Penn National Gaming has announced that it has agreed a deal to buy Toronto-based Score Media and Gaming for $2B. The deal will see Penn National take control of theScore sports betting platform as the company looks to extend its reach across North America.
As part of the deal Score Media and Gaming shareholders will receive $17 in cash along with 0.2398 shares of its common stock for each theScore share they own. This will bring the total share price to $34. The deal was unanimously approved by the boards of both companies and is expected to be finalized sometime in the first quarter of 2022. Once the takeover is complete, Penn National will own around 93% of Score Media and Gaming with Score shareholders retaining 7%.
Speaking in a press release, Penn National president and CEO Jay Snowden said:
“We are thrilled to be acquiring theScore, which is the number one sports app in Canada and the third most popular sports app in all of North America. theScore’s unique media platform and modern, state-of-the art technology is a powerful complement to the reach of Barstool Sports and its popular personalities and content.
We are now uniquely positioned to seamlessly serve our customers with the most powerful ecosystem of sports, gaming and media in North America, ultimately creating a community that doesn’t currently exist. Users will enjoy a unique mobile sports betting and iCasino platform with highly customized bets and enhanced in-gaming wagering opportunities, along with highly engaging, personalized sports and entertainment content, and real time scores and stats. We believe this powerful new flywheel will result in best-in-class engagement and retention.
Snowden went on to speak of how theScore’s technology would benefit Penn National in the long term adding:
“Importantly, the transaction provides us with a path to full control of our own tech stack. theScore has developed a state-of-the-art player account management system and is finalizing the development of an in-house managed risk and trading service platform. This should lead to significant savings in third party platform costs and allow us to broaden our product offerings – providing the missing piece for operating at what we expect to be industry leading margins. In addition to the synergies, we’ll be gaining access to theScore’s deep pool of product and engineering talent and data-driven user analytics which will help drive our customer acquisition, engagement, retention strategies and cash flows,”
John Levy, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of theScore, said of the deal:
“This deal brings together two companies that share a vision for how media and gaming intersect, and we could not be more excited to join the Penn National family. I’m proud of theScore team and all of our accomplishments, and believe the time is right to take the next step and align with a company in Penn National with the resources and scale to accelerate our business. We are excited to join forces with Penn to form the most powerful media and gaming company in North America.
The deal will see Penn National gain access to theScore’s 4 million daily active users, two thirds of whom are based in the US while the remaining third are located in Canada.
Following news of the takeover, theScore shares soared to finish the day up 80% while Penn National shares rose by 9%.
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