DraftKings Ads Pulled From ESPN Following Fantasy-sports Scandal

A day after reports of alleged insider trading in fantasy sports, ESPN pulled DraftKings sponsored and billboard advertising from its platforms. A DraftKings employee admitted last week to prematurely releasing information about which players were most used in contestants' lineups before the week's National Football League games were underway - and won $350,000 betting on rival site FanDuel, according to The New York Times. The Walt Disney Co. unit had committed to spend around $250 million in ads over two years, Re/code has reported. "It is standard procedure for us to pull these kind of sponsorships and integrations when we are covering significant news, to avoid any suggestion of influence on our coverage," an ESPN spokeswoman told MarketWatch in a statement.