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Nicole Noren, a longtime ESPN producer, says she left the network after its growing involvement in sports betting conflicted with her experience of gambling addiction in her family. In a Columbia Journalism Review interview, she also said pitches for tougher reporting on gambling companies were not approved, while ESPN has not responded to those criticisms in the material provided.
Nicole Noren, a longtime ESPN producer, says she quit the network after its embrace of sports betting conflicted with her experience of gambling addiction in her family. In an interview with the Columbia Journalism Review, Noren said she had worked at ESPN for 24 years and left after the company moved from keeping distance from betting to promoting gambling partnerships and products.
Noren told CJR that ESPN’s decision to license its name to the ESPN Bet app in 2023 was the point at which she decided to leave. “I was out,” she said. “I’m not going to work for a gambling company and have blood on my hands.” The source describes the app as an embarrassing flop and says ESPN replaced it with a partnership with DraftKings.
According to CJR, DraftKings advertisements now appear across ESPN coverage, and the companies enabled customers to link their accounts in March. A company release described the arrangement as going beyond traditional marketing. The source says the ESPN Bet deal was projected to generate $1.5 billion for ESPN over ten years; it does not provide details on the deal’s eventual financial performance.
Noren said she had raised ideas for reporting on gambling companies and addiction, but that her proposed stories were not approved. She also criticized a program on the subject that ESPN eventually aired, saying it was “very neutered.” Those are Noren’s accounts of ESPN’s editorial decisions; the source material does not include a response from the network.
Betting Ties Meet Editorial Concerns
Noren’s departure puts a personal and newsroom dimension on ESPN’s growing commercial relationship with sports gambling. She spent much of her career producing investigative journalism for Outside the Lines, covering subjects including gender-based violence, college students’ mental health and concussions. Her account raises questions about how a sports outlet can report critically on an industry that is also an advertising and business partner.
Her criticism is not evidence that ESPN’s coverage was directed by betting partners, and the source does not establish that the network suppressed particular stories at their request. But Noren says she saw more difficulty pursuing stories involving business stakeholders and says gambling investigations she proposed did not go forward. That account matters to readers who rely on ESPN both for sports coverage and for information about betting products the network promotes.
Noren also ties her decision to her family’s experience, saying her grandfather, father and brother were affected by sports gambling addiction. Her account cannot establish the broader effects of ESPN’s partnerships, but it shows why the shift was not an abstract business decision for her: she viewed the promotion of betting through the lens of harm she had witnessed at home.
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ESPN’s Shift Toward Sports Betting
ESPN’s relationship with gambling changed after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a federal ban on sports bookmaking in 2018, according to CJR’s account. The following year, Bob Iger, then chief executive of ESPN parent Disney, told investors he did not see Disney getting involved in gambling “in the near term.” Noren said the network’s internal stance gradually changed over the years that followed.
In 2023, ESPN licensed its name to ESPN Bet, making the network’s betting promotion more direct. CJR reports that the app was later replaced by the DraftKings partnership. In March, the companies added the ability for customers to link ESPN and DraftKings accounts, extending the relationship beyond advertising, according to the report.
Noren’s career included 24 years at ESPN and work recognized with Emmy, Murrow and Peabody awards, CJR reported. She said she was entrusted with sensitive investigative reporting, but also described a change in the environment for stories involving company stakeholders. The interview offers her perspective; it does not provide internal records or an independent account of editorial discussions.
“I don’t see the Walt Disney Company, certainly in the near term, getting involved in the business of gambling, in effect, by facilitating gambling in any way.”
— Bob Iger, then Disney chief executive, as quoted in the CJR report
Questions About ESPN’s Editorial Decisions
The source material does not give the date of Noren’s final day, identify when specific gambling-related pitches were rejected, or include ESPN’s response to her account. It also does not establish whether the network’s business relationships influenced particular editorial decisions. Noren’s descriptions of a story being “neutered” and of leaders’ reaction to her concerns are her own recollections.
The report characterizes ESPN Bet as an embarrassing flop, but does not supply user numbers, revenue figures or other measures to quantify its performance. The $1.5 billion figure is presented as the projected value of the original deal over ten years, not as money ESPN is confirmed to have received. The source also does not detail the terms or financial value of the DraftKings arrangement.
ESPN’s Betting Partnership Continues
The source describes the ESPN-DraftKings relationship as active, including advertising across ESPN coverage and account linking introduced in March. It does not identify a scheduled decision, review or change to the partnership. ESPN’s first Super Bowl broadcast was approaching when Noren spoke to CJR, but the material does not provide a subsequent update on the broadcast or on the network’s betting policies.
Further clarity would depend on responses from ESPN and additional information about its editorial safeguards, the handling of gambling-related pitches, and the commercial terms and performance of its betting agreements. Until then, Noren’s interview remains a former employee’s account of why she left and of concerns she says were not addressed.
Key Questions
Who is Nicole Noren?
Nicole Noren is a former ESPN producer who worked at the network for 24 years, primarily on the investigative program Outside the Lines, according to CJR.
Why did Noren leave ESPN?
Noren said she left after ESPN embraced sports betting, including its 2023 deal to license its name to ESPN Bet. She said her family’s experience with gambling addiction made the network’s betting promotion unacceptable to her.
What did Noren say about ESPN’s reporting on gambling?
She told CJR that multiple pitches for tougher reporting on gambling companies and addiction were not approved, and that a program on the subject was “very neutered.” These are Noren’s claims; the supplied material does not include ESPN’s response.
What is ESPN’s relationship with DraftKings?
CJR reports that ESPN replaced its ESPN Bet arrangement with a DraftKings partnership. The companies run betting advertisements across ESPN coverage and enabled customers to link their accounts in March, according to the report.
Has ESPN responded to Noren’s criticism?
No response from ESPN is included in the source material. It is also unclear from that material how the network handled the specific reporting pitches Noren described.
Source: hn
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