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Episode Two Hundred Sixty Five: From Pete Rose To Chauncey Billups · The Death Of Journalism

0:00
Speaker 1: Welcome to episode two hundred and sixty five of the
0:03
Speaker 1: Death of Journalism podcast. My name is John Zigler. I'm
0:05
Speaker 1: your host on today's show. A massive gambling scandal hits
0:09
Speaker 1: the NBA, but the sports media tellingly has relatively little
0:14
Speaker 1: interest in the story. One of the most important off
0:17
Speaker 1: year elections in our history is coming up in days.
0:20
Speaker 1: I'll have some predictions. Gavin Newsom and Kamala Harris both
0:24
Speaker 1: indicate they may run for president in twenty twenty eight,
0:29
Speaker 1: But is Trump also going to give it another shot?
0:32
Speaker 1: More on the media insanity surrounding the dead Epstein Victim book,
0:37
Speaker 1: as well as the continuing chaos in college sports. We
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Speaker 1: begin this episode of the podcast with a quick content note.
0:47
Speaker 1: After listening to episode two sixty four, I feel like
0:51
Speaker 1: I need to apologize to the audience of this podcast
0:56
Speaker 1: for the excessive number of F bombs that I used,
1:00
Speaker 1: Especially towards the end of our last episode, when I
1:03
Speaker 1: was talking about a particularly infuriating story that related to
1:07
Speaker 1: the whole Penn State Joe Paterno Jerry Sandusky saga. I
1:11
Speaker 1: was stunned myself. I knew I had dropped a lot
1:14
Speaker 1: of F bobs, but it went way too far, even
1:17
Speaker 1: considering the circumstances of that story, which were extremely frustrating
1:22
Speaker 1: and certainly F bomb worthy. But I'm going to make
1:25
Speaker 1: a pledge to try to cut down on the f
1:28
Speaker 1: bobs going forward. I'm not going to be able to completely,
1:32
Speaker 1: one hundred percent eliminate them. I understand myself. I get
1:36
Speaker 1: myself very very well. I know my strengths and weaknesses.
1:38
Speaker 1: This is definitely a weakness that I have, and occasionally
1:42
Speaker 1: an F bomb can have impact if used properly. But
1:45
Speaker 1: it went way way too far in the last episode
1:49
Speaker 1: of the podcast. So I'm going to make a concerted
1:51
Speaker 1: effort to cut down on that. Whether or not I'll
1:53
Speaker 1: be successful or not, I don't know, but I will
1:56
Speaker 1: be trying, at least for this episode of the Death
1:59
Speaker 1: of as a podcast. Now, I want to begin from
2:03
Speaker 1: the standpoint of topics with a subject that I'm sure
2:06
Speaker 1: that a lot of you are anticipating me discussing, because
2:10
Speaker 1: this is something that I have predicted for quite some time,
2:14
Speaker 1: and that is that there was a major gambling scandal
2:17
Speaker 1: in sports, specifically the NBA, and to me, the fact
2:22
Speaker 1: that this actually came to fruition was about as surprising
2:26
Speaker 1: as people who predicted that the Donald Trump Elon Musk
2:30
Speaker 1: relationship wouldn't make it through an entire term or even
2:33
Speaker 1: an entire year of the Trump presidency. This was easily predictable.
2:38
Speaker 1: Anybody with any sense could see it from a mile
2:41
Speaker 1: away that sports in general, professional sports in the NBA
2:45
Speaker 1: in particular, we're playing with fire. This was inevitable. The
2:50
Speaker 1: only shocking part of this was the details of this
2:54
Speaker 1: story that exploded when the FBI arrested over two dozen
3:00
Speaker 1: people related to this gambling operation. There was actually two
3:05
Speaker 1: different elements to it, at least two different elements to it,
3:08
Speaker 1: one involving a con of a poker game that involved
3:16
Speaker 1: Portland Basketball Portland Trail, Milaizer's basketball head coach and Hall
3:20
Speaker 1: of Famer Chauncey Billups, where he was directly involved in
3:26
Speaker 1: the use of a fake poker game, a rigged poker
3:29
Speaker 1: game that turned out to be essentially a fundraising mechanism
3:35
Speaker 1: for the mafia. And then you have the more sports
3:39
Speaker 1: related element of this story in the FBI RS where
3:43
Speaker 1: NBA star player Terry Rozier was arrested and charged because
3:50
Speaker 1: he apparently, according to the FBI and based on the facts,
3:54
Speaker 1: I tend to agree that this is obviously the reality
3:57
Speaker 1: that he threw a prop bet on himself back in
4:01
Speaker 1: twenty twenty three. A prop bet, for those that do
4:04
Speaker 1: not know, frankly is idiotic to me. It was always
4:09
Speaker 1: one of those situations where this was going to be
4:11
Speaker 1: exploited in very nefarious ways. But essentially, you can bet
4:16
Speaker 1: on a particular player. You're not betting on the outcome
4:20
Speaker 1: of the game. You're betting on how a particular player
4:24
Speaker 1: would do. And in twenty twenty three in the NBA,
4:28
Speaker 1: Rosier came out of a game early, allegedly because of
4:32
Speaker 1: an injury, and all of his prop bets lost, and
4:37
Speaker 1: there was some very suspicious betting at the time, and
4:40
Speaker 1: also there was some social media posts that I've seen
4:44
Speaker 1: the aftermath of the fbis then dedicated that this was
4:48
Speaker 1: not even a closely held secret that Rosier was on
4:52
Speaker 1: the take here, that he probably came out of the
4:55
Speaker 1: game on purpose, pretending to be injured. Therefore or everyone
5:00
Speaker 1: who bet the under on his prop bets would win
5:04
Speaker 1: their bets. And so when this story broke it was shocking.
5:09
Speaker 1: I think was shocking mostly because of the fact that
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Speaker 1: the FBI was involved. The number of arrests, the fact
5:15
Speaker 1: that Chauncey Bhillips is a head coach and a Hall
5:18
Speaker 1: of Fame player, and the connection to the mob. All
5:24
Speaker 1: this was very shocking in some ways, although, as I've
5:27
Speaker 1: already implied, not that surprising that you would have this
5:31
Speaker 1: kind of a situation occur in some way, shape or form.
5:35
Speaker 1: And frankly, I'm in the camp of people who believe
5:38
Speaker 1: that this is probably I don't know if you call
5:41
Speaker 1: it the tip of the iceberg, but it's certainly not
5:43
Speaker 1: the entire iceberg. Because if this is happening so easily,
5:48
Speaker 1: then the culture, at least in the NBA, the culture
5:53
Speaker 1: is consistent with this happening a lot more than we
5:57
Speaker 1: already know. I think anybody with any sense of logic
6:01
Speaker 1: would conclude the same thing. For this to have been
6:05
Speaker 1: found out, and for this to have gotten to the
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Speaker 1: point where the FBI ends up charging, arresting and charging
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Speaker 1: people with serious crimes, then it's probably far more widespread
6:17
Speaker 1: than we know. And the reason why this was always
6:20
Speaker 1: so easily predictable is that professional sports in general and
6:25
Speaker 1: the NBA in particular, have embraced betting to the point
6:30
Speaker 1: where there's no longer any stigma attached to it. This
6:35
Speaker 1: is not difficult to understand, which is why this was
6:37
Speaker 1: so easily predictable. I mean, I started off this podcast
6:42
Speaker 1: with a guest a pseudo apology about using too many
6:45
Speaker 1: f bops. Well, I'll use an analogy related to that.
6:49
Speaker 1: As parents, and this is not going to surprise you,
6:52
Speaker 1: but I am guilty of this on a consistent basis.
6:56
Speaker 1: As parents of young children, you don't want your kids current. However,
7:01
Speaker 1: it is very very difficult, if not impossible, to enforce
7:05
Speaker 1: the idea that your kids can't curse when you yourself
7:09
Speaker 1: curse in front of them, which is something as a
7:12
Speaker 1: parent I should not do, but I have done far
7:15
Speaker 1: too often. Well, that sends the message that cursing really
7:19
Speaker 1: isn't that bad because dad's doing it. Well, it's the
7:22
Speaker 1: exact same philosophy. It's the exact same concept when it
7:27
Speaker 1: comes to betting. If the league is in bed with betting,
7:31
Speaker 1: and the media partners of the league are in bed
7:35
Speaker 1: with betting, then clearly betting really isn't that bad. And
7:39
Speaker 1: even though there are still rules against players doing this
7:42
Speaker 1: kind of stuff, they're not going to take them seriously.
7:46
Speaker 1: And it's frankly from a psychological perspective, pretty understandable, and
7:52
Speaker 1: it's remarkable to think in the sports world in general,
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Speaker 1: how dramatically this whole concept has shifted in just a
8:02
Speaker 1: few decades. And the most obvious example of this was
8:06
Speaker 1: Pete Rose, who was banned from baseball in the early
8:11
Speaker 1: nineteen nineties for betting on other baseball games. There's never
8:17
Speaker 1: been any definitive evidence that Pete Rose ever bet against
8:22
Speaker 1: his own team. I'm not even sure there's evidence that
8:25
Speaker 1: he bet on his own team. He may have at times,
8:27
Speaker 1: I can't remember that, but regardless, there's no evidence at
8:31
Speaker 1: all that Pete Rose ever purposely through a game or
8:36
Speaker 1: didn't perform as well, or as a manager, didn't you know,
8:39
Speaker 1: did things to make sure his team didn't perform as well,
8:42
Speaker 1: because back then it was did you win the game
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Speaker 1: or did you lose the game? There was none of
8:45
Speaker 1: this prop bet bull crap. And so, you know, that
8:50
Speaker 1: was a situation where Pete Rose was given the literal,
8:55
Speaker 1: figuratively literal death sentence in the sport of baseball because
9:00
Speaker 1: he broke a cardinal rule and it was understood, it
9:05
Speaker 1: was understood that there's this thing called the slippery slope
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Speaker 1: and that you cannot have any ambiguity in this area
9:12
Speaker 1: because as soon as that you allow anything to happen
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Speaker 1: in this area, it's eventually going to end very, very badly.
9:20
Speaker 1: So that's why you had to have a firewall. That's
9:23
Speaker 1: why there was no advertising regarding sports and betting. You
9:28
Speaker 1: had none of the leagues that would forget about being
9:31
Speaker 1: invested in betting. They had to keep on arms leand
9:36
Speaker 1: beyond an arms land. We've talked many times in this
9:38
Speaker 1: podcast before about how the NFL today because the Pete Roselle,
9:43
Speaker 1: the commissioner of the NFL at the time, during the
9:46
Speaker 1: heyday of Brent Musburger and Jimmy the Greek, would not
9:48
Speaker 1: even allow Jimmy the Greek to talk about point spreads
9:52
Speaker 1: even though there was it was a TV show that
9:55
Speaker 1: wasn't owned by the NFL. It was obviously promoting the
9:59
Speaker 1: NFL was on. But that's how much sports leagues understood
10:04
Speaker 1: that you must protect the game at all costs. I've
10:09
Speaker 1: referenced many times my phrasing of you must protect the
10:12
Speaker 1: magic that was, like I think even the title of
10:15
Speaker 1: our last episode of the podcast, Well, it's the same
10:18
Speaker 1: idea here. This is something you must protect at all costs.
10:22
Speaker 1: The magic is that everyone believes the games are on
10:26
Speaker 1: the up and up, but that the players and the
10:27
Speaker 1: coaches are doing everything they possibly can to win every game.
10:33
Speaker 1: Now that's gone by the wayside in so many different manners,
10:37
Speaker 1: it's to almost be ridiculous. But to me, from a
10:40
Speaker 1: culture perspective, it's maybe more important than from a sports
10:44
Speaker 1: standpoint to see how far we have fallen. And I
10:48
Speaker 1: actually was one of those people who thought Pete Rose
10:50
Speaker 1: got punished too much. I mean, I'm not saying you
10:52
Speaker 1: should have been punished. What he did was wrong, and
10:54
Speaker 1: I totally get the principle of the matter and making
10:57
Speaker 1: sure that firewall exists and the slippery slope doesn't get
10:59
Speaker 1: out activated one hundred percent. But in a fairly short
11:04
Speaker 1: amount of time thirty five years, essentially, we've gone from
11:08
Speaker 1: Pete Rose getting the figurative death penalty in baseball for
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Speaker 1: betting not against his own team, to a situation where
11:19
Speaker 1: now we have a player betting against himself having other
11:24
Speaker 1: people profit from that. And as of right now, he's
11:29
Speaker 1: been put on leave, he's still being paid, he's on
11:32
Speaker 1: a vacation, he's getting paid millions and millions of dollars
11:37
Speaker 1: through series to do nothing. Now his career is probably over,
11:42
Speaker 1: but the difference in the way this thing is going
11:47
Speaker 1: out is stark. And it should be pointed out that
11:51
Speaker 1: the NBA investigated this situation involving Rosier and they found
11:57
Speaker 1: no wrongdoing, or at least they couldn't prove any wrongdoing,
12:01
Speaker 1: which to me is ridiculous. It's ridiculous and its indication
12:06
Speaker 1: of one how powerful the player's union is because they
12:09
Speaker 1: were afraid of coming to a different finding without one
12:14
Speaker 1: thousand percent proof. But it's also an indication of how
12:20
Speaker 1: invested and conflicted the NBA and other sports leagues are
12:25
Speaker 1: when it comes to betting. Because they understood that there
12:29
Speaker 1: were very few sports in general, understood that there were
12:32
Speaker 1: very few ways of increasing revenue, especially as the television
12:37
Speaker 1: business model was breaking and the cable business model was
12:41
Speaker 1: a catastrophe. They had to maintain or potentially increase revenues,
12:47
Speaker 1: and the only way to do that was by embracing
12:51
Speaker 1: gambling and the dangers that were inherent in that. Be damned,
12:57
Speaker 1: no one cared, and people like me have been warning
13:02
Speaker 1: about this. Bob Costas has been warning about this. This
13:06
Speaker 1: was always inevitable and I don't think that Rosier is
13:11
Speaker 1: an aberration. It's within the culture, clearly within the NBA
13:17
Speaker 1: and probably within most of sports. Now, the NBA is different.
13:23
Speaker 1: The baseball is in a similar boat here, where their
13:27
Speaker 1: regular season games are so meaningless that it's actually remarkably easy,
13:34
Speaker 1: especially when you don't even have to throw a game itself.
13:37
Speaker 1: You could just throw a prop bet that it doesn't
13:40
Speaker 1: make any difference even within the season. You could throw
13:43
Speaker 1: a prop bet and still win the game in theory.
13:46
Speaker 1: But even if you happen to lose the game, one
13:49
Speaker 1: NBA regular season game or one Major League baseball game
13:53
Speaker 1: is really not that significant at all, And yet the
13:57
Speaker 1: significance of the game is irrelevant to whether or not
14:01
Speaker 1: the bet pays. Now, we are living in a world where,
14:05
Speaker 1: you know, we have so much data than any kind
14:08
Speaker 1: of irregular betting is going to set off red flags,
14:11
Speaker 1: and that's what happened in the Rosier situation. But the
14:15
Speaker 1: NBA said, eh no, we can't really find any crime here.
14:18
Speaker 1: We're not sure about this, so we're going to just
14:20
Speaker 1: let this go. And now the FBI, now it's quite
14:24
Speaker 1: possible the FBI has the ability to get more evidence
14:28
Speaker 1: than the NBA. I get that concept, but I also
14:31
Speaker 1: think that's a cop out by the NBA. That's what
14:33
Speaker 1: their claim is. We looked into this, but we just
14:35
Speaker 1: don't have the same kind of authority that allows us
14:39
Speaker 1: to get, you know, the same kind of hardcore, hardcore
14:42
Speaker 1: evidence that the FBI does, and that's why they were
14:45
Speaker 1: able to come to a different conclusion than than we were.
14:48
Speaker 1: I don't buy that. Really, this was this was pretty
14:51
Speaker 1: darn clear cut that there was a problem even before,
14:55
Speaker 1: even before the FBI arrests, and as far as the
14:59
Speaker 1: Chauncey Billups thing, I mean, this is just so weird.
15:03
Speaker 1: And this is probably the part of the story that
15:06
Speaker 1: has been the most understated, even though it is the
15:11
Speaker 1: most shocking. But I mean, here we have a guy
15:14
Speaker 1: who's in the Hall of Fame as a player, a
15:16
Speaker 1: head coach of an NBA, a major NBA basketball team,
15:19
Speaker 1: the Partland Trailblazers, who is effectively scamming people out of
15:25
Speaker 1: millions of dollars in this fake poker game, this rag
15:28
Speaker 1: poker game as a fundraiser for the mafia, and he's
15:32
Speaker 1: also on administrative lead. Now I realized it's not a
15:35
Speaker 1: perfect analogy. It's not a perfect analogy, but I still
15:40
Speaker 1: think it's it's worth mentioning, especially given who I am.
15:44
Speaker 1: They compare the Chauncey Billups situation to the Joe Paterno
15:49
Speaker 1: set of circumstances. I mean, Joe Paterno at twenty eleven
15:54
Speaker 1: was a prosecution witness in a case that turned out
15:58
Speaker 1: to be total bull crap against Jerry Sandusky. Without Joe Paterno,
16:03
Speaker 1: Jerry Sandowski never even gets arrested, and within just a
16:06
Speaker 1: couple of days of Jerry Sandanski's arrest, the media firestorm
16:10
Speaker 1: was so great that Penn State panicked and fired Joe Paterno,
16:14
Speaker 1: the winning as coach in the history of college football,
16:18
Speaker 1: and a literal institution at Penn State, all because of
16:21
Speaker 1: the media firestorm. No crime committed. He was actually a
16:26
Speaker 1: prosecution witness. The prosecutor said he did nothing wrong. He
16:33
Speaker 1: was being praised at first before the media narrative changed.
16:38
Speaker 1: That was the media sports media culture, specifically at ESPN.
16:42
Speaker 1: In twenty eleven, Chauncey Billups gets arrested and charged by
16:47
Speaker 1: the MBI in these incredibly bizarre circumstances where he's scamming
16:54
Speaker 1: people out of millions of dollars on behalf of the mafia,
16:59
Speaker 1: and he's on leave now I have probably I'm guessing
17:03
Speaker 1: he's probably never gonna coach again. But there's nowhere near
17:06
Speaker 1: the same kind of frenzy, the same kind of panic.
17:11
Speaker 1: Everyone's fine with him just being paid and you know what,
17:15
Speaker 1: well innocent until proven guilty. Well Praternal wasn't even charged
17:18
Speaker 1: with anything. He was presumed after this half a century
17:23
Speaker 1: stellar career being morally bankrupt all because we lost our
17:27
Speaker 1: goddamn minds. It's I mean, so the comparison, well not perfect,
17:32
Speaker 1: is stark, and I think there's a lot of different
17:36
Speaker 1: factors involved in this. The players union in the NBA
17:41
Speaker 1: is extremely strong. The NBA is terrified of this issue.
17:45
Speaker 1: You might even argue that there's a racial issue involved
17:48
Speaker 1: here because both Rozier and Billips are black, and inherently
17:51
Speaker 1: the media finds it more difficult to attack a black person.
17:56
Speaker 1: So there's a lot of different elements to this, but
18:00
Speaker 1: the lack of panic and frenzy among the media, especially ESPN,
18:05
Speaker 1: is extremely telling. Now, they did this story for a
18:08
Speaker 1: day and they got humiliated. ESPN did a lot of
18:13
Speaker 1: jokes online about you know how they're so invested in betting,
18:17
Speaker 1: and at one point they were even having to reference
18:21
Speaker 1: their own conflict of interest, and they took off the
18:24
Speaker 1: ESPN bet advertisement at the bottom of the screen, which
18:29
Speaker 1: is ubiquitous because ESPN once they had the greatest boondoggle
18:35
Speaker 1: in sports media history. The way that cable television used
18:39
Speaker 1: to run was an extraordinary boondoggle on behalf of ESPN,
18:44
Speaker 1: And once that died, ESPN became desperate and gambling was
18:48
Speaker 1: their only lifeline. So now they are completely totally, one
18:54
Speaker 1: thousand percent invested in gambling. So they have no moral
18:58
Speaker 1: authority whatsoever to be one reporting on this objectively and
19:03
Speaker 1: two to be condemning it the way that they should be,
19:06
Speaker 1: because the entire essence of sports is on the line here. Now,
19:12
Speaker 1: I get if you look at this in the micro
19:14
Speaker 1: and you go, oh wow, it's just you know, one
19:16
Speaker 1: one player, Terry Rozier. It's a prop bed, not that
19:20
Speaker 1: much money was bet, it didn't didn't impact a game necessarily,
19:25
Speaker 1: So who really cares? No, No, No, there's two problems.
19:29
Speaker 1: Number one is you're presuming absurdly that this is an
19:32
Speaker 1: isolated situation. It's not. This is now part of the
19:36
Speaker 1: culture of professional sports because we now have an entire
19:40
Speaker 1: generation of players that were not brought up in the
19:45
Speaker 1: Pete Rose era, where we were told emphatically in all
19:50
Speaker 1: sorts of ways, you cannot allow this to happen because
19:54
Speaker 1: of the slippery slope. You cannot even start it. You
19:57
Speaker 1: cannot have you have must have a zero tolerance policy.
20:02
Speaker 1: Zero zero means zero. Well, the slippery slope is the
20:07
Speaker 1: second part of why this is an incredibly dangerous situation
20:12
Speaker 1: that ESPN should be all over, but they're not because
20:17
Speaker 1: they have an inherent, deep conflict of interest and we've
20:21
Speaker 1: seen this with regard to their talent Stephen A. Smith.
20:25
Speaker 1: This should be a career ending situation in my opinion.
20:29
Speaker 1: Of course, we don't live in a ratchetal world involving
20:32
Speaker 1: Stephen A. Smith. There's the biggest star at ESPN and
20:36
Speaker 1: a guy who literally does commercials for sports betting outlets,
20:42
Speaker 1: and he tried to deflect this whole thing by blaming
20:45
Speaker 1: it on President Trump that these charges were a part
20:50
Speaker 1: of a conspiracy by Trump to bring down the woke NBA,
20:53
Speaker 1: which is gets completely ridiculous on so many levels. Cash
20:57
Speaker 1: but tell the director of the FBI actually said as
20:59
Speaker 1: the stupid thing he's ever heard in his life. But
21:01
Speaker 1: that's got to be saying something considering he's a mega commentator,
21:05
Speaker 1: so he's heard a lot of very stupid things. But
21:08
Speaker 1: it's particularly dumb because this investigation began during the Biden administration.
21:13
Speaker 1: It's been going on for years. The Zeer thing happened
21:17
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty three, So it's completely ridiculous what Stephen A.
21:22
Speaker 1: Smith is saying. But it's an obvious set of circumstances
21:27
Speaker 1: where he is terrified of the fact that he is
21:31
Speaker 1: conflicted by the fact that he's making money. Literally, he's
21:35
Speaker 1: being paid. He's an employee effectively of sports gambling outlets.
21:41
Speaker 1: So that's why he's trying to deflect this and try
21:45
Speaker 1: to blame it all on Trump instead of focusing on
21:48
Speaker 1: the culture of the NBA where he could actually have
21:51
Speaker 1: a very significant impact. Stephen A. Smith, as bizarre as
21:55
Speaker 1: it is, is extremely influential, especially within the community, and
22:01
Speaker 1: if he was attacking the NBA culture, then that would
22:05
Speaker 1: have an impact. But no, no, no, he has to
22:07
Speaker 1: attack the Trump administration because he has to protect his
22:11
Speaker 1: own situation. Mad Dog Russo does a lot of work
22:16
Speaker 1: with Stephen A. Smith on ESPN. He also dramatically downplayed
22:20
Speaker 1: this conservative commentator Clay Travis, who is deeply invested in
22:26
Speaker 1: the entire gambling operations in industry. I mean, it's all
22:31
Speaker 1: over the place at OutKick and he himself and he
22:34
Speaker 1: bets himself. He's got specials on betting suggestions that he makes.
22:39
Speaker 1: I mean, Clay is just about as bad as Stephen A.
22:42
Speaker 1: Smith is on this issue. He's gone out of his
22:45
Speaker 1: way to try to deflect and downplay the whole thing.
22:50
Speaker 1: And so here we have a perfect example of where
22:54
Speaker 1: you know, this is the Death of Journalism podcast, where
22:57
Speaker 1: corporate conflicts of interest are having a real world impact
23:04
Speaker 1: on a situation that is a mortal threat to sports.
23:09
Speaker 1: This is a mortal threat. Once people no longer believe
23:15
Speaker 1: in the integrity of the contest, eventually the sport will die.
23:21
Speaker 1: Now you might be saying, but zig what about pro wrestling? Well,
23:24
Speaker 1: I get what you're saying about pro wrestling. It does
23:26
Speaker 1: make me think that there's a much larger audience that
23:28
Speaker 1: just doesn't give a shit about the essence of the
23:31
Speaker 1: sport being real. But there's a large enough audience that
23:37
Speaker 1: would be theoretically turned off if they lost trust in
23:41
Speaker 1: the integrity of the contest that it would implode the
23:44
Speaker 1: business model in my opinion, not to mention the integrity
23:49
Speaker 1: of betting itself. I mean, why wouldn't you bet on
23:52
Speaker 1: any of these games if you did not have any
23:56
Speaker 1: believe or trust that it was all on the up
23:58
Speaker 1: and up? Why would you do that? But that's why ESPN,
24:04
Speaker 1: in particular, in the sports media in general, all which
24:06
Speaker 1: is tied either directly or indirectly to sports gambling interests,
24:10
Speaker 1: is so terrified of overemphasizing this story because they are
24:15
Speaker 1: actually more concerned about people losing trust and betting than
24:19
Speaker 1: they are in sports fans losing trust in the integrity
24:24
Speaker 1: of the game. They don't really give a shit that
24:25
Speaker 1: much about the integrity of the game. They care about
24:28
Speaker 1: well not people keep betting, because that's what their business
24:32
Speaker 1: model is based on. And that's why this, to me
24:35
Speaker 1: is such an important story from the death of journalism perspective,
24:39
Speaker 1: because I've talked forever and ever about how the broken
24:43
Speaker 1: business model has directly caused the implosion of journalism, and
24:49
Speaker 1: we have seen that in the last week since this
24:53
Speaker 1: story of the FBI arrests became very public. It was
24:57
Speaker 1: a big story for about a day. It has gone away,
25:01
Speaker 1: and it has gone away largely because the sports media
25:06
Speaker 1: has no interest. Literally, they have no financial interest in
25:11
Speaker 1: getting to the bottom of this story. Now they'll claim, well,
25:16
Speaker 1: you know, there's no new news. We need to wait
25:20
Speaker 1: for a trial. Innocent until proven guilty. Again, going back
25:23
Speaker 1: to the Penn stage, Joe Paterno, Terry Sandusky story, none
25:26
Speaker 1: of that mattered then, and they didn't know anything about
25:30
Speaker 1: that story at the time. They knew absolutely nothing. In fact,
25:33
Speaker 1: most of what they thought they knew was totally wrong. Now,
25:36
Speaker 1: is it possible some of the stuff we think we
25:38
Speaker 1: know now is wrong. Absolutely, it's possible. But I think
25:42
Speaker 1: we already have enough evidence, especially given all the totality
25:46
Speaker 1: of the circumstances, to be able to at least come
25:49
Speaker 1: to the conclusion that there's a massive problem within the
25:53
Speaker 1: culture of sports and the culture of the NBA when
25:57
Speaker 1: it comes to bedding. We're seeing this all over the place.
26:02
Speaker 1: We've talked on this podcast previously about we're now in
26:05
Speaker 1: a situation where we've got major college football coaches like
26:09
Speaker 1: Lane Kiffen apologizing for his actions which moved the spread
26:15
Speaker 1: at the end of the game. I mean, and by
26:19
Speaker 1: the way, this has happened on multiple occasions in a
26:22
Speaker 1: weird way. I think it's one of the most dangerous things,
26:25
Speaker 1: and I actually like Lane Kiffin. I don't think this
26:27
Speaker 1: is his intent. I think Lane Kiffen just thinks he's
26:29
Speaker 1: being funny. But I actually think this is one of
26:32
Speaker 1: the most dangerous things that's happened this year in sports,
26:36
Speaker 1: where it's become commonplace for players and coaches to joke
26:42
Speaker 1: about what they did that impacted the result of bets
26:49
Speaker 1: spreads on games and why you might be thinking, well,
26:52
Speaker 1: why is that dangerous? Well, because in a weird way,
26:55
Speaker 1: this actually makes a betting scandal far easier to pull off.
27:00
Speaker 1: In fact, I actually think we've now seen the path
27:03
Speaker 1: for doing this. If you just joke about it act
27:07
Speaker 1: of the game, everyone presumes you must be innocent. And
27:10
Speaker 1: I'm not suggesting Lane Kiffen or anybody else so far
27:13
Speaker 1: that has done this has been involved in an actual
27:17
Speaker 1: point shaving or betting scandal of some sort. I'm saying
27:20
Speaker 1: this is a path for how you could easily get
27:22
Speaker 1: away with it. I mean, we've seen with the Louver
27:26
Speaker 1: heist in Paris, France, where you know, sometimes the best
27:31
Speaker 1: way to get away with a crime, although they're not
27:33
Speaker 1: going to get away with it in the long run,
27:34
Speaker 1: but in the short run they did is to do
27:36
Speaker 1: it in broad daylight, where everyone presumes, well that you
27:40
Speaker 1: know nothing, the faeries must be going on. It's broad daylight.
27:43
Speaker 1: Well if you joke about it and you acknowledge it,
27:46
Speaker 1: then people will go haha, oh yeah, okay, well obviously
27:50
Speaker 1: nothing untoward was going on here. But we're seeing this
27:54
Speaker 1: constantly in sports, and it's always going to be inevitable
28:00
Speaker 1: when you eliminate principles, when you eliminate concerns about what
28:07
Speaker 1: the right thing to do is when money is everything
28:11
Speaker 1: and that's our value system, especially in sports, when money
28:15
Speaker 1: is everything and the game barely matters, and when you
28:20
Speaker 1: are living in this kind of a world, inevitably, when
28:25
Speaker 1: you have the media on their knees because they're invested
28:28
Speaker 1: in sports, so they're not going to be looking at
28:30
Speaker 1: this closely. And even when the FBI arrests two major
28:35
Speaker 1: sports figures in the NBA, they're not going to make
28:37
Speaker 1: that big of a deal out of it. They're going
28:39
Speaker 1: to ignore it as much as possible, deflect whenever they
28:41
Speaker 1: can because it's in their financial self interests. So all
28:47
Speaker 1: of the incentive structures have been put into a situation
28:52
Speaker 1: where you're going to have a scandal. And it is
28:56
Speaker 1: my very strong belief that what we're seeing in this
28:59
Speaker 1: end gambling story is probably close to the tip of
29:04
Speaker 1: the iceberg, that this has already happened in probably multiple sports.
29:09
Speaker 1: We just don't know about it yet. I mean, heck,
29:13
Speaker 1: we should have known about this involving Brazier since twenty
29:17
Speaker 1: twenty three because the evidence appears to have been so obvious.
29:20
Speaker 1: And it's not just basketball, but that's the sport that
29:24
Speaker 1: obviously has been in the news over the last week.
29:27
Speaker 1: And because of what I already talked about basketball and baseball,
29:30
Speaker 1: because they play so many regular season games, especially with
29:34
Speaker 1: regard to these stupid prop bets, they're incredibly vulnerable to
29:39
Speaker 1: having a betting scandal. And you know, somewhat related, actually,
29:44
Speaker 1: in my opinion, directly related. There was an interesting story
29:47
Speaker 1: in The Hollywood Reporter a couple of days ago about
29:51
Speaker 1: a documentary that has been created about the show Hey
29:55
Speaker 1: O Tani situation now show Heyo Tani, the superstar for
29:59
Speaker 1: the lot of San Angeles Dodgers, who was having an
30:01
Speaker 1: absolutely ridiculous postseason up until last night when he was
30:05
Speaker 1: pitching and lost to Game four of the World Series
30:09
Speaker 1: for the Dodgers. But he's been absolutely extraordinary, Babe Ruth
30:12
Speaker 1: type stuff. But you may recall it seems like a
30:15
Speaker 1: long time ago, and the story disappeared very quickly, maybe
30:18
Speaker 1: because of some of the reasons I'm about to tell you,
30:20
Speaker 1: and maybe about some of them implied because of some
30:23
Speaker 1: of the reasons I've already discussed involving the media being
30:26
Speaker 1: very very conflicted here. But there's this documentary, according to
30:29
Speaker 1: the Hollywood Reporter, involving show Hey Otani and his translator
30:35
Speaker 1: and the betting scandal that ensued there, and that story
30:39
Speaker 1: has never made any sense to me. I get that
30:43
Speaker 1: Otani has been completely cleared, but it just never made
30:46
Speaker 1: any sense. I'm not saying I know what happened. I
30:48
Speaker 1: just can't make sense of how that story went down
30:52
Speaker 1: the way that it did. Was show Heyo Tani's translator
30:55
Speaker 1: having that much control over millions and millions of dollars
30:58
Speaker 1: and apparently hetting on all of these games, and you know,
31:03
Speaker 1: claiming now that it was just him and Otani had
31:08
Speaker 1: nothing to do with it. I'm open to that, but
31:09
Speaker 1: that scenarios doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Well,
31:12
Speaker 1: there's this documentary that has been created that the Oliver
31:16
Speaker 1: Reporter is saying, nobody, none of the major distributors are
31:22
Speaker 1: buying it, are going to take a chance on it
31:25
Speaker 1: because they all have corporate conflicts of interest with Major
31:29
Speaker 1: League Baseball. Now, the first thing I think about it
31:34
Speaker 1: in the story is, well, okay, then that must mean
31:36
Speaker 1: that the documentary is not very good for Otani, because otherwise,
31:41
Speaker 1: why would Major League Baseball care so much or why
31:43
Speaker 1: would the you know, the media outlets, the corporate media
31:48
Speaker 1: outlets that were potentially bidders on this documentary, why would
31:53
Speaker 1: they be so concerned about how Major League Baseball was
31:56
Speaker 1: going to respond? Because Otani obviously is the superstar balls superstars.
32:00
Speaker 1: He must be protected at all costs. I get that
32:04
Speaker 1: if there is a serious allegation against Otani that Major
32:07
Speaker 1: League Baseball is going to be very, very, very sensitive
32:10
Speaker 1: about that, and therefore their corporate partners in the media
32:14
Speaker 1: world are going to be very sensitive about upsetting Major
32:17
Speaker 1: League Baseball. But I don't know what the allegations are
32:21
Speaker 1: of the documentary. I just find that to be extremely
32:23
Speaker 1: telling about where we are that these corporate conflicts of
32:28
Speaker 1: interests are so great that here we have let's presume
32:32
Speaker 1: that it's a legitimate documentary that the Hollywood reporter was
32:35
Speaker 1: talking about, and let's say that they have you know,
32:38
Speaker 1: they must have some connection to Otani. Otherwise, who would
32:41
Speaker 1: give a damn about any of this if it's just
32:43
Speaker 1: a translator? And so here we are where it's just accepted.
32:48
Speaker 1: It's just accepted. Sorry, we can't. It's a major story,
32:52
Speaker 1: and maybe this is the truth that should be told,
32:54
Speaker 1: and maybe it's a very significant story, but we're not
32:57
Speaker 1: going to tell it because we might we set our
33:00
Speaker 1: corporate partners. That's the media world we're now living in.
33:05
Speaker 1: That's a world where journalism is literally dead. Journalism doesn't matter.
33:10
Speaker 1: I've talked about this constantly when it comes to the
33:14
Speaker 1: situation involving Trump and ABC and CBS and you know,
33:19
Speaker 1: Facebook and these these major media outlets that are settling
33:24
Speaker 1: lawsuits with Donald Trump. The people making the decisions at
33:28
Speaker 1: the corporate level, they don't give a damn about journalism.
33:33
Speaker 1: Journalism is a pain in the ass, even at sixty
33:35
Speaker 1: minutes at CBS at paramount. Journalism is a pain in
33:39
Speaker 1: the ass for these people. They're much more concerned about
33:44
Speaker 1: not upsetting the Apple card when it comes to their
33:49
Speaker 1: media sports relationships. In this particular case, we can't upset
33:55
Speaker 1: Major League Baseball. We have this massive deal with them.
33:58
Speaker 1: It doesn't matter that this is an important story that
34:00
Speaker 1: needs to be told. It's not even a factor. That's
34:04
Speaker 1: the part of this that's most amazing. From a journalism standpoint,
34:08
Speaker 1: and from a death of journalism podcast perspective, it doesn't
34:11
Speaker 1: even rate. It's not even a consideration. The only consideration
34:16
Speaker 1: I get that this was always a consideration. It's always
34:19
Speaker 1: been a business to some degree, just like sports has
34:22
Speaker 1: always been a business to some degree. But both sports
34:25
Speaker 1: and journalism are now solely businesses. Business considerations are all
34:32
Speaker 1: that matter. Nothing else matters. And this is a world
34:37
Speaker 1: where journalism dies. And because of corporate sports entities being deeply,
34:44
Speaker 1: deeply invested in gambling, you're gonna have gambling scandals. It's
34:49
Speaker 1: gonna happen, and that is risking the magic. That is
34:54
Speaker 1: a mortal threat to sports as we know it, and
34:59
Speaker 1: no one seems to care. And it's a large part
35:03
Speaker 1: because of ESPN. I mean, almost every problem in sports
35:08
Speaker 1: can be traced back to ESPN at some level, and
35:12
Speaker 1: ESPN when they went from being this wonderful little outlet
35:16
Speaker 1: out of Bristol, Connecticut that you know, that built itself
35:20
Speaker 1: up and in the nineteen eighties was awesome with Big
35:24
Speaker 1: East basketball and college football and some other entities, and
35:29
Speaker 1: then got bigger and bigger and bigger, and then that
35:31
Speaker 1: got bought by Disney. Once it got bought by Disney,
35:35
Speaker 1: it was all over because now it's essentially private equity.
35:39
Speaker 1: It's no longer run by people that love sports and
35:42
Speaker 1: want to cover sports and actually care about sports. It's
35:46
Speaker 1: about people that look at this and go, oh, we
35:48
Speaker 1: can make a lot of money from ESPN. Now we're
35:50
Speaker 1: gonna squeeze every damn dime out of this. Oh we
35:54
Speaker 1: lost this cable boondoggle. Well, now we've got to embrace gambling.
35:59
Speaker 1: And I should mention this every single time the issue
36:02
Speaker 1: of gambling comes up, and I'm probably derelict and not
36:06
Speaker 1: doing so, but it should be pointed out. It's not
36:09
Speaker 1: just a sports integrity issue. ESPN and other sports media
36:15
Speaker 1: outlets being deeply invested in gambling is essentially like promoting crack,
36:22
Speaker 1: cocaine or some other very damaging drug that's what they're selling.
36:28
Speaker 1: They're selling a drug. They're selling heroin. That's what you
36:34
Speaker 1: should think of when you see sports media outlets advertising
36:39
Speaker 1: for gambling operations. They're selling heroin. It's incredibly destructive culturally.
36:48
Speaker 1: People lose their fortunes, they lose their rent, money, they
36:56
Speaker 1: abuse in families increases because guys lose their money and
37:00
Speaker 1: they beat up their wives. I don't think that's a cliche.
37:03
Speaker 1: The amount of damage that is done in the real
37:07
Speaker 1: world because of sports gambling is incredibly underrated and underreported.
37:13
Speaker 1: Why because of the same corporate conflict of interest, because
37:17
Speaker 1: no one wants to talk about this because they're deeply
37:21
Speaker 1: invested in its succeeding. So that's the part that is
37:27
Speaker 1: the most corrupt in all of this. We're just pretending
37:31
Speaker 1: that gambling is a zero sum game. It's not. For
37:35
Speaker 1: the vast majority of people who bet on sports. It
37:39
Speaker 1: is a losing, potentially dramatically losing proposition that causes enormous
37:44
Speaker 1: damage in people's lives. And ESPN doesn't give a damn
37:48
Speaker 1: because it's their business model now and it's not just ESPN,
37:53
Speaker 1: but obviously they're the worldwide leader in sports, so they're
37:56
Speaker 1: the ones that I think deserve to get the more attention.
38:00
Speaker 1: And they're the ones driving the bus on this. And
38:04
Speaker 1: you know, going back to the Penn State Joe Paternal
38:06
Speaker 1: Jerry Sandusky story, they're the ones that drove the narrative
38:09
Speaker 1: on that because they had no corporate conflict of interest.
38:13
Speaker 1: They just had an interest. Actually, their corporate conflict of
38:15
Speaker 1: interest was it was a slow newsweek and they needed
38:18
Speaker 1: ratings in November, and this was a spectacular story, even
38:21
Speaker 1: though it was a dark fairytale that was based on
38:25
Speaker 1: a mythology, and so it's just it's actually amazing. I
38:31
Speaker 1: was stunned by how quickly this story went away. And
38:34
Speaker 1: I'm as cynical and I think as understanding of the
38:38
Speaker 1: factors involved in this circumstance as much as anybody in
38:41
Speaker 1: the world. And even I thought, oh my god, what
38:45
Speaker 1: if there was a major sports betting scandal and nobody
38:49
Speaker 1: in the sports media really cared. That's essentially what happened.
38:53
Speaker 1: And it's almost entirely it's almost entirely because of the
38:58
Speaker 1: corporate conflict of interest, which is now completely obliterated any
39:03
Speaker 1: sense of journalism, of truth, of what's right, of what's wrong,
39:09
Speaker 1: what's good for sports in the long run. And this
39:13
Speaker 1: is also another great example of how quickly things can
39:17
Speaker 1: change in your culture if you aren't vigilant. If you
39:22
Speaker 1: aren't vigilant, you can get from Pete Rose to Chauncey
39:26
Speaker 1: Billups in a relative heartbeat. And to me, it's incredibly telling,
39:33
Speaker 1: and it goes way, way beyond sports, and it's a
39:37
Speaker 1: topic that I'm sure we're going to talk about again
39:39
Speaker 1: in future episodes of this podcast, because there's gonna be
39:42
Speaker 1: more scandals. This is gonna keep happening as long as
39:46
Speaker 1: sports is deeply invested in gambling, and they have no
39:49
Speaker 1: choice now because we're living in a private equity world
39:53
Speaker 1: where the only thing they care about is increasing revenues
39:57
Speaker 1: in the next quarter. That's all all they care about.
40:01
Speaker 1: And the only way to do that in sports these
40:03
Speaker 1: days is through gambling. Thanks for listening to today's free
40:08
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