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Political Football Disrupts Mahomes’ Charmed Life

In a glimpse of NFL turbulence ahead, the Houston Texans boycotted two anthems while superstar Patrick Mahomes did not kneel and fans booed, kicking off an election season that keeps score for the wrong reasons.

Jay Mariotti

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If only this was an ordinary kickoff to another NFL season, a chance to celebrate the humble audacity and babyfaced artistry of Patrick Mahomes. If only this was an ode to how he took over the league at 24, signed a $450 million contract during a pandemic, picked up his Super Bowl ring the day he gave his high-school sweetheart an engagement ring, bought a piece of a major-league baseball team, rocked the endorsement industry and still found time to put ketchup on his mac and cheese.

But try as we did Thursday night to focus on a real, rootable American superhero during an actual football game, the heat from the political blast furnace already was engulfing the country. If this was a kickoff, it started the clock on an eight-week tornado of social mayhem unlike any this land has seen. President Trump had warned NFL players not to protest during the national anthem, and this time he wasn’t lying, as he was last spring when he purposely downplayed the dangers of the coronavirus, explaining now, “I don’t want to jump up and down and shout `death, death.’ I have to lead a country.” Part of his posture on leadership is to ask Black athletes to shut up, stand for the national anthem, play football and set aside outrage about racial injustice and police brutality.

“If they don’t stand for the national anthem,’’ said Trump, “I hope they don’t open.’’

Well, the NFL opened. And America instantly became entangled in more upheaval, divided by pre-game events that mirrored our ideological chasm. Tears in his eyes, Mahomes did not kneel as Colin Kaepernick once did, standing with all but one of his Kansas City Chiefs teammates for the “The Star-Spangled Banner’’ minutes after they had stood, arms locked, for “Lift Ev’ry Voice And Sing,’’ the traditional Black national anthem to be played before NFL games. If Trump and his supporters surely approved that only defensive end Alex Okafor took a knee, they might have blanched when the Houston Texans boycotted both anthems by remaining in the locker room, with a team executive saying the players wanted “no misinterpretation of them celebrating one song and throwing shade on the other.’’ The Chiefs also left the field after both anthems and were booed — yes, booed — on the night the team raised a Super Bowl championship banner for the first time in 50 years. When the teams returned, they locked arms in a “show of unity’’ in the middle of the field just before kickoff, with fans continuing to boo in a largely empty stadium in the heartland.

An hour earlier, there was another jolting reminder that the activism is only beginning: Miami Dolphins players announced they’ll also stay inside for both songs, criticizing the NFL’s unification efforts as “empty gestures’’ and apparently unimpressed with how the league has painted “IT TAKES ALL OF US’’ in one end zone and “END RACISM’’ at the opposite end of all fields. “This attempt to unify only creates more divide. So we’ll skip this song and dance, and as a team we’ll stay inside,” Miami players said in a video. “We need changed hearts, not just a response to pressure. Enough, no more fluff and empty gestures. We need owners with influence and pockets bigger than ours to call up officials and flex political power.”

Said Dolphins coach Brian Flores, one of the league’s three Black head coaches: “We’ll just stay inside.’’

It was a potent message to the NFL’s 32 owners, 30 of whom are white: The protests will last as long as the players want them to last. Next thing you knew, there was an image of Joe Biden on the NBC broadcast, in a paid advertisement that excoriated Trump and urged America to “start fresh.’’

So off we go, political football intercepting the NFL season before it barely started. The face of the NFL, Mahomes, suddenly is a sellout, some will say, after a hot summer in which athletes in all sports kneeled and even boycotted games in protest. It’s unavoidable that people keep score in this regard, given the national condition, yet just as it’s a player’s right to kneel after centuries of racial inequality, it’s Mahomes’ right to stand. Problem is, Trumpers will see it as a victory — and the Democrats as a loss — that the superstar quarterback of the defending league champions did not kneel in Arrowhead Stadium, where a swirl of protests, infectious disease anxieties and America’s most popular sport converged with typical 2020 weirdness.

It was Mahomes, remember, who was front and center in the dramatic June video of players calling out the NFL for racial inequality. It prompted commissioner Roger Goodell, the very next day, to finally condemn racism after turning a deaf ear during the Kaepernick-led protests. Now, Mahomes wasn’t kneeling? He knew he couldn’t win whatever he did. “I’m going do whatever I believe and what I believe is right and I’m going to do whatever I can to fight for equality for all people,’’ he said. “I’m going to continue that fight and I’m not worried about people and how they’re going to do negative stuff back to me. I’m worried about doing what’s right for humanity and making sure that all people feel equal.”

The nation is talking over him today. How about listening to Mahomes? He wants change, and if he thinks standing is a better call than kneeling, it’s his call and his life. “It has become something where it’s whether or not you’re going to kneel instead of what the reason why the kneeling began in the beginning, which was social injustice and police brutality,” he said. “And I feel that’s been the biggest thing: It’s not necessarily the gesture, but we’re trying to fix something, we’re trying to make it where it’s equal, everybody feels safe, everybody feels secure, everybody can go about living their lives and they really, truly care about the person next to him. Every single time you get interviewed or you go out and you’re in public, people are asking, `Are you going to kneel, are you not going to kneel?’ They’re not asking about the actual injustices that you’re trying to fix and what you’re trying to help the community with.”

Was he shocked to hear boos? “Being out there, honestly, I didn’t hear a lot of booing,’’ said Mahomes, wisely avoiding a public flap. “I wanted to show unity. We wanted to come together and fight the good fight. I hope our fans will keep supporting us.’’

Said Texans coach Bill O’Brien: “I thought that that was a nice thing to do, so I’m not sure why they would boo that.’’

What’s sad is that Mahomes is as cool and grounded as advertised. He just wants to outwork, outthink and outperform the competition, as he showed again in throwing for three touchdowns in a 34-20 victory that suggests the Chiefs could repeat as champs. “There’s a reason the guy has the accolades and the money he does,’’ Texans star J.J. Watt said after Mahomes spread the field and used multiple weapons, including breakout rookie running back Clyde Edwards-Helaire. Just as he didn’t ask to be the King of Football, it’s unfair at his age to ask Mahomes to orchestrate reform against systemic racism, much less take a knee. He is all “about love,’’ working beforehand with Texans quarterback DeShaun Watson in how the teams stood united after the anthems. The boos were disconcerting — did Kansas City look and sound racist on a night of civic pride? — but they weren’t surprising. Unity, after all, never has been a more elusive goal.

We await the Sunday protests and reaction of Trump, which will trigger how some conservative NFL owners respond about possible repercussions if players kneel or stay in locker rooms. Goodell insists the league supports any decision by the players, including game boycotts, but the owner with the most influence, Dallas’ Jerry Jones, has sent scattered messages, asking Cowboys fans in one breath to “understand that our players have issues that they need help on,’’ then asking players “to be very sensitive to just how important it is to the majority of our fans, more than any other team … in recognizing what this great country is and what this flag stands for. Everybody knows where I stand. And there’s no equivocation there at all.” Jones will allow players to protest Sunday night in a new, spectator-less, $6-billion stadium in Los Angeles. He’ll throw a fit if there’s another such display days later in Texas.

Each NFL week, from now until early November, will bring new political winds. Giants owner John Mara is supportive of the players at the moment, saying, “I’m going to support your right to do that because I believe in the First Amendment, and I believe in the right of people, especially players, to take a knee in silent protest if that’s what they want to do.’’ But how will he and others feel if it’s happening in Week 8?

At least we had football again. This was an unprecedented day in U.S. sports history — never before had the NFL, NBA, NHL, WNBA, Major League Baseball, Major League Soccer and tennis’ U.S. Open played on the same date. But the opening of football, the American lifeblood, was bigger than just another sports event. It was the nation’s self-worth on stage — resilient and brave against the ongoing threats of civil unrest and the coronavirus. “America needed it. I needed it,’’ NBC analyst Cris Collinsworth said.

What Collinsworth couldn’t do was execute his trademark “slide’’ into the camera shot as the broadcast opened with partner Al Michaels. That’s because of social distancing protocols that weren’t obeyed by all Chiefs fans, in defiance of rules required masks of the 16,000-plus allowed in the 76,500-seat stadium. NBC’s Liam McHugh wasn’t through with his first pre-game report when a maskless fan leaned into view. Will the Chiefs enforce the law by ejecting the fan? Or is the protocol just more of the same lip service from a league that thinks it’s above COVID-19? The league has successfully prevented an early spread of the virus by agreeing to test players daily and keeping them inside “32 bubbles,’’ as Goodell puts it.

But now that players from opposing teams finally have spent three hours in full tackle mode, breathing and expectorating on each other, we’ll await the next test results. That is, assuming the league is transparent and not hiding data to avoid panic — which is what Trump did last spring, right?

I applaud Chiefs coach Andy Reid for trying to combat COVID-19 with a face shield attached to his red cap. Unfortunately, the plastic fogged up on a wet night. “It was a bit of a mess. We’ll get that cleaned up,’’ he said.

Besides, he had a more important message. Asked about the boos, Reid said, “I thought that was kind of a neat deal, both sides coming together for a cause, and the story was told there. We can all learn from this, and really it’s just to make us all better, even a stronger country than we already are. We have a chance to just be completely unstoppable when all hands join together, and that’s a beautiful thing.”

Completely unstoppable.

Have we heard anything so inspiring from either presidential candidate?

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Meet the Bettors – Kelly ‘In Vegas’ Stewart

“There’s so much free content out there. Like we have 38, 39 states about to be 40 states coming on board, and the more states that come on board, the more mainstream that gambling has gotten.”

Demetri Ravanos

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Kelly Stewart is the kind of person that the gambling media needs. She has thoughts not just on the players and results, but she thinks hard about the industry and what trends will be the next to rise to the top.

Maybe you first heard her name because of the controversy surrounding her hiring and firing from ESPN. Maybe you’ve never heard her name at all, because you only know her as Kelly in Vegas. 

What I can say for sure is that she isn’t hard to find. Her content is everywhere. She hosts shows for Outkick, the Superbook, and WagerTalk, a brand she also owns a piece of.

Kelly is the latest conversation in our Meet the Bettors series presented by Point to Point Marketing. We talk about the evolution of gambling Twitter, the challenges faced by media companies launching their own sportsbooks, and why customer service is so important for picks services.

Demetri Ravanos: Can you tell me how you learned to make your way, and I might even say conquer, gambling Twitter? I mean, that’s how most people came to know Kelly in Vegas in the first place. 

Kelly Stewart: Oh, boy. I don’t know if I’ve even still been able to navigate gambling Twitter. It is such an awesome place and very unique. I’m going to say that, because I have met some of my best friends in the world on gambling Twitter. But my brain also wants to say the word cesspool because that is also what it is, right? 

DR: Chris Fallica from FOX used that exact same word for it.

KS: There is so much hate and vitriol when in reality we all have the same goal. We’re all laying eleven to win ten. It’s all of us versus the bookmakers. These trolls on the internet, unless they’re bookies, which they could be, should not be mad at me. I’m not battling. You know, my good friend Hakeem has it pinned to the top of his page from years ago. “I’m not here to compete with anyone.”            

Once you kind of realize that the competition is you versus the books, this is a competition within yourself and you’re trying to be a better version of yourself every single day. Then you really start to look at Twitter a lot differently.            

I’ve muted several types of words. I muted tons of people. Unfortunately, I’ve had to block some people, but overall, I would say that is a great place to have some really cool discord, whether you agree on a team or you disagree on a team. I have gotten great information from absolute utter strangers in my DMs. “Hey, just so you know, this team’s flight is four and a half hours late.” I mean, this is years ago, before it became public knowledge like it was with the UConn team plane. It was stuff like “Oh, hey, I happened to watch practice today, and this is what happened to point guard A” or “Guy B got carted off.”          

Being able to get the best of the information is so critical. So, when you have that network and it works to your advantage, it can be a really beautiful thing. 

DR: So, whether it is because Twitter has changed or because the amount of access to gambling has changed, how have you seen gambling Twitter change? 

KS: Well, it’s crazy because when I got on Twitter in 2009, you just said whatever without any repercussions. Clearly, I was one of those idiots. You just got on and you just typed away.           

I could go on and say, “I don’t like Notre Dame for this reason,” and every Notre Dame person would be mad at you and tell you why you’re wrong. Then it became just such a bigger entity.    

You’re absolutely right. I think gambling Twitter, pre-PAPSA, was a little different. It was a lot more of a hateful place. Touts, people that sell picks, were all over it. It was like the tout world with the customers being able to talk back, and then there was a battle between touts. Who’s smarter? Who knows more? Who’s getting better information? Who’s got the best CLV (closing line value)?        

Now, it’s just such a free for all. There’s so much free content out there. Like we have 38, 39 states about to be 40 states coming on board, and the more states that come on board, the more mainstream that gambling has gotten. That’s really what’s happened to Twitter, too. It’s really brought out a younger demographic. I mean, some of these kids that produce content are barely old enough to place a legal bet, right? And they have more followers than I do! It’s because they’re objectively hilarious. They’re objectively more talented from the creative standpoint. No one is watching them because they win or lose. They’re watching them for entertainment.        

You even hear the word, wager-tainment, which my friend Nick Kostos coined. It’s really interesting because people are going to hate you even when you’re winning, right? They’re going to hate you when you’re losing, but they’re going to still hate you when you’re winning. But if they’re entertained, they’re going to stay around. It’s a really unique pair of words that he put together to describe what I think Twitter is really turning into. 

DR: Let’s circle back on something you said, regarding touts because I do want to ask you about that. But first, just sort of give me an idea of where all people can find your content these days because you’re not just at Wager Talk. 

KS: No, I’m actually all over the place. So, unfortunately, with the layoffs that happened over the summer at Barstool Sports, I was one of those and I thought, “You know, it’s end of June. Football season’s right around the corner. I’ve got a lot of work to do, and I can’t be worried about scrambling to find another job. I’m just going to freelance.” So that’s what I’ve been doing since then.           

I have talked with several companies about what I want to do, and I have to make some decisions with my agents, but as of right now, I’m all over the place. I revived The Kelly and Murray Podcast because that was something that I really enjoyed doing. I’m doing a little bit more stuff for the Superbook. I’ve been friends with those guys for years, so that was a very natural fit. You already mentioned WagerTalk, which has been such an integral part of my career. I owe those guys the world, and they gave me a little piece of the company, so that didn’t hurt either. Then I even got into doing some more of what I would call daily fantasy stuff, but more from the player prop side, which is kind of in a gray area.  Some people say it’s gambling, some people say it’s not. It’s definitely gambling. Whether that’s Betr or the Prize Pick world.           

I was doing the rough with Betr. Those guys were super fun because they are hyper creative. Like, that entire office is just a creative vibe. Those guys and I parted ways after Super Bowl because, well, there’s not a lot for me to do until football season starts again. Then I partnered up with the Slash Sports guys. So, we’re doing survivor contests. My girlfriend Pam and I did a Masters pool, which was really tough for me because I have been slacking on the golf front, which is why I decided to partner with Pam. She’s such a great golf handicapper.           

Now, I’m just trying to sift through all of it. Where do I want to be? I’m doing some of the stuff with Outkick, which, of course, is now owned by Fox. We’re in some negotiations about what is the bigger picture for me with them, but really, I’ve just been enjoying myself this whole season and saying, which is not something that when you’re under contract, you really ever get to do. You’re pretty much exclusive to that one entity, and that’s okay. That works for some people. I really like being able to kind of set my own schedule. I got to go to Mexico last week for one of my best friend’s birthdays. That would have never happened if I worked in a very rigid, corporate media position. They’d have been like, “you want to go where for March Madness?” I remember telling Clay I was like, “Oh, I’ll be in Mexico next week.” He goes, “Do you want to cancel the show?” I was like, “No, I’m doing it from the beach.” 

DR: As a gambling content creator, do you ever approach making a new video or podcast, whatever it might be, do you ever approach it with the idea of your goal being turning people into gamblers or are you always approaching it with the idea that you are talking to people that are already gambling? I don’t mean for that to sound nefarious, but is there ever stuff that you are putting out there in your mind, at least, part of the goal with it is to show people that might be interested that “hey, this doesn’t have to be as scary as you think it is?”

KS: That’s very interesting. A few years ago, we were filming a series at the Superbook on showing people how to bet. This was way before phones, right? Like we’re talking 2017, 2018. What it was, was “are you scared to walk up to the window? Well, here’s what you do before you walk up to the window.” So, you’re prepared, right? The videos did okay. Then phone apps came out. Now we don’t have to explain that to people because they just start typing on their phone and they figure it out, right?           

My boyfriend’s little sister, we live in Florida. She’s like, “I got a Hard Rock account.” I’m like, “why?” She got it because “I want to put money on the games with my boyfriend, and I want to have fun.” And I’m like, “how much money did you put in there?” She says, $200, and I go, “okay, what are you going to do when you lose that $200? Because it’s going to happen.” And she’s like, “Well, I haven’t thought that far yet.” I said, “Well, you should think that far.” You know, I hope at WagerTalk, what we do is educate people to become better bettors.           

I don’t think I actually have really done much in terms of growing people into gamblers. Maybe that’s something I should look at, because if you have somebody who’s green and doesn’t have any experience and you explain to them in the beginning, you are going to lose, you’re laying eleven dollars to win ten, and here’s the reality versus they’ve already been gambling for 50 years. Those people are like, “quiet lady, I’ve been doing this for a while and don’t need your opinion.” It’s kind of funny, because some of those people, you can’t educate them. There are other people who are willing to learn. I wish I had a better answer for you because I don’t think that I’ve ever gone into it. Like saying, okay, we need to get more gamblers, but definitely some companies I’ve worked for, that’s how they make money. 

DR: So, I want to circle back on the tout discussion because, especially in states where online is legal, getting information as you place your bet is very easy. In a lot of cases, the tout advertising that used to be all over local TV and radio at night has disappeared. The idea of those businesses has become almost like a bad word.           

WagerTalk is a pay-for-picks service. So talk me through how it’s different from the days of calling a 1-900 number and having to wait five minutes to hear a lock of the day. Why does one work in 2024 and the other doesn’t?

KS: We’re definitely a pick service. The bottom line, yes, we have a YouTube channel with 100,000 plus subscribers where we give free information out every single day, but you’ve got to watch the shows to get it for free. You’ve got to follow the Instagram channel. You need to follow some of the guys themselves. They give out tons of free information and that I’m very proud of. As I mentioned, my goal is to make people better bettors and to lose less money. Something that used to get said in the industry a lot when I worked for Don Best in like 2013, 2014 was “People don’t stop buying picks. They stop buying picks from you.” Like, that’s kind of weird but not incorrect.           

I wonder though, as the generations get younger, if people are just going to stop buying picks, because here is what the other psychology of it is: why do people buy picks? Well, because they want to win or they want to think they’re going to win, but if they still lose, they want someone to blame. I find that also to be another interesting side of the psychological aspect of gambling.           

I’d also like to think that people are paying for information that they don’t have.  Let’s use Ralph Michaels, for example. He and I do a weekly show during football season called Bet on It. His segment is called “Trends and Angles,” and I only want actionable information from Ralph. I don’t want him to say, “well, the last ten games, UConn has covered the spread in the NCAA Tournament.” That stuff you can find everywhere. “Yeah. Thanks, Ralph. We know that, right?”  

He’s not going to do that. He’s going to dig deep into a database that goes back into the 90s. And he’s going to say, “here’s how double-digit home dogs have done in college football since 2003.” Like he’s got something to either play on a game or play against a game. When you’re getting his stuff, you’re getting a lot of that actionable information that might not only pertain to that game, but several others throughout the course of the season. There are other guys like Marco D’Angelo who don’t use a lot of power ratings. He’s looking for those sandwich spots. Sure, you can find those sandwich spots yourself, but are you going to scour through, you know, 313 NCAA basketball schedules to find them? It’s what he’s doing before the game tips off in November. He’s thinking, “Okay, here’s a really flat spot. This could be really interesting. Let me write this on my calendar so that it’s here.”           

We’ve got guys that are, you know, particularly in NBA circles, they get great inside information. A few weeks ago, I never knew this. I should have. It made sense as soon as one of our guys said it. Of course, the Pacers bus to Chicago, why the heck would they fly to Chicago, right? I never really thought about that. Well, their bus broke down. They had a flat tire. It took four hours. They walk into the gym and say screw it; we’re not doing shootaround. We’ll see you at game time. Guess what. They got the doors blown off, okay. They just were pissed off and annoyed. Those types of things, you’re not going to get all the time and those are the types of things, I think, that do still provide a value, but I am genuinely curious to see where the industry is going.           

We see a lot of different sites, they provide different analytics, whether it’s KenPom or Bart Torvic for college basketball or you hear from the shot selection guys. You have to kind of be able to dissect your information. I like to think that that’s what our handicappers at WagerTalk do for those guys that have full time jobs that can’t do this full time, because all of that data collection really is a full-time job. They’re going to give you your information and you can pick and choose. “Do I want to play all their stuff? Do I only agree with them here? Do I only agree with them there?”           

We have a really great customer service team and I give them tons of kudos. We always like to take care of people, and if there’s somebody who’s unhappy, we always are, like, “Here you go. Here’s a refund or you can join up with another guy.”           

So, I like to think that we are the, least tout-y of the touts, right? When it comes to a gambling scale, we only allow guys to do 1% to 5% of your bankroll. You should never bet more than 5% of your bankroll. We don’t allow them to have more than four five-percenters a month, because that would be 20% of your bankroll. There are limitations in place.            

I don’t sell picks. Have I sold picks? Yeah, absolutely. Have I thought about selling picks after the Action documentary? I definitely did. Plenty of guys made a lot of money selling picks, but I said, “No, I’m having a really good time. I’ve got plenty of media gigs where I give these all out for free.” 

DR: Because of the way you have been in the media, you have a little more freedom than your typical over-the-air network has had in terms of the way you cover sports and look at gambling angles. So, Fox started out covering betting, then launched its own book. Barstool starts out talking about betting, launches its own book. Now they’re both out just as ESPN has launched its own proprietary book. What are some of those traps or obstacles that come with trying to be both the media and the book that maybe even the companies just can’t avoid, because of how these business and the laws are set up?

KS: That’s really interesting. I’m not actually even sure what happened with Fox Bet, but I can tell exactly what happened to Barstool. They have been called the pirate ship for a reason. They are unapologetically, just completely out of their minds and say whatever they want with almost zero repercussions. Well guess what? Gaming is going to deal with 40 different states that are going to have something different to say about it. As somebody who grew up in the Nevada gaming world, Nevada has its own sets of rules and regulations.           

I sat in on three different Massachusetts gaming meetings, and I was appalled by some of the ideas and some of the things that these people who have no idea about gambling outside of a casino in regard to sports betting are upset about a can’t-lose parlay with Big Cat, but in the same breath, now we have Rece Davis saying the same thing on ESPN. That’s why I called a spade a spade. I know a lot of people were like, oh, you’re being ridiculous. I said, “When it comes to the law, it has to apply to everyone. And if it’s got to apply to some, it’s got to apply to all.”           

That’s literally what I think happened with Penn. They said, “Oh, shit. We maybe should have looked into this company a little bit more.”           

I think maybe they thought Dave was just going to ride out his contract and ride off into the sunset. I remember there were so many times with Penn where I’m like, “hey, guys, if you want me to go do this event, if you guys want me to do this, you guys want me to do that” and Dave’s like, “you’re not using my talent to do X, Y, and Z. This is what we agreed to.” And I’m like, “oh, okay, I volunteered, but if you don’t want me to do that, okay.”           

I’m guessing something similar happened at Fox, right? They had the show, they were in L.A., they, you know, had Todd they had Clay, they had Sal, and they were the first ones to launch. I did Fox in the Westgate Superbook in 2014, and it was a really fun show.  I’m guessing that it doesn’t always equate to players though, so it didn’t always equate to hard dollars. When you’re spending millions upon millions of dollars to acquire customers – only the certain kind of customers though. Don’t forget, they don’t want the sharp customers. It’s tough to do.           

WagerTalk is based out of Michigan. If there’s something that I want to bet, I can just make a call like, “hey, you have an MGM account and like, can you beat this?” It takes like five seconds because they have everything at their disposal versus in Nevada, which doesn’t allow DraftKings or FanDuel and probably will never. Then you’ve got Massachusetts that seems to be the strictest. New Jersey still can’t bet on college games. There are a couple other states that are now going “we may backtrack and rewrite the law and not allow you to bet on college games.” So, there’s a lot of hoops. There’s a lot of things to navigate, especially in multi-state situations. And I think that’s ultimately that’s what’s going to be the hardest for some of these operators, because you may be able to offer something in one state but not in another, and then you’re going to piss people off. It’s a muddy situation to try to navigate. 

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Matt Jones Gave a Lesson in Audience Engagement During Coverage of Coaching Change

“I can’t sleep, not gonna lie. The next 48 hours are gonna be wild.”

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Matt Jones
Courtesy: Netflix

Matt Jones, founder of Kentucky Sports Radio, put on a clinic this past week on how to cover a sports story and keep your fans engaged. If you wanted the latest information on what was happening with Kentucky head basketball coach John Calipari resigning, Kentucky’s replacement search and the eventual hiring of Mark Pope, you didn’t have to go much further than Matt’s X account, @KySportsRadio.

While others may have been first to report certain parts of the story, Matt was on top of it all, and if there was new news, Matt would share it. Then he would generally give an opinion or two, some information or background and when necessary, special content to address a topic as a group.

I am not a Kentucky or Arkansas fan, but I am a fan of John Calipari. I like the “characters” in the sports world, and he is certainly one of them. In my very first management job, I was hired as the Program Director for WHBQ in Memphis. Cal was coaching the Memphis Tigers and I was introduced to him at a Memphis Grizzlies game. I spent about 20 minutes with him, and you would have thought I was a major recruit he was after (I’m 5-7, over 200 pounds so it wasn’t that he was confused). Turns out he had been trying to get some of his assistants a paid radio gig and although it didn’t end up going anywhere, that 20 minutes made me a fan.

So, I had some interest in the story, and I happened upon Matt’s first post which came at 8:42 p.m. on Sunday April 7:

A couple of minutes later Matt posted that nobody on the Kentucky side was confirming anything. A few hours later he posted more from the reporting coming out of Arkansas and then he announced their radio show the next day with Ryan Lemond and Billy Rutledge would go an extra hour.

A few minutes later he posts, “Calipari has informed Kentucky that he is negotiating with Arkansas, according to Matt Norlander.” That post received just under 700,000 views and was shared almost 800 times. At 9:43 p.m., one hour and one minute after posting about the news for the first time, Jones writes, “Twitter space in 10 minutes.”

I can count on one hand how many Twitter Spaces I have taken part in, but I clicked on it more to see how many others were on it. When I joined there were 14,000 people tuned in and Matt would later post they had 19,000 tuned in at once, on Twitter Spaces, on a Sunday night at 10:15 p.m.

Later, Jones would post that he thinks the show the next day “might be the biggest show we have ever done.” At almost midnight he wrote, “I can’t sleep, not gonna lie. The next 48 hours are gonna be wild.”

And he wasn’t kidding. The search for the new coach, the recruits, the portal, the lists of replacement names, the videos from Calipari and his wife, the video of Cal pushing the stroller and walking the dog, the prospective new coaches dropping out (Scott Drew stayed in Waco, Texas for goodness sakes!), the shock of Mark Pope’s name rising to the top and then the eventual hiring of Mark Pope, the press conferences. Holy moly.

And while all of this was going on, Matt Jones was posting and talking about his opinions, hunting for information, writing blog posts, doing interviews, responding to the Kentucky fans, creating extra audio content and keeping everyone in the loop on all of the fallout and aftermath.

I was exhausted keeping up with it, I can’t imagine how Matt must feel.

And what it made me think of is this; if you are a manager of sports media talent, how many of your people would have put in the effort Matt Jones put in and continues to put in on this story?

Matt kept his audience informed, gave them plenty to think about and continuously provided content and context. He brought his audience behind the curtains when he could, and he tried to answer legitimate questions that came up. He was attacked, at one point I believe being blamed for anything bad that has ever happened to Kentucky basketball.

And in the end, when a lot of fans, Matt included, were a bit disappointed when they found out Mark Pope was the guy, they worked through it together. Matt flat out said he was not happy with the hire at first, but now they had only one choice as a fan base and that was to support the decision and the new coach. Pope’s press conference was a sold-out event at Rupp Arena.

Programmers and talent, I encourage you to look back at Matt Jones’ X account timeline from April 7 to today. It’s a blueprint for how to cover a major story and bring your audience along for the ride.

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The Best Thing I Heard Recently

I really enjoyed the conversation Baltimore’s The Big Bad Morning Show had last week talking about the streaming situation. No. 1 prospect Jackson Holliday was set to make his home debut and the game was one which would be streaming only on Apple TV+.

Rob Long, Ed Norris and Jeremy Conn had an adult conversation about the fact that if you were an Orioles fan without Apple TV+ this one would sting. While they noted it is such a small percentage of baseball games, versus football games, that can end up streaming only, this one game would be one a lot of Orioles fans would want to see.

As they talked through it, they noted it is a younger audience which baseball is trying to target, and you are not going to reach that group on linear television. So, while it may stink for fans for that one game or the few the Orioles might have which are streaming only, the bottom line is this is the direction things are going and you need to get used to it.

As Conn said, “Either get in line or get left behind.”

You can listen to the segment in the last hour of the show by clicking here.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________

In Case You Missed It

Sean McManus retired this week from CBS Sports and David Berson took over as the president and chief executive officer. Before he stepped away our Derek Futterman had the chance to talk with him and look back on some highlights of his career, this year’s Super Bowl and a look at what Berson will inherit and how things look for the future.

About the success of this year’s Super Bowl, McManus told Derek, “We far exceeded our sales expectations and budgets. The number that’s been written is $700 million, and we exceeded that – obviously the overtime helped – but I think from the time we came on the air at 11:30 with the Nickelodeon Slimetime show until we went off the air at approximately 10:30, it was an unqualified success in every way. The most-watched television program ever; maybe the best Super Bowl ever in terms of the quality.”

You can read Derek’s feature on Sean McManus by clicking here.

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Rich Eisen is the Top Pick as NFL Draft Host

“If you’re gonna literally sit there and want to spend an hour or two, I got to make sure it’s entertaining, you’re engaged, but also informed and not gonna hit the button.”

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Logo for the 2024 NFL Draft and a photo of Rich Eisen

We’re still a week away from the NFL Draft in Detroit. Who among us hasn’t attempted a few mock drafts through one of the many popular “draft simulators” out there? I know I have. Talk about this year’s selections seem to have started earlier than even last year. Coverage of prospects’ “pro days” have become commonplace on NFL Network and streaming platforms. So much attention paid to every little detail about players.

Draft coverage is big business for the folks at ABC/ESPN and the NFL Network. Both networks drum up the excitement of what may or may not happen for months leading up to the big night. They debut new and interesting things, like this year, Nick Saban joins the ESPN crew for analysis. The attention is massive as more and more fans dig deeper into their own team’s needs and possibilities. Thanks to all the information online, the average fan, can feel as educated as the bosses in the NFL. Ok, maybe that’s a stretch, but you know what I mean.

The coverage is wall-to-wall, minute-to-minute, pick-by-pick. It’s crazy how much depth there is to the telecasts, with backstories and packages on interesting players. The analyzation is so crazy these days, some of the information has nothing to do with the way a player may or may not perform if drafted. The stories are fine, but the over analyzation can be a bit much. For example, here in Chicago, we’ve heard the pontificators break down every word uttered by Caleb Williams, to see if he really wants to be the next Chicago Bears quarterback. It’s over the top.  

There’s only so much ‘predicting’ and ‘disappointment’ by the ‘experts’ on each and every pick in the draft. Especially on day two and day three. It’s nauseating at times. Listening to the criticism every single pick because it doesn’t match their “board” can be entertaining to some, but really annoying to others. As hard as it is to believe for some fan bases, the teams know their needs and what direction they may end up going a lot better than some of these analysts.

The NFL Draft is a lot to consume. Some viewers will watch, because they are such big NFL fans, they want it all. Others will watch the first round to be elated or disappointed at their team’s pick. More probably duck in and duck out of the coverage and take in as much as they can until it reaches the point of oversaturation. To me the glue that keeps a network’s coverage together is the host. A person that talks to you and not at you. The person sitting in that ‘anchor’ chair, had better be prepared and have a good disposition and a sense of humor.

If I had the #1 pick in the NFL Draft Host draft, I wouldn’t hesitate to take Rich Eisen. He is my favorite. Eisen has the perfect demeanor to host this marathon of an event. He figures out a way to make it entertaining without going over the top. After 20 years at the NFL Network, he has the hosting thing figured out.

Before last year’s draft, Eisen appeared on the Sports Illustrated Media Podcast with Jimmy Traina. The two discussed the hosts’ job when it comes to the NFL Draft. Eisen was honest and candid.

“If you’re gonna literally sit there and want to spend an hour or two, I got to make sure it’s entertaining, you’re engaged, but also informed and not gonna hit the button,” Eisen said.

Bingo. That’s the key. A host that understands not only what HIS role is, but also has a respect for the viewer. He knows that there is a lot coming at fans in the course of the long broadcast.

“My job is to if you are actually going to sit down and watch a four-to-five-hour event, I need to make it something that you want to hang and watch,” Eisen told SI. “If there’s too much of me in it, if I’m in your face, if I make everything a joke, if I make everything about me, you’re gonna turn off. And that’s the last thing I want to do. For lack of a better phrase and I’ll say it anyway, I just want it to be a ‘douche-free environment’. That’s it. That’s literally my radar screen the entire time when I weave in what I need to weave in.”

That’s an interesting way to look at it, but he’s right. Who wants to watch The Rich Eisen Show, featuring the NFL Draft? Nothing is cut and dry when it comes to the draft. Trades, reaches and head scratchers are commonplace, but you don’t know when they are going to happen. Eisen is one of the more prepared hosts out there and that certainly helps when the draft gives you a squib kick that’s bouncing all over the place.

To take the ‘if there’s too much of me’ portion of his answer above, Eisen uses his cast extremely well.  Eisen is the host, who has some talented analysts surrounding him, and he’s going to let them do what they do. The best hosts realize when it’s time to take a backseat to those more in the know. That’s why they are there right?

It’s not like Eisen doesn’t have opinions about the NFL and the draft. He recently said this on The Rich Eisen Show.

“J.J. McCarthy, right now is rising up draft stock conversations. He’s the odds-on favorite to be the 2nd quarterback mentioned now in the state of Michigan when the draft night hits.”

Shocking revelation, since Eisen doesn’t hide his Michigan allegiances. But the point I make is, there’s a time and place to make your thoughts known. That’s the reason people listen to and watch his show. That’s not why they tune into the NFL Draft, viewers want him to guide them through the experience and that’s what Eisen does, very well.

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