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00:00But we begin with tonight's game in the National Football League, and look, they're opening
00:08up with a good one.
00:09It's the Kansas City Chiefs again on opening night.
00:11If you haven't been paying any attention over the last few months, the Chiefs are three
00:14point favorites tonight.
00:16Total of 46 and a half, 46 and a half is the game going in tonight.
00:22New kickoff rules also, first time we're going to see these in an NFL game, so should be
00:26a lot of fun to watch.
00:27Naturally, they've had a lot of time to prepare for this, and Andy Reid, the head coach of
00:32the Kansas City Chiefs, happy with where things stand heading into Thursday night football.
00:36So, Florida's challenge is playing the Ravens, good football team, we know that.
00:40Had a good week of practice, guys are ready to go.
00:43I go in saying we're going to play well.
00:46That's how I go into every game, but no different here.
00:53I'm curious to see, you know, what we've got, I mean, that's always, I think that's
00:58probably with every player, every coach, every fan, every media person, curious to see what
01:03you have and how you handle everything, but that's the best part about it.
01:08We'll see how it goes.
01:11Should be fun tonight, and of course, in-game live, and Gabe tonight will have you covered
01:16on all of the action and live updates as far as where sports betting options are.
01:21Now, as far as college football and college sports is concerned, we've seen a new landscape.
01:26We've seen players now being paid.
01:28We've seen a transfer portal like no other, and maybe, just maybe, we're about to see
01:33even more as a judge is going to hear the NCAA's case on objections today.
01:39Now, there's a California-based federal judge that's overseeing these antitrust lawsuits
01:45that could potentially reshape college sports for the first time on Thursday.
01:49There's a judge that's going to ask questions, gather information from plaintiffs, defendants,
01:54and other parties to decide whether to grant preliminary approval for a settlement between
01:59the NCAA, its five power conferences, and a class of former and current Division I athletes.
02:06A lot of players played the game previously and never were paid and used their name and
02:12likeness for many, many years.
02:13This will be a groundbreaking case if indeed it happens, trying to determine whether or
02:17not these student-athletes were actually employees for many years, so stay tuned.
02:22This would be a huge, huge monetary settlement to all of the college athletes that were involved.
02:28Meanwhile, we've got some breaking news from the National Football League.
02:31The Washington Commanders have fired an employee who made comments about a team's players being
02:36anti-gay, accuses Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones of being racist and anti-gay as well,
02:42called NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell a $50 million puppet.
02:45Wow.
02:46The team also fired its Vice President of Content, Raul Antin, just now, who has been
02:52with the organization for four years for comments that he made to an undercover reporter for
02:57the O'Keefe Media Group.
02:58According to a social media video, Antin had met the reporter on the dating app Hinge and
03:04met with her twice at local restaurants.
03:08Wow.
03:09The Washington Commanders have released a statement, the language used in the video
03:13runs counter to our values at the commander's organization.
03:17They said in the statement that they suspended the employee, but they've just fired him.
03:20So this just happened minutes ago, so we don't even need to show you the statement anymore.
03:24It's sort of irrelevant.
03:25Okay.
03:26Now, let's move on to the National Football League.
03:27As we said, week one begins tonight.
03:29Chiefs and Ravens should be a good one.
03:31Tomorrow night, we'll have the NFL playing in Brazil.
03:34It's the Packers and Eagles, and amid some concerns that the players are sort of scared
03:40for their family's safety, San Paolo has tightened security ahead of the NFL game in
03:44South America, and naturally, this is going to be the first time the NFL's opened up on
03:49a Friday night, let alone in Brazil as well.
03:51Really good news too, though, from the National Football League, like I'm telling you, good
03:54news.
03:55DeMar Hamlin is back as a starter for the Buffalo Bills.
03:58First time in over a year, he's going to start in the secondary against the Arizona Cardinals
04:03and met with the media to talk how great it is to be back as a starter with the Bills.
04:09It's truly a blessing, you know what I mean?
04:12I reflect back on the whole process, and not knowing if I would even be able to play again.
04:19Sitting in that uncertainty was like eating at me.
04:22It was really eating at me, because football's truly my passion.
04:26It's the thing that I've always been obsessed with my entire life, so just sitting back
04:31and thinking all the way back then, but it just all goes to the power of being process-oriented
04:37and taking things one day at a time and accepting where you are at each moment of the process.
04:42It truly allows you to conquer anything of what you're facing.
04:47Very well said by DeMar Hamlin, who'll start this weekend against the Cardinals.
04:51Now, meanwhile, Jamar Chase, believe it or not, appears to be practicing with the Cincinnati
04:57Bengals without, I said without, having a new contract extension.
05:01All of the media seems to be indicating rumors and reporting that a deal could get done as
05:08early as today, but as of now, no new deal for Jamar Chase, and folks, they play the
05:12Patriots coming up on Sunday, but Chase did practice yesterday, so that would put him
05:19in line to play Sunday if they can get a deal done.
05:21Meanwhile, the Florida Gators have already made a quarterback change.
05:25Graham Mertz with a concussion, so they're turning to freshman DJ Lagway.
05:31He's going to make his first career start on Saturday against Samford.
05:35Mertz is in concussion protocol.
05:38Lagway was a fantastic high school player, number eight in the ESPN 300 and Gatorade
05:44Player of the Year in 2023, and he'll get his first taste and test against Samford.
05:50Meanwhile, you saw this last week, LSU's John Emery hurt in LSU's game, and he did tear
05:56his ACL.
05:57He's going to miss the remainder of the season.
05:59Caleb Jackson will start at running back for the Tigers.
06:03Also in college football tomorrow night, by the way, no games today, tomorrow night, BYU
06:08will take on SMU.
06:09They'll play that game in Dallas, and also Memphis basketball coach Penny Hardaway has
06:13been making headlines now a lot for the last couple of years.
06:16Yesterday, he announced the firing of four staff members, assistant coaches Rick Stansbury,
06:23Faragi Phillips, James Rosser, and Demetrius Dyson will not return to the team.
06:30And Hardaway and the school have not explained why, and they open up the college basketball
06:33season in less than two months, so go figure.
06:37No hitter in Major League Baseball yesterday, Shoto Imanaga, who's had a fantastic rookie
06:41campaign, he threw seven no-hit innings.
06:44They brought in a couple of relievers to complete it, and they did.
06:47And Isak Peredes, by the way, had three errors in the game as well.
06:52It was a great, fantastic finish.
06:54For the Chicago Cubs, who put themselves right back in the playoff picture, Craig Council
06:57impressed with what he saw.
06:59It's always hard to do in that situation, but, you know, look, just, you're taking care
07:06of Shota.
07:07I mean, that's, it's 100% about taking care of Shota and making sure we're doing the right
07:13thing for him.
07:15And so, you know, it, it, it's not fun to do, but when you're, you know, prioritizing
07:23the player's health and making sure that, you know, you don't know what's going to happen
07:28moving forward and we want him to stay healthy, he's at a career high in innings and doing
07:33a great job.
07:34He actually didn't know he had a no-hitter going at all, which is, which is funny.
07:41But yeah, we, Tommy and I talked about it, you know, we considered it, frankly, after
07:47the sixth inning.
07:49I would tell you right now, the craziest market on FanDuel in baseball this year has been
07:53the NL Rookie of the Year.
07:55Imanaga, the favorite, Schemes, the favorite, Merrill, the favorite, Imanaga, the favorite.
07:59This thing has gone all over the place.
08:01San Francisco Giants signed Matt Chapman to a contract extension, so he'll return to San
08:06Francisco.
08:07Six years, $151 million.
08:09The White Sox finally won last night.
08:11They snapped a 12-game losing streak, and in addition, Bryce Harper left the game last
08:16night with a hit-by-pitch on the left elbow.
08:19We'll see what his status is, injury-wise, as the Phillies get ready to play the Marlins
08:24this weekend.
08:25Welcome back to Newswire.
08:26Here on Sports Grid, Sam McQuillan is with us on the opening night of the National Football
08:30League from Legal Sports Report.
08:32You can read about all of these stories over at legalsportsreport.com.
08:35Sam, college football, all the way back now, we're a week and a half in, basically, and
08:41the NFL returns tonight, and naturally, we've got a lot of topics to discuss.
08:45Thanks for coming on the show.
08:46Yeah, thanks for having me, Craig.
08:48All right, so let's get started here, and by no surprise, we're expecting the most amount
08:54of money bet all time, legally, on the National Football League this season.
08:59Is there anything else that's fair to say beyond that, because that's the easiest prediction
09:03in the book?
09:04Yeah, this number has gone up every year, as you accurately allude to.
09:09We have more states betting on sports, more states legalizing sports, more people betting
09:13on sports.
09:14You're going to have more money bet on sports.
09:16This number, $35 billion, comes from the American Gaming Association, which is the industry
09:22lobby.
09:23They monitor, pretty much, all the legal wagering that goes on.
09:26It would be a 31% rise from last season, which is pretty significant to me, given that we
09:32don't have that many new states on board this NFL season.
09:35You only have Maine and Vermont, which are pretty small, and the biggest one being North
09:39Carolina, which was kind of the only big, significant launch we had this past year and
09:45a half.
09:46So the fact that you're going to have a 31% increase in dollars bet, just from adding
09:50those new states, I think that's pretty big news in and of itself.
09:54That means it's not just the bettors in these new states that are going to be contributing.
09:58Maine and Vermont, there's not even pro sports teams in those states, although North Carolina
10:03obviously is pretty big.
10:04It means that wagering is growing in other states as well, some of the oldest markets,
10:09which is a really good sign for the industry.
10:11You always talk about when it's going to consolidate.
10:13When are people going to get tired of betting?
10:15If you look at a state like New Jersey, which was one of the first to launch sports betting,
10:19their wagering is actually up about 23% from last year, and it keeps going up and up in
10:27every other state as well.
10:28So when you talk about companies trying to figure out how to get more money out of people,
10:33how to get people to bet more, people are betting more and more, and it doesn't seem
10:36to be stopping.
10:37We only have about 38 states with legal sports betting in Washington, D.C.
10:42So there's definitely some more that will probably add to this number in the coming
10:46years.
10:47Maybe you have California, Texas down the line.
10:49Obviously, this number will balloon at that point, but we don't know when that's going
10:53to be.
10:54We don't know what the world of legal sports betting is going to look like.
10:56Obviously, NFL is a huge draw, so $35 billion just legally on this season as well.
11:02They estimate a lot of the money still goes to the black market as well.
11:05So it's a number that continues to go up, which is a good sign for the industry.
11:09Yeah.
11:10Look, it's only natural to think, as you said, once one of the bigger states gets legalized,
11:14this number could really jump.
11:16Now, as far as some of the odds are concerned going into the season, what we're noticing,
11:20Sam, at least initially, is the oddsmakers have made a lot of the NFL totals a little
11:25higher going into the season, a point or maybe two points or three.
11:29They sort of look off, to be honest with you.
11:31A lot of these games, you're wondering why the totals are so high.
11:34Do you think it has a lot to do with these new kickoff rules?
11:37Because it seems to be an indication of that.
11:39Yeah.
11:40It's really interesting just looking at the totals in general.
11:43When you think about how many games have gone under over the last two or three years, there's
11:48been a big trend where an unusual amount of games have been lower scoring than the books
11:53have predicted.
11:54I caught up with some oddsmakers this past week to ask them about these new kickoff rules,
11:58which makes some pretty big changes.
12:00There's going to be a landing zone.
12:01The ball must be kicked in between the goal line and the 20 to try to encourage more returnable
12:06balls in play.
12:07Players are going to have to wait until the ball lands or is caught to then pursue whoever
12:11has the ball, which is designed to make the game safer and less high-speed impacts.
12:16Essentially, oddsmakers think you're going to have the ball higher up the field to start
12:21and you're going to have more scoring opportunities, which in turn is being reflected in these
12:25higher totals.
12:26At DraftKings, the totals opened up about half a point higher than they have in past
12:31years.
12:32I caught up with Johnny Avello, who's a sports trader at DraftKings, who explained, yeah,
12:36we're bracing for these rule changes, but obviously we don't want to overcorrect as
12:40well.
12:41That's why you're not seeing sky-high totals accounting for all these new touchdowns.
12:44It's going to be something they monitor throughout the year and monitor how bettors and the public
12:49react to it as well.
12:51We've had rule changes in the past in college football.
12:53You had the first down change last year where the clock wouldn't stop.
12:57The initial thinking was maybe that's going to make the game slower, less scoring.
13:01It didn't.
13:02So oddsmakers are aware that you don't want to overreact to stuff.
13:05You don't want to underreact to stuff, and you also want to listen to what the market
13:08is telling you.
13:09So right now, there's a lot of money coming in on the unders in these games, but obviously
13:14ahead of kickoff, that's when a lot more of the money comes in, a lot of the public interest,
13:18which would probably come in on the over as well.
13:20So it'll be interesting to see week one if we have any returns.
13:23Last year, only the Texans had two kickoff returns.
13:27FanDuel is offering a new market.
13:29Which team is going to have the most kickoff returns?
13:31So it'll be interesting to see if the team finishes with more than two or if these rules
13:34just kind of status quo.
13:36Yeah, I would agree.
13:37And again, I think we'll get a good indication in the first halves of a lot of these games
13:41because the field position will tell a lot of that story.
13:44It's a good point by you, Sam.
13:45All right, let's get over to FanDuel.
13:47And we know the American Gaming Association is trying to make sure everybody is informed
13:51going into this upcoming NFL season how to bet responsibly.
13:54And it looks like players who are of the younger side is particularly of FanDuel's interest,
14:00making sure that they understand the risks of sports wagering.
14:04Yeah, the theme kind of of this past year has been what can the industry do to not only
14:08promote responsible gaming, but make it beyond just a boilerplate.
14:12Hey, bet responsibly.
14:13Here's a number.
14:14So you're seeing the leaders like FanDuel go in and start kind of their own initiatives
14:19on their own without waiting for the industry to tell them something, without waiting for
14:24some kind of crackdown or anything like that.
14:27So they're launching this new campaign with a former NBA player, Randy Livingston,
14:31which is centered around parents having meaningful conversations with their children
14:36or coaches having meaningful conversation with the kids they coach about the dangers
14:42and risks of gambling, how to spot early warning signs, how to seek help.
14:46You know, sports betting is such a new thing in the light of our society.
14:50It's obviously been going around, been going on for a long time, but it's now on commercials.
14:55Kids see it all the time.
14:56So FanDuel wants to make sure that, you know, you're having a conversation with your kid
15:00similar to the way you might talk about alcohol when they're, you know, turning 18
15:04or around high school age.
15:05They want to give parents and coaches those resources because a lot of the times I think
15:09people just don't really know how to talk about this in general.
15:12You know, it's great to say that responsibly or be careful, but what does that really mean?
15:16How do you give people help?
15:17So they launched this series this week, which is a bunch of meaningful conversations
15:21with this coach who's a former NBA player who's going to try to give people the tools
15:26and give parents the resources to inform the kids about the dangers of gambling.
15:31So hopefully it works out for FanDuel.
15:33Hopefully it's a good campaign that gets picked up a lot nationally.
15:37Yeah, I would agree.
15:38I would agree.
15:39All right.
15:40Thanks, Sam, once again for coming on.
15:41We'll keep an eye on the games and certainly appreciate all of the information that you
15:44give us over at legalsportsreport.com and the updates.
15:47Thanks again.
15:48Yep.
15:49Thanks a lot, Craig.
15:50All right.
15:51Sam McQuillan with us from Legal Sports Report.
15:52Now, for those of you following the WNBA, in case you missed it last night,
15:56Kaitlyn Clark's second triple-double gave the Indiana Fever a victory over the LA Sparks
16:01by a final of 93-86, in case you missed that yesterday.
16:05Next up for the WNBA over at the U.S. Open, Yannick Sinner beat Danielle Medvedev,
16:08and so he moves on to the U.S. Open semis.
16:12Kenny Ducey on the show yesterday picked an underdog named Jack Draper,
16:16and he ended up winning.
16:18He defeated Alex DeMenard 6-3, 7-5, 6-2 at the U.S. Open,
16:23and Jessica Pagula ousted number one on the women's side,
16:28Iga Svytek, as she moves on to the U.S. semis over at the U.S. Open as well.