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00:00But I wonder how everybody feels about this piece of breaking news
00:02that we heard in the last 24 hours.
00:04A lot of disappointment on social media with this,
00:07that the NCAA has decided officially to expand the NCAA tournament.
00:12The field of 64, nope, that's gone.
00:15The field of 68, no, that's gone too.
00:18The basketball tournaments are going to 76 teams
00:21on track for this coming NCAA tournament.
00:26I know it's about a year from now in March, but I mean, yeah.
00:28I mean, just a formality at this point, 76 teams in the NCAA tournament.
00:33When are they going to start this thing?
00:34The weekend before the actual tournament?
00:36I don't know, but days of traditional sports, I guess we could just eliminate.
00:41All right, New York Knicks came up big in the NBA playoffs last night.
00:453-2, they take the lead on the Atlanta Hawks.
00:47The game was not close.
00:48Brunson was a monster.
00:49He had 39 points, eight assists.
00:51Jalen Johnson had 18.
00:53Felt like Atlanta, honestly, sleepwalking through this one,
00:57and they're going to get back to Atlanta, see if they can win the next one,
00:59and then who knows what happens in Game 7.
01:01But a lot of adversity for the Knicks, and this series is going longer
01:04than some people thought.
01:05Here's Mike Brown on them coming back early and then blowing the Hawks out late.
01:10To go from the two one-point losses to these two pretty decisive victories,
01:14just what does it tell you about your team's response to adversity?
01:18You know, they're resilient, and we talked about it throughout the course of the year.
01:23You know, you've got to go through some adversity throughout the course of the year
01:27to see what you're made of as a group, see how you're going to respond.
01:31And, you know, you've just got to keep fighting.
01:35And our guys have been through a lot so far this year,
01:40and they continue to go through it, but they've been through it as a group.
01:45And there's nothing that will deter the group.
01:49They're a veteran group that knows what they want
01:52and how to go get it no matter what's in front of them.
01:56Well, you know, they did what they were supposed to do,
02:03protect at home court.
02:04And we were never, their defense never really let us establish, you know,
02:16consistently how we need to play to beat them.
02:19And we have to be more committed to, it's really like imposing your will.
02:29All right, so we'll see what happens coming up in Atlanta this weekend.
02:33Meanwhile, the Philadelphia 76ers,
02:35they're looking forward to playing this weekend as well.
02:37That's right.
02:37They beat the Celtics last night, 113-97,
02:41one of the best playoff performances we've ever seen from Joel Embiid.
02:45He came up big, 33 points, eight assists, and four rebounds.
02:50What did it take to really dig deep and get this one done tonight?
02:54Obviously, you don't want to go home, so you've got to do whatever it takes.
02:58I thought defensively we did a much better job, especially not overhelping as we did last game.
03:09And, yeah, then offensively becomes a little easier when you're making shots.
03:15We definitely made more shots than we did last game.
03:18So that's a good combination when you want to win a basketball game.
03:22You guys have been in every one of these situations.
03:24Just your thoughts on heading now to Philly to try to close it out as well?
03:28Yeah, just trying to find a rhythm and play through the physicality.
03:32You know, it's playoff basketball, so, you know, you've got to play through the physicality.
03:37So, you know, tonight I feel like they shot the ball better than us,
03:41which doesn't happen a lot, but they shot the ball from three better than us.
03:46And, you know, we just got to respond.
03:49It's the playoffs.
03:51All right, we'll see if the Celtics can do that this weekend.
03:53Meanwhile, the Spurs last night took care of their business and closed out their series with the Portland Trail Blazers.
03:59Another game not particularly close.
04:001-14 to 95.
04:02Victor Wimbayama, 17 points, 14 rebounds, 6 blocks.
04:07The Spurs will face the winner of the Timberwolves and Nuggets series.
04:11So, very big win for Mitch Johnson and company.
04:15And the Blazers, really nothing to hang their head over, but certainly here are the Spurs on moving on.
04:20What have you kind of grown over these last series with your first experience in the playoffs?
04:25Yeah, I think, you know, all the things that are discussed regarding the playoffs are real, obviously.
04:30The physicality, the competitiveness, every single possession is survival.
04:36And I think when you play a team, every single day that you play a game, it comes a lot
04:44less of a cute strategy.
04:49And I think there's a lot of ways that I can continue to help these guys more than I did
04:53these five games.
04:54But it was a whole lot of fun, and they did a great job.
04:56And I was just really pleased with their competitive response, again, against a team that I think has been as
05:01competitive and as physical as we've seen all year.
05:03And not just during the playoffs, that was during the regular season as well.
05:07Proud of them the whole year.
05:11You know, start to remember the whole season and what we went through.
05:16And just, again, we compete every night for the most part.
05:23And that's what we are proud of.
05:28All right, NBA playoffs continuing tonight.
05:30We'll get a preview coming up with Daniel Collins in just a few minutes.
05:33Let's get to some baseball here.
05:34Don Mattingly's first official game as interim manager of the Phillies is in the books.
05:38And it's a win, 7-0.
05:39The Phillies blow out the Giants and also hold them to two hits.
05:43Jesus Lozardo, who's had a tough season, was great yesterday.
05:46Seven innings pitched and eight strikeouts.
05:48Don Mattingly, after the game, very emotional on being back in the skipper seat and picking up the win.
05:54It feels great, obviously, for us to win and not necessarily for me.
05:58You know, this is not about, you know, how I'm going to do or whatever.
06:03It's really about our club.
06:05And it's a good win for us as a team.
06:08Hopefully this is a start of, you know, us playing better baseball.
06:13I liked the game tonight.
06:14We were clean.
06:15We didn't kick the ball around.
06:17I felt like we were aggressive.
06:21Good at bats.
06:22I mean, I can probably answer most of your questions.
06:25Zeus, aggressive in the zone.
06:26You know, getting after it.
06:29A lot of good things happened tonight.
06:32Also, the return as the Blue Jays feel good about their young starting pitcher.
06:36Trey Savage, first start of the season since the World Series last year.
06:40They beat the Red Sox 3-0.
06:42He savaged five and a third, three strikeouts.
06:46Pitched fantastic.
06:47Here is John Schneider, skipper of the Jays, on seeing his young hurler back on the mound.
06:53John, how did it feel to be in the dugout watching Trey on the mound again?
06:56Really good, to be honest with you.
06:57I said that to Pete in the first inning.
06:58You know, it's like we haven't had a whole lot of, you know, feel, you know, feel.
07:04Everyone hasn't been here that was here last year kind of at the same time.
07:07So, it was nice, man.
07:10I thought he pitched really well.
07:12I thought he got better as he went on.
07:14And it was just nice to see him out there competing, you know, like on the mound, coming into the
07:20dugout, things like that.
07:22And, yeah, it was great.
07:23Good first outing for him.
07:25Pitchers duel last night between the Yankees and Rangers as we thought it would be.
07:28Cam Schlittler out-dueled Jacob deGrom.
07:31Schlittler picks up the win.
07:32It was a 3-2 final.
07:34Aaron Judge homered again.
07:35Three straight games.
07:36He now has 12 on the season.
07:38Aaron Boone discussed the duel in Texas last night.
07:41Aaron, what do you think of that pitcher's duel early between Schlittler and deGrom?
07:45Yeah, good.
07:46I thought Cam was really good for us, deGrom for them.
07:49You know, two big, tall, lanky, power-pitching righties.
07:54So, yeah, it was, you know, obviously runs were tough to come by.
07:57I actually thought we swung the bat well.
07:59I thought we hit a lot of balls on the nose, you know, for some tough outs.
08:04You know, obviously a big run there, two-out run there when Belly hits the double and Aaron's able to
08:10score.
08:11So, and then just some good things along the way.
08:15You know, a big homer there.
08:17All right, Stanley Cup playoffs.
08:19Let's get to that real quick.
08:20Bruins beat the Sabres 2-1.
08:22So, they lead the series 3-2.
08:23Wild beat the Stars 4-2.
08:25They lead their series 3-2.
08:26And the same with the Ducks.
08:27They lead the Oilers in their best of 7-3-2 as well.
08:32The Oilers finally getting a big win last night, 4-1.
08:36All right, we got Sam McQuillan here from Legal Sports Report.
08:38Let's go over the very latest in sports and sports betting.
08:41And this week, unfortunately, we got a lot of scandals percolating here.
08:45So, let's get to the very latest with Sam.
08:46Sam, thanks for coming on the show.
08:48This is a very big one.
08:49Texas Tech probably put their arms up like, how did we know that this was going to happen?
08:53And we had no clue.
08:54Now, they're looking for a quarterback, I think.
08:56Brendan Soresby has checked into a treatment program for gambling addiction, seemingly placing
09:01a lot of micro bets and doing some other things that he wasn't supposed to be doing.
09:06I don't know how this is going to work.
09:08I'm sure that the school is going to want to just figure it out and make it work, Sam.
09:12But, yeah, I'm just not sure that that's going to actually happen here.
09:16I'm guessing some sort of fine, probably even furthermore, a suspension, if not a ban of some
09:21kind, could be coming.
09:24Yeah, it's a tricky situation, especially for Texas Tech, when you talk about Soresby,
09:29who was the number one transfer portal player entering this year, projected to earn about
09:33$5 million in NIL.
09:36And then it comes out, obviously, before the season even starts, before he even takes a
09:40snap, that he's under an investigation with the NCAA for allegedly betting.
09:45You mentioned micro bets that I believe were flagged on games when he was a member of Cincinnati
09:52football, betting on the Reds, supposedly, as well as a flurry of bets on other sports,
09:58including from when he was a member of the Indiana Hoosiers all the way in his redshirt year.
10:05So if you're Texas Tech, you're like, why did we just pay this guy five mil to be our starting
10:11quarterback?
10:11And it comes out now that he was gambling way before he was even at the school.
10:17Again, important to note that NCAA rules prohibit, really, sports betting on any kind of sport
10:24if you're a D1 athlete.
10:25That includes professional sports, so you can't go to the baseball game and place tons
10:29of micro bets.
10:30They were trying to change that rule last year, but they suddenly stopped changing it because
10:34you had all these scandals come out.
10:36So it kind of reminds me, honestly, of the Terry Rozier situation with the NBA, where he's
10:41currently under investigation for allegedly rigging bets on games.
10:46Obviously, that's different, but that happened when he was a member of the Charlotte Hornets.
10:50Then the Miami Heat traded for him, and then it came out after that that he had allegedly
10:56done this activity while he was a member of the Hornets, and the league had already investigated
11:00it.
11:00So if you're Texas Tech, you're kind of like, why did we basically buy something that was
11:06already kind of damaged goods, or somebody knew about this?
11:08So I think that will be the really interesting thing to watch here, is how that kind of changes
11:14the response or the penalty that comes down.
11:17You know, he could lose up to his entire eligibility for betting on a sport that you play in.
11:24The minimum bet, if you bet on that, is about 50%.
11:28But if it's a team that you're on, it's way more.
11:31So this might be a case where they try to make an example of him.
11:34And of course, he'll have a lot of people talk about, you know, he wasn't betting against
11:38himself, or he wasn't, you know, doing any people make a ton of money off of betting.
11:44Why can't the players do it?
11:45So it really is a more nuanced conversation this kind of brings to light.
11:49But again, not great news if you're Texas Tech.
11:51And I imagine it's just one of those cases where it's supposedly technology working the
11:56way it's supposed to, catching bad actors.
11:58But then, you know, if you're Texas Tech and the NCAA, you have to kind of deal with the
12:01results and the headlines as they come.
12:03Yeah, it's going to be tough for Texas Tech hitting the portal again, I would assume.
12:07We're trying to figure it out.
12:08I mean, college football season is now closer than it is, I guess, further away from that
12:12national championship coming up later this summer.
12:14They get back on the field.
12:15All right, let's get to Arkansas.
12:17Some very big results here from some of these sports betting operators.
12:21You can read about this over at legalsportsreport.com.
12:23Sam, why is Arkansas having such big numbers here in the month of March?
12:27Is it solely surrounding college basketball or is there more to this?
12:32Yeah, Arkansas is one of those states that for a long time has really only had one sports
12:36betting app.
12:37And it's been a very limited market as a result.
12:39But just in March, it allowed DraftKings and FanDuel to enter the market now with three
12:44operators.
12:45And betting growth was up about 40% year over year in March.
12:49So some of that obviously was the NCAA tournament, more people betting.
12:53But a lot of that is because DraftKings and FanDuel were coming to town and bringing a lot
12:57of money with them.
12:58It was about $87 million was bet in the month of March, which is not only a March record,
13:04but it's a record for Arkansas in general.
13:06And it was really interesting to note, too, DraftKings and FanDuel were only active for
13:10about 12 days of the entire month.
13:12And still betting growth was up about 40%.
13:15So it just kind of shows you the brand power that those apps still have, even when you talk
13:20about prediction markets and other alternative platforms that are out there.
13:24The interesting thing here, however, is the state didn't make any tax revenue from it.
13:28And that's because the operators didn't make any revenue themselves.
13:32They actually paid out $8 million more than they took in.
13:35So revenue was more than handle.
13:38And that's because a lot of that handle was just promos that they flooded the market with
13:42because of the state structure, sign up bonuses, free bets, just basically FanDuel and
13:48DraftKings buying market share very aggressively in Arkansas, which if you look at the online
13:53sports betting map, it was 30 out of 30 states last year in handle per capita.
13:59So basically, out of all the online sports betting states, people were betting the least
14:03there.
14:04And that's because, you know, again, they really only had one brand.
14:07There's also some complicated rules with operators being required to remit at least 51% of their
14:14revenue to their casino partner.
14:15So that complicates the framework a little bit as well.
14:18The new deal that DraftKings and FanDuel are under is not public.
14:22So but it's kind of, you know, we can kind of look at it and say maybe they don't have
14:25that stipulation as well, which, again, is why there's so much more money being flooded
14:30in the market.
14:31So, you know, the big picture is kind of there's it's generating more betting and it's good
14:35for the market.
14:36The bigger kind of takeaway is that the state's not making any tax revenue off of that, at
14:41least right now.
14:42So we'll see how that changes going forward, but it's definitely an interesting state to
14:45watch as we talk about online sports betting for the rest of the year.
14:50Yeah, definitely Arkansas and maybe some of the other states in the south coming alive
14:53here.
14:54We'll see Georgia, Alabama in the future, especially with mentioned college football
14:58season, really right around the corner again.
14:59All right, let's get to Penn and Penn making a very big move with their CEO, Jay Snowden,
15:07reducing some of his pay.
15:08And we know certainly Penn has been in the news a lot over the last few years surrounding
15:13the different ways and directions they have gone as far as sports betting is concerned.
15:17And I'm guessing that's primarily the reason for some salary reduction here.
15:22Yeah, it's definitely the reason.
15:24And you don't have to look far to figure that out.
15:27Shareholders have been kind of complaining about this the past two years as Penn bought
15:32Barstool Sportsbook, tried to launch that out, tried to make a big business out of that
15:38for online sports betting, failed miserably, sold it back to founder Dave Portnoy for one
15:43dollar, then pivoted and gave ESPN about two billion dollars to use their name.
15:48Then that was a complete disaster, moved on from that and is now doing the score bet.
15:52But in the background of all of that, you've had the investors kind of saying, why is the
15:57CEO making so much money when this has been such an abject failure?
16:01Their words, not mine.
16:02So in response, Penn had a bunch of shareholder meetings these past couple of weeks where
16:07shareholders, I think about 60 percent of them largely said they wanted his compensation
16:11to be more tied to the performance of the company, specifically with online sports betting.
16:17So he'll now make up to eight million less next year, potentially again, more tied to
16:23the performance of the product up from 70 percent, which is what it was previously.
16:29Now, 80 percent of his pay will be tied to the actual performance.
16:32Also interesting to note that they changed the compensation comparisons for Snowden away
16:40from CEOs of companies like Roku and Electronic Arts and other media and entertainment and
16:46more towards hospitality and gambling companies like Churchill Downs, like Hilton.
16:51So kind of reframing their strategy overall, too.
16:55We've seen here as they've moved away from those online sports betting brands, they've pivoted
17:00more towards being that hospitality company.
17:02They're trying to build a casino in State College around Penn State.
17:06They've seen a lot more success with iGaming lately as well.
17:10And they've kind of told us that we basically have conceded in trying to compete with DraftKings
17:14and FanDuel with these huge brands that we've grabbed and are now kind of fine trying to
17:19be humble and make more money out of our customers and differentiate ourselves as a brand that way,
17:25as opposed to the huge online sports betting saga, which now looks like it finally might be
17:29at an end with him taking a 30% pay cut and then pivoting more towards casino projects
17:34over the next couple of years.
17:35But Penn is still kicking.
17:36So it's always interesting to see what they're up to and what their plan is going forward.
17:40Yeah, definitely so.
17:42And look, I think that recognizing what the landscape is, a very big part of sports betting,
17:47falling behind, kind of seems like that's what happened with Penn.
17:50Thanks again, Sam.
17:51Appreciate it.
17:53Yeah, thanks, Craig.
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