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00:00It is a groundbreaking day for college football. I don't know if you feel about this in a good way or a bad way. I think traditionalists in a bad way for the rest of us, you're going to think this is pretty cool. Oklahoma State makes an announcement yesterday and they don't need to make an announcement because they have a QR code to do it. QR code speaks for itself for the Cowboys. For the first time ever in college football, you're going to see a QR code for the Cowboys.
00:27You're going to see a QR code on the helmet of players on Oklahoma City, excuse me, on Oklahoma State. You're going to see this this coming season for Oklahoma State. Yes, it is going to basically be on the helmet so you can scan it and donate to the NIL fund of the Cowboys of Oklahoma State this coming season.
00:51Kind of crazy, folks. I know we use QR codes in everyday life to buy things, scan things, download apps and everything else, but here we go. In college football, we've got it as well. People are all upset about this. Oh, you can't have ads on the jersey. I mean, it's a new day and age, folks, of sports. Either get used to it or just get out of it. That's the best way that I could say it.
01:11All right, now let's get to the latest of the CBS potential sale here. Control of Paramount is in play. The long-term structure of CBS' sports parent company is in question as a new bid has emerged for the Control of Paramount Global. So this is for CBS Sports, of course, Paramount as well.
01:31And the new offer is within a 45-day go-shop period that is contained within the Skydance deal that allows Paramount's board of directors to seek alternate bids. It's a $4.3 billion bid to take over the company. And there's also a breakup fee that's involved. Paramount-Skydance merger. That's what we're looking at. We'll touch on this more with Simon Applebaum coming up.
01:57But it is potentially a groundbreaking deal for CBS Sports and Paramount as well, which means, of course, you'll probably have to download a new app or something like that. You won't need Paramount anymore. You'll need something else. All right, now let's get to on-the-field action here. Jalen Daniels will be under center for Kansas when they open up the season against Lindenwood. That's coming next week. Jayhawks coach Lance Leopold confirmed that the quarterback who is expected to be in the Heisman Trophy conversation is ready to go.
02:26If you're not familiar with Daniels, one of the best quarterbacks in college football, but has also been hurt a lot. And he's going to start when they open up next week. It's a circled game in college football, which means you can't bet a lot on it. But needless to say, when you don't play against a Division I opponent, that's what happens.
02:42How about the starting quarterback for South Carolina, Shane Beamer? Beamer makes the announcement. Not Shane Beamer, the pitcher. Shane Beamer, the head coach. He makes the announcement that Lenaris Sellers is going to start for the University of South Carolina. He is the starting quarterback for the Gamecocks as they open up SEC play with a new look SEC. Talking about a lot of different options that he had that's caught some people by surprise. But Beamer Ball is back, and it is Sellers starting for him.
03:12This morning, I informed Lenaris that he would start next Saturday afternoon against Old Dominion. Met with him this morning. Like I said, both of them were great. I meant what I said to you guys on Saturday, David, after the scrimmage, that I really feel like we have multiple quarterbacks that we can win with. And Robbie really did some good things on Saturday, and he's going to help us win football games this season. Davis Bevel did some good things.
03:41Dante Reno came in there and did some nice things on Saturday as well. So we have a lot more depth in that room than what we had last year. But as I told Lenaris and Robbie both when I talked to him this morning, we're continuing, like every position, the guy that gives us the best chance to be successful is going to be the guy that's out there week in, week out.
04:00And that's not to say that we're going to be rotating quarterbacks every two plays or anything like that. We're not doing that. But they've got to continue. Lenaris has got to continue to progress like he has been. And Robbie's got to continue to progress like he has been. And that's only going to make us better.
04:15Yeah, South Carolina needs quarterback help. They're hoping Sellers is their guy for the entire season, but Beamer very clearly named other quarterbacks in play as well. Keep an eye on that game as they face off against Old Dominion as they open up the season. Rutgers, meanwhile, lost a very key contributor to a torn ACL. Muhammad Toure, who led the team in sacks and tackles for losses, is going to miss the 24th season with a torn ACL. He was a team captain. Greg Sciano, the head coach, said he will undergo surgery and miss the game.
04:46Meanwhile, Pete Carroll is back, but this time it's college football. He's returning to USC in a teaching role. He'll start teaching classes at USC this spring. There was no specifics there, and I guess he didn't get a gig in the NFL or college football. Carroll, by the way, when he was essentially retiring, let go, whatever you want to say from Seattle, said that he wanted to continue to keep going. That is not going to be the case.
05:09All right. How about sports betting in the National Football League? This is a very slippery slope, which we've been talking about now here for over a year. The NFL has a new suspicious betting activity mandate, a six-key rule gambling obligation. Never bet on the NFL. Never have someone bet for you on the NFL. Never share inside team information. Never gamble at your team facility. Never enter a sports book and never play daily fantasy football.
05:39So what does this mean? It means that a lot of players can play fantasy football this season. Okay. That's good news. Just can't play daily fantasy football. Meanwhile, C.D. Lamb still holding out for the Dallas Cowboys. Jamar's Chase still holding out for the Cincinnati Bengals, two of the best wide receivers in the NFL. Nothing on Chase. We do have an update on Lamb. Jerry Jones said that there have been some promising talks regarding a contract extension, but needless to say, no update beyond that.
06:04By the way, a fire has broken out at a guest room at the Dallas Cowboys Hotel. They're playing in Oxnard and training there as they have for many years. Players and coaches were basically asked to leave the hotel and then everything is fine there. Meanwhile, Brian Flores, the former head coach of the Miami Dolphins, got to give him credit at the very least for speaking about this whole Tua Tagovailoa situation, was asked by the media about it, stood in front of a podium as a defensive coordinator.
06:30The Minnesota Vikings said that he is genuinely happy for the success that Tua had. Also talked about some different learning situations. Gotta give, I mean, a lot of people just crushing Brian Flores. Gotta give him credit for stepping up to the podium. He didn't have to talk about it. He ended up doing it.
06:43All right, Major League Baseball. Yesterday, the Dodgers scored three runs in the eighth. They beat the Seattle Mariners yet again. Seattle's falling apart. Gilbert Flaherty, those are the starters tonight in that game. The Guardians beat the Yankees 9-5 in 12 innings. New York now second in the East. Not a great day for Verdugo and LeMahieu and even Gleyber Torres. 0-4-15 combined.
07:05The Orioles beat the Mets on a wild play yesterday, like a Little League error type play, where they threw the ball home, got past the guys, threw it back to the outfield, got past the guys, threw a ball home, threw it back to third. I see this all the time in Little League. Orioles play the Mets once again today at 1 o'clock Eastern. Also, the Chicago Cubs have released Hector Neris, their relief pitcher that they signed in the offseason. No doubt he'll get picked up by someone if he's going to play in the postseason, though that has to happen in the next 10 days.
07:32Meanwhile, let's get to some college hoops. John Calipari will make his return to Rupp Arena on February the 1st when Arkansas plays Kentucky. The SEC men's basketball schedule was released on Tuesday. Also, in the WNBA, the Liberty won again and they're crushing teams. 94-74 yesterday against the Wings. They are 24-4 on the season.
07:55Also, the Connecticut used a 14-0 run to defeat the LA Sparks, 69-61. They did not cover the spread and the Mystics have had a rough season, to say the least. They lost to Seattle by a final of 83-77 yesterday.
08:10Welcome back to Newswire here on Sports Grid. We're going to give Pat Evans a double dose for you guys over the next couple of days. Pat is all calm and nice. We're going to talk about sports betting stories around the country. He's going to come back next week and then Michigan State opens up and that is when Pat starts getting nervous on the show and it's hard for him to focus, but Pat, you still got a little time here. I believe you have like 10 days, maybe nine, 10 days until the Spartans open up, so you're handling things okay?
08:39Yeah, I'm doing okay for now. It's a little worrisome coming off the last year, which was not great, but we had a lot of turmoil, if you all remember what happened. It can't be worse than last year, the way I'm looking at it. For you, you've got a really tough schedule, so it's probably bad, but for you, I'd be looking forward to Florida basketball, which apparently has a 7'9 freshman, which I learned today and he's a very large man at 7'9, of course, but he's not real thin like you see a lot of young, tall teenagers.
09:08So that's going to be fun for you, I think, come this winter.
09:12Listen, if you could get me to November at this point with the Gators football, I mean, come on, Pat. I mean, I got a long way to go until we get to that point, but fair enough. All right, let's get started here. Missouri, one of the states we're keeping an eye on as far as getting sports betting going.
09:27Seems like the sports betting operators are also jumping on board. What's the latest with DraftKings and their attempt to help out Missouri here a little bit?
09:35Yeah, so just a little bit of history. If you don't tune into the show all the time when I just speak about Missouri ad nauseum for the last three years and how much they've struggled, you know, they've had a couple legislative pushes that have gotten over the hump in the House that have been supported by the casinos in the state, the sports books in the state, the sports teams in the states, particularly the St. Louis Cardinals.
09:57And then after the latest failure, which the House didn't even send to the Senate because there's a single senator over there saying, I don't want sports betting unless it's connected to video lottery terminals, which are those slot machines you see in gas stations and the like.
10:10And in Missouri, there's a certain rule that basically a single lawmaker can kill a piece of legislation.
10:19Finally, the stakeholders got fed up and they said, listen, we're just going to put this to the people. And so beginning last fall, there was a big ballot push.
10:28They needed 170,000 signatures to put it on the ballot. They got 370,000, turned it in early. It was verified just last week to be on the ballot in November.
10:39Up until last week or through the ballot signature gathering push, we've had about $6.5 million donated from both FanDuel and DraftKings. So, you know, the big sports books are saying, hey, we want this to happen.
10:54But then there was a couple months of nothing happening. And I think that was just because you're waiting to put it on the ballot.
11:00Well, now that it's on the ballot, DraftKings on Friday, according to the Missouri Ethics Commission, donated a $3.5 million check to the Winning for Missouri Education.
11:11It's called that because the sports betting funds in this proposal would go to fund Missouri's teachers, which are some of the most underpaid in the country.
11:22And, you know, I talked to the spokesperson for Winning for Missouri Education, which everybody pointed me to, whether it was DraftKings or the Sports Betting Association.
11:35They all pointed me to Jack Cardetti, who said, you know, over the next 11 weeks, we're just going to use the money that we get.
11:41We're going to use the time to educate voters to get this on everybody's minds and show that why it's important.
11:50Now, when we get to November, it's going to be close. I don't think there's any doubting that.
11:54We've had a lot of polling over the last two years. Earlier this year, we've seen, you know, 60 percent saying they're supporting supportive of sports betting funds going to education.
12:06That was a couple of polls. More recently, we've seen a poll that was really split and it was about 40 percent said they were for it.
12:13You know, 30 percent said they weren't and then the remaining were kind of undecided.
12:17So it's going to be a close vote. It's going to be really interesting to watch.
12:22You know, I'd heard rumors that there would be some opposition from some significant parties.
12:27I haven't heard anything more. Of course, that would be filed in, you know, at the governmental level.
12:32So I'm watching that closely to see if there is any big parties that pop up in opposition.
12:38But so far, so good. And yeah, it's going to be just a really close race.
12:42And you have to wonder after having two close calls in the legislature this year, kind of just a wash and that single senator being out of the Senate next year, what happens if it fails?
12:55And that's going to be something even more interesting post-November is if it doesn't get passed by voters, what does the legislator think?
13:03Do they think a lot of people don't really want this? Do we still take this up as a big issue?
13:08And so there's a lot of things riding on this ballot proposal in November.
13:13And we'll see. And it's huge for the industry because there's no North American.
13:18Well, I guess Alberta, which we'll talk about tomorrow, probably.
13:21But there's no U.S. market on the horizon for U.S. sportsbooks.
13:25So this is a huge reason why draftings and FanDuel are putting a lot of money in Missouri.
13:31Yeah, no, I had a conversation with somebody yesterday and somebody asked me, like, what is the next big sports betting push?
13:40And Pat, you know, we talk about it every day here, but it's like if it's not California and if it's not Texas, I mean, where is the word big?
13:48Like there is no big like so some one of these states has got to get done over the next six to eight months.
13:54All right. So new commentary here and a memo from the American Gaming Association.
14:00The word sweepstakes being brought up quite a bit. So a lot of this is portending to casino gambling, I'm guessing.
14:07Tell us more about what the American Gaming Association had to say.
14:10Yeah. So this comes about the same time as, you know, this summer we saw it a couple of conferences,
14:16the North American Gaming Regulators Association and the National Council of Legislators from Gaming States.
14:22Both conferences had panels that kind of discussed these operators.
14:26They're, you know, finding their cracks in regulatory frameworks to offer these games to the public.
14:33And it's you can gamble for free. I guess it's not gambling. You're playing for free.
14:38You're earning coins. And it's an ecosystem where then you can exchange coins for money, you know,
14:45whether it's time played or for real money or however, and you can withdraw actual money.
14:51And so the AGA has come out with a memo and they're just asking regulators across the country to kind of take a closer look
14:58and see if it fits within their framework or adjust the framework or however they want to do it
15:04to just ensure that the regulated gaming industry in the U.S. is working.
15:08And then the AGA is, you know, pretty wide open in how they address it.
15:13It's an interesting story. If you want to go look at our story at the Legal Sports Report, we link to the letter.
15:20It explains it in great depth of what they're asking. It cites in my state of Michigan, you know,
15:27there was a cease and desist of several sweepstakes operators.
15:30They have decided to pull out or they did decide to pull out and they're no longer operating.
15:35So it's just it'll be an interesting kind of couple of months to see if regulators do kind of take action,
15:41whether it's CNDs or changing regulations to kind of, you know, allow this or what happens.
15:48It'll be certainly an interesting time.
15:50All right. Well, Pat, before you go and you'll be back tomorrow.
15:53Is there any update on sports betting online in Nebraska?
15:57We've been following this now. I thought that something was supposed to come down last Friday, but I didn't see anything.
16:03Yeah. So Nebraska, it was an interesting special session.
16:07They spent a lot of time filibustering, talking through one kind of one bill.
16:12Of course, that was property tax reduction, which was at the governor's request for this special session.
16:18In it, there was the potential that a sports betting bill to expand online.
16:23They have retail sports betting in Nebraska would get through to help kind of supplement property tax losses.
16:31It did not get brought up to the floor. They adjourned sine die yesterday.
16:37And so it's not getting done. Now, that said, Governor Pillen does say there's a sports betting priority bill.
16:43A priority bill means it's going to be kind of talked about in the January session.
16:48However, it'll still probably be an amendment, which means it will not be able to be on the ballot until 2026.
16:54So online sports betting in Nebraska will still be a few years away.
16:58All right. Fair enough, Pat. Great stuff, as always.
17:00We'll see you back here tomorrow and get some more updates around the country.
17:03Thanks again for coming on Newswire.
17:05Thanks, Craig.