators in other U.S. states.
On Monday, Iowa officially became the tenth state to legalize sports betting, but regulated sports betting is still far from being widespread.
It remains to be seen how more competition will affect the Silver State’s bookmakers, but Vegas is still currently the Mecca of the sports betting world. Just ask ESPN, who is counting on the Las Vegas culture to spur its sports betting content going forward even though New Jersey is just a few hours away from its Bristol, Connecticut headquarters.