00:00Eight years ago today, the Supreme Court of the United States of America, some people refer to it as SCOTUS,
00:07Supreme Court of the United States of America.
00:09I've heard that.
00:10Really, it should be SCOTUS-a, as opposed to SCOTUS, but that's either here nor there, said that it's up
00:15to the states.
00:16If you want to let people gamble on sports, it's up to you.
00:19Eight years ago today.
00:21I'm going to say that it's a net negative for sports. It is.
00:26And I disagree with you.
00:27You think it's a net positive?
00:28Yes.
00:29Okay, why?
00:30Well, I'm sorry. I'm still regurgitating.
00:31Yeah, that's what I'm saying.
00:32I apologize for that.
00:34All right, while you do that real fast, this is why I think it's a net negative.
00:36Go ahead.
00:37I think that one of the things that's important for sports is a certain amount of civic pride in that
00:42most of the time you're from New York, you pick one of your New York teams and that's who you
00:46look for.
00:47And that happens in cities all over the country.
00:49Which is why the Dallas Cowboy Lions are always out of whack.
00:50Right, for that reason, because they're everywhere.
00:53Right, they're everywhere.
00:54What I don't like about the gambling is, and I think that since it's only been eight years,
00:58we have not seen all the repercussions.
01:00No, we've not.
01:01I think, and I'm not just talking about, shoot, we'd be gambling on everything as it is and the issues
01:05that you've been so, you know, you've talked about at great length.
01:08I'm talking about now you have a group, a generation coming up that doesn't have that civic pride that comes
01:14with sports.
01:14That's right.
01:15They just root for players or their money.
01:17My kids are a testament to that.
01:18And I think that that's a dangerous game long term for every franchise if you don't have that built-in
01:25loyalty.
01:25Tyra's point is if you have money on the game, your fandom changes.
01:28Yep.
01:29Right?
01:29Your fandom becomes who you have your money on.
01:31And if you wind up betting on Steph Curry every night and Steph Curry delivers for you every night, you
01:37very quickly become a Steph Curry fan.
01:39Right.
01:40And while you may have grown up a Knick fan, all of a sudden you're watching every Golden State game.
01:44So it's this issue of fandom there, which I'm not, you're not wrong about that at all.
01:48I think there's a lot of truth to that.
01:49But it's a net positive for me because when you hear all these leagues, and I guess I've got to
01:57separate, it's a net positive for the leagues, it's probably a net negative for fans.
02:02Okay.
02:02Because there's a certain percentage of them, about 2%, that are going to become problem gamblers.
02:06And that's a living hell that you don't want to deal with if you do go down that road.
02:10I've lived it, right?
02:12It's a net positive because when people have money on games, and this is like the research they've done.
02:18I wish I could quote the actual research, I apologize if you're not having it in front of me, but
02:22I can speak to it because I live in that world.
02:25Fans watch games longer.
02:27Really?
02:28Fans watch games more when they have money on the outcome of the game.
02:33And from a sports perspective, they're always fighting for more eyeballs and then to get those eyeballs to watch for
02:40a longer period of time.
02:41Well, it's intrinsic evidence now, it's tangible proof that people that wager on sports watch more sports.
02:48People that wager on sports watch sports for a longer period of time than people that do not have money
02:55on the outcome of games.
02:56So from a league perspective, and I actually talked to Adam Silver and Gary Bettman about this over the last
03:02month on my radio show,
03:04they acknowledge the fact that especially for them, less hockey than basketball, in-game wagering, what they call live wagering,
03:12is there going to be, you know, what happens on the next possession?
03:16What happens on the next pitch?
03:17Huge in baseball as well.
03:18Has actually, they believe, is the causal reason for their ratings being up.
03:25I can buy that.
03:26And I have to even say, on Friday, for game three of Sixers-Knicks, NBC, I think, had it.
03:33Whoever had the game, no, Prime had it.
03:35Go ahead.
03:35And Prime's been playing with it.
03:36They did the updates on the line.
03:39Now, the game got out of whack, so they stopped at some point.
03:41But the Sixers were, I forget, they were underdogs of the game.
03:45After the first quarter when the Knicks started making shots, they started updating the lines, the live odds, during the
03:51game on Prime.
03:52So, put it this way.
03:53Anyway, let's say, that's a great example.
03:55Sixers-Knicks.
03:56Knicks are up 50 on the third quarter.
03:59Not only saying you, but a good percentage of people went, click, game's a wrap.
04:03And that's what many people did because it's a non-competitive game.
04:07Well, all of a sudden, if you're one of these people that's gambling.
04:11You mean like me who took the Sixers plus the 35 and they lost by 30?
04:16Yeah.
04:16So, I won?
04:17Right.
04:17Something like that?
04:18I mean, that's what I did.
04:19Whether it's that, whether it's the next possession, basket, no basket, turnover.
04:23You can bet on every part of it.
04:24Yeah.
04:25It's been great for the sports.
04:27The prediction market's great for the leagues.
04:30Because, again, while there are going to be problems associated with it, and the leagues claim to care about those
04:35problems, the leagues care more about how many eyeballs do I have.
04:40Because the more eyeballs I get, and the longer those eyeballs watch my sport, the more I can charge for
04:45advertising.
04:46So, the reason I think it's a two-sided coin is that from a league perspective, right, it's a net
04:53positive.
04:54More eyeballs, more advertising revenue.
04:56And if we have to deal with the occasional, you know, wayward player that wagers on the game, well, it's
05:03just one guy here, one guy there.
05:05Right.
05:05We don't think the integrity of the sport is really being damaged.
05:09And they might be right up to this date.
05:11There's going to come a point where there's a bigger scandal, and the integrity is damaged.
05:15But they're making more money because of it.
05:17Right.
05:18But think about long-term.
05:20You went to the game with your son.
05:23And your son, you're a Knicks fan.
05:24I was there, game.
05:25Game, I'm going to stop you there because it's a great example.
05:27The guy sitting to my left.
05:29Jalen Brunson in game two against the Sixers, pardon me.
05:34He started slow in that game.
05:35Yeah.
05:36He only had like three or four points in the first quarter, right?
05:38The guy sitting to my left goes right to his app.
05:42The overrunner for Jalen Brunson for that game after the first quarter was 26 and a half points.
05:47He took the over.
05:49Jalen Brunson scored 26 points in that game.
05:52Right.
05:52He lost his bet.
05:53That's a tough one.
05:53But in a game that very, very late, Knicks had was up by a couple possessions.
05:58It got away from him late.
05:59That guy is eyeballs glued to the court.
06:02Right.
06:03And I think individually you're correct.
06:04But your son, who's in his younger 20s, has been a fan his whole life in large part because of
06:10you and living in the area.
06:11Yeah.
06:12Is it good?
06:13And Knicks fans took over Philadelphia.
06:14I hate it, but it happened.
06:16Right?
06:16And Knicks fans are so passionate.
06:18Are we comfortable, though, with a generation of kids, a generation from now where they go, they're not rabid about
06:25the Knicks because they don't root for the Knicks.
06:27They root for their bets.
06:29And I think that that could be an unintended consequence long term.
06:32Well, I think, look, I don't think that part of it's necessarily generational because, like, if you're a diehard Sixers
06:39fan.
06:40Yeah.
06:40And you decide on a weekend to responsibly put 25 bucks, let's say, on the Miami Heat.
06:46Yeah.
06:46Well, obviously, you're not rooting for the Miami Heat.
06:49Right.
06:49Doesn't mean you're not a Sixers fan still.
06:51Right.
06:51It just means that night you became a de facto Heat fan.
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