What is theScore?
theScore is a sports media application based in Toronto. Penn National Gaming — since renamed PENN Entertainment — announced on 5 August 2021 an agreement to acquire Score Media and Gaming Inc. and completed the transaction on 19 October 2021 for approximately US$2.0 billion in combined cash and stock, US$17.00 in cash and 0.2398 Penn National shares for each theScore share.[1][2]
Two characterisations of the business circulate and both are the company's own. theScore described itself at the time of the 2021 agreement as empowering "millions of sports fans through its digital media and sports betting products", with a media app users spent 113 minutes a month inside, and as "the number one sports app in Canada and the third most popular sports app in all of North America".[2] Penn National repeated the second of those in its completion release: "theScore is the third most popular sports media app in North America and number one in Canada."[1] Neither statement is adopted here; both are reported as claims by the parties to the transaction, and no independent measurement supporting them could be retrieved.
What does theScore cover?
theScore's product is a general sports application — scores, news, statistics and alerts across the North American leagues and international competitions — rather than a rights-holding broadcaster. It carries no live-game rights of the kind held by the television services, and the events it covers are the same leagues Canadian audiences follow on those services: see the NHL, the NBA, MLB and the CFL.[2]
The media product is operated in explicit connection with a sportsbook. theScore's 2021 announcement set out that theScore Bet users who also used the media app produced 88 per cent higher handle per user, placed three times the number of bets per user and showed a 91 per cent increase in day-30 retention — figures published by the company to explain the commercial logic of holding media and betting together.[2] Yogonet reported on 11 December 2025 that, following PENN's exit from its ESPN Bet partnership, theScore Bet had become PENN's primary United States sports betting brand, live in 21 states as at 1 December 2025, and that PENN had hired Nate Ravitz to lead theScore media.[3] That is a single trade report and is carried here as such.
How large is theScore's audience?
The most recent figure that could be retrieved is Yogonet's report of 11 December 2025 that theScore media app had "more than four million monthly active users, roughly two-thirds of whom are in the U.S."[3] That rests on a single secondary source; it implies a Canadian user base of roughly a third of the total, but the report does not state a Canadian figure and none is asserted here.
No Comscore Canada figure for theScore could be retrieved, and no audited Canadian monthly-user figure is published in the sources retrieved for this page. The earlier company statements — "number one sports app in Canada", 113 minutes a month in-app — date from August 2021 and are the company's own.[2][1]
Since when has theScore existed?
The name has belonged to two distinct businesses and they should not be run together. The television channel called The Score began as the alphanumeric service Sportscope in 1994, was licensed as Sportscope Plus in 1996, launched as Headline Sports in 1997 and became The Score in March 2000. Rogers Communications announced on 25 August 2012 that it had concluded a deal to purchase Score Media Inc., subject to approval; the CRTC approved the change of ownership on 30 April 2013; and on 4 June 2013 Rogers announced that the channel would be rebranded Sportsnet 360 from 1 July 2013.[4]
The digital business continued separately under the theScore name and was later reconstituted as Score Media and Gaming Inc., the company Penn National acquired in 2021 with the Levy family continuing in leadership.[2][1] The founding of the television channel, the sale of that channel to Rogers and the acquisition of the digital company by Penn National are three different events on three different dates.
Why does theScore matter in Canada's sport?
Its primary form is an application rather than a channel or a wire, and it sits directly at the junction of sports media and regulated sports betting — a junction that became a live question in Canada after single-event wagering was permitted and that PENN has made the centre of its strategy for the brand.[3][2]
It is also a Canadian business whose measured reach is now mostly outside Canada: about two-thirds of the reported four million monthly active users are in the United States.[3] And its television lineage runs directly into Sportsnet: the channel it became in July 2013 after the Rogers purchase is listed as Sportsnet 360 among the national discretionary services licensed to Rogers Media Inc. on the CRTC ownership chart dated 9 February 2026.[4][5] See sports in Canada and browse media.
References
- PENN Entertainment — Penn National Gaming completes acquisition of Score Media and Gaming Inc., 19 October 2021. Accessed 2026-09-18.
- theScore — Penn National Gaming to acquire Score Media and Gaming, 5 August 2021. Accessed 2026-09-18.
- Yogonet — Nate Ravitz named head of theScore media by PENN Entertainment, 11 December 2025. Accessed 2026-09-18.
- Canadian Communications Foundation — Sportsnet 360, The History of Canadian Broadcasting. Accessed 2026-09-18.
- CRTC — Ownership chart #27c, Rogers discretionary services, 9 February 2026. Accessed 2026-09-18.