GME3: ESPN Bet: Against the Odds, X Gonna Give It To Ya, and Bell Rings in Streaming Changes?

This week’s edition of the GME3 covers ESPN Bet’s entrance to the sports betting world, yet another lawsuit filed on behalf of X, and Canadian media’s opinions on the impending Online Streaming Act. Read the full stories below!

Gambling

ESPN Bet: Against the Odds

ESPN’s new sports betting platform, aptly named ESPN Bet, has officially launched in 17 US states. The app can be downloaded now by users in Arizona, Colorado, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia. The ESPN branding will help encourage bettors to try the new app, but the new platform is facing an uphill battle if it wants to dethrone its more entrenched competition.

Apps like FanDuel, DraftKings, BetMGM, and Caesars have firmly secured the top four positions in the American sports betting industry. However, since its launch last week, ESPN Bet has been seeing impressive results, topping download charts. ESPN Bet has been either the 1st or 2nd most popular app on the iOS App Store since its launch, accumulating over 865,000 downloads and counting.

The launch means that Disney (owners of ESPN) has officially entered into the world of gambling. Disney has traditionally valued its family-friendly image very highly, so the foray into sports betting and gambling took some people by surprise. To combat the stigma that’s associated with the gambling industry, ESPN Bet is placing a lot of emphasis on responsible gaming, stating that they plan to use their platforms to educate sports fans on gambling responsibly. Measures include continuing to cover the sports betting industry with “journalistic integrity,” the creation of a responsible gaming committee within the company, and the creation of relevant marketing guidelines.

Looking at the current ESPN Advertising Standards, the company will only advertise casinos (or other places of gambling) if “the advertisement does not in any way promote sports wagering or racebook services, including references to odds, horse racing “tout” boards, betting slips, etc.” Obviously, this rule will be changing in the future if ESPN plans to advertise their betting platform during sports broadcasts.

ESPN Bet has its work cut out for it. While the initial impact it made since its release last week has been significant, there’s a long way to go if there’s any hope of dethroning the apps that have had a much longer time to develop a dedicated user base. Luckily, Thanksgiving football should provide a stress test and give us a better idea of how the numbers will shake out.

Media

X Gonna Give It To Ya

Elon Musk’s social media platform X (which is still formerly known as Twitter) has launched yet another defamation lawsuit. This time they are taking on Media Matters, a liberal advocacy group that aims to “monitor, analyze, and correct conservative misinformation in the U.S. media.” X has accused Media Matters of publishing a manufactured report that shows advertisers’ posts alongside neo-Nazi and white nationalist posts with the aim of “driving advertisers from the platform and destroying X Corp.”

This is only the latest in a series of lawsuits related to advertisers leaving X over concerns of prolific, unmoderated hate speech on the platform. Elon Musk has not helped address these concerns – in fact, his frequent retweets and endorsements of antisemitic conspiracy theories have only served to further inflame an already tense situation. Musk’s most recent controversial post even earned him a statement from the White House and led to the president, first lady, vice president, and second gentleman creating accounts on Threads, X’s biggest competitor.

Companies like IBM, NBC, and Comcast, stopped advertising on X after the Media Matters report indicated that their ads were being placed alongside posts praising Nazis. Other companies like Apple, Oracle, Amazon, and NBA Mexico have also had their content appear next to anti-semitic and white nationalist posts. Apple, Warner Bros., Discovery, Disney and Paramount Global (the parent company of CBS) have since pulled advertising from X as well.

X has accused Media Matters of “knowingly and maliciously” portraying ads next to hateful material “as if they were what typical X users experience on the platform.” X continues to allege that Media Matters “manipulated algorithms governing the user experience on X to bypass safeguards and create images of X’s largest advertisers’ paid posts adjacent to racist, incendiary content, leaving the false impression that these pairings are anything but what they actually are: manufactured, inorganic and extraordinarily rare.”

The keen-eyed among us would have seen this most recent suit coming, as Musk posted on X over the weekend threatening to launch a “thermonuclear lawsuit” against Media Matters when the courts opened on Monday. Media Matters President, Angelo Carusone, has stated that the group stands behind its report, and this lawsuit is nothing but an attempt to bully X’s critics into silence.

Considering the ongoing suits related to social media addiction in the US, the timing of this most recent defamation lawsuit seems to be less than ideal. Many users have not been happy with the changes made under Musk’s ownership, and it’s hard to see how their rigorous defence of hate speech on their platform will be changing people’s opinions for the better.

Entertainment

Bell Rings in Streaming Changes?

Earlier this week representatives from Bell met with a panel from the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) to discuss the Online Streaming Act. The Act, which we wrote about previously in the GME3, aims to address concerns that online streaming platforms, such as YouTube or Netflix, are not required to promote Canadian content, unlike more traditional forms of media like TV or radio.

Bell’s input boils down to two main points. First, the CRTC should create a news fund that provides money to Canadian broadcasters and requires foreign streamers to contribute to the subsidy through their Canadian content spending. Simultaneously, Canadian streaming platforms such as Crave should be exempt from new obligations until traditional broadcasters receive regulatory relief.

Bell argues that traditional broadcasters in Canada are facing a crisis. Traditional platforms are losing customers to streaming services, driving a decline in broadcasting revenue. Currently, traditional broadcasters also face much more of a regulatory burden than their streaming counterparts. And if that wasn’t enough, the rise of streaming services has also driven the price of content up as more competition enters the market.

If the Bell representatives are correct in their assessment, then it does seem that traditional Canadian media outlets are in trouble. How are they supposed to compete with streaming platforms with bigger budgets, less government oversight, and fewer residuals to pay artists? Hopefully, the Online Streaming Act can start moving us in the right direction to level the playing field for Canadian content.