Making a trade… Casino owner Penn Entertainment made a deal with ESPN to launch an ESPN-branded sportsbook that'll replace its Barstool one, which struggled to win market share. After buying Barstool in 2020 for $550M, Penn sold it back to its founder, Dave Portnoy, for $1 (well, there's also a non-compete and other agreements). ESPN Bet is set to launch this fall in the 16 states where Penn has sports-betting licenses.

• Hail Mary: As cord-cutting continues, ESPN parent Disney is seeking to revive ESPN's revenue — and is even considering selling off the network if it can't. 

• Over-under: Penn estimated its ESPN deal could make between $500M and $1B a year, though experts say sports betting is a low-margin biz. 

2 teams dominate… FanDuel and DraftKings control an estimated 70% of the sports-betting market. The apps leveraged their fantasy-sports popularity and a blitz of marketing and sign-up offers to gain dominance. Lots of others are trying (slash tried) to break into the fast-growing biz — which after only being legal in 7 states in 2018 now rakes in $7.5B in 38 states + DC. Casino owners MGM and Caesars are a distant third and fourth, while Fox folded its sportsbook last month after failing to break through. 

• Barstool was under close scrutiny from regulators after Portnoy was accused of sexual misconduct last year. Portnoy said Barstool had been denied betting licenses because of him.

Reputation matters in a regulated industry… Portnoy said it's "back to the pirate ship" for Barstool, suggesting he doesn't have to be as careful about what he says and does now that he's out of the highly regulated industry. Meanwhile, Penn's new deal is with an established Disney subsidiary that cares about maintaining a family-friendly rep. Disney has so far been extra cautious in its strategy with entering the world of sports betting.

Battery level… We got some EV earnings this week from luxury-sedan maker Lucid and Rivian — the latter being the first company to deliver e-pickups. While both startups are in the no-gas game, their quarterly results were… different. 

• Lucid missed sales expectations as deliveries disappointed. It delivered only 1,404 of its Air electric luxury sedans — exactly two fewer than in the previous quarter, though up nearly 2X from a year ago. Its net loss widened by about $200M to $764M. 

• Rivian sped past revenue estimates and lifted its production guidance after delivering 12.6K vehicles — up 59% from the previous quarter and nearly triple its deliveries from a year ago. Its quarterly loss narrowed to (a still massive) $1.2B. 

Electric off-roading… A key difference between Lucid and Rivian: Lucid is more luxury for luxury's sake, while Rivian is geared more toward utility (think: adventure-focused trucks and SUVs). Americans love the utility life: trucks and SUVs are the most-sold car models in the US (Ford's F-150 pickup has been the best-selling vehicle in America for four decades). And its F-150 Lightning pickup was its only EV that saw sales rise last quarter from a year ago. Meanwhile, 96% of Tesla's deliveries last quarter were for its family-friendly Model Y crossover and Model 3 entry-level sedan.

EVs are racing downmarket… Tesla set the standard for e-luxury, but now it's a leader in EV accessibility, slashing prices several times this year. Ford followed by lowering the price of its electric F-150 by as much as $10K. This week, Lucid dropped the starting price of its high-end Air sedan from $87.4K to $82.4K to keep up with competition. But yesterday Rivian's CEO said it wouldn't join the price-cutting race because it's seeing strong demand for its trucks and SUVs.