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Speaker 1: This is Wins and Losses with Clay Trevis, play talks

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Speaker 1: with the most entertaining people in sports, entertainment and business.

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Speaker 1: Now here's Clay Trevis. Welcome in to Wins and Losses.

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Speaker 1: I'm your fearless host, Clay Travis. Hope all of you

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Speaker 1: have been enjoying the podcast so far. I want to

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Speaker 1: mention as the new one gets ready, we talked with

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Speaker 1: former Colorado men's football coach Mel Tucker, who now is

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Speaker 1: the head coach at Michigan State. If you're listening to

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Speaker 1: this right now and you're a big ten fan and

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Speaker 1: you're curious what Mel Tucker might be like, I'd encourage

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Speaker 1: you to go check it out now that he has

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Speaker 1: taken over at Michigan State. But we go now out

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Speaker 1: to Las Vegas, Nevada, where we are joined by the

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Speaker 1: third of my co hosts on lock it In. We've

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Speaker 1: talked with Rachel Barnetto, We've talked with cousin sal and

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Speaker 1: now we talk with Todd Ferman as a guy I

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Speaker 1: have known by far the longest of everybody on the show. Uh.

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Speaker 1: First of all, thanks for getting up early with us

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Speaker 1: in Las Vegas. Todd. Second, um, how long have you

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Speaker 1: been in Las Vegas now twelve years running. I think

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Speaker 1: at this point moved out here about nine months after

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Speaker 1: graduating from college. Figured it would be a real short stint,

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Speaker 1: we try something different and then figure out exactly what

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Speaker 1: I was going to do with the rest of my life.

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Speaker 1: Lo and behold, at this juncture, Las Vegas is pretty

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Speaker 1: much home to me, all right. So I want to

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Speaker 1: get into how you end up doing what you do,

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Speaker 1: but I'll start before that because people are always curious

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Speaker 1: how you end up meeting, uh, anybody that you end

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Speaker 1: up working with, And so I do think our story

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Speaker 1: is a little bit interesting. You uh said, was it

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Speaker 1: a d M or just a regular tweet? I don't

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Speaker 1: remember which one, but you sent a message that you

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Speaker 1: would like Dixieland to light my first book. Was that

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Speaker 1: a tweet or a d M? That was a tweet?

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Speaker 1: I leave sliding into d M is for people like yourself,

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Speaker 1: play and our co host Break of Vanetta to try

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Speaker 1: and pull it off. So it was a tweet. After

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Speaker 1: I had returned from a trip to Australia actually to

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Speaker 1: go visit my sister said, Hey, I really enjoyed your book,

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Speaker 1: and then, uh, I guess you can kind of throwing

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Speaker 1: some of the gaps from there. I'm happy too as well. Well,

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Speaker 1: this would have been one like a decade ago roughly.

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Speaker 1: I mean you you may remember the date, uh it was?

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Speaker 1: It was around the time. Hold on one second. I mean,

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Speaker 1: I know a lot of people try and remember the

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Speaker 1: dates they meet Clay Travis, but I'm not sure you

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Speaker 1: can put me in that same bucket. I'll leave that

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Speaker 1: to your lovely wife and some of your other colleagues

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Speaker 1: along the way. But I think it was a little

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Speaker 1: less than a decade ago though, because I was actually

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Speaker 1: working in the sports book at the time, and I

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Speaker 1: didn't actually start in the sports book of Caesar's until

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Speaker 1: I was in about my third or fourth year with

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Speaker 1: the company. All right, So so you're working at the

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Speaker 1: sports book at the time I see the tweet, and

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Speaker 1: I am at that time consciously moving more into the

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Speaker 1: sports gambling arena because I could see it was going

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Speaker 1: to grow and become a bigger and bigger part of

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Speaker 1: sports media in general, and frankly just because I thought

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Speaker 1: it was so much fun and based on my interaction,

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Speaker 1: I always try to respond to what my audience seems

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Speaker 1: to enjoy, and whenever we would do gambling content picks

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Speaker 1: and whatnot. The response would be great. But I was

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Speaker 1: a neophyight right. I mean it's not like I grew

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Speaker 1: up with a gambling family or background in general. I

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Speaker 1: had to learn as I went along. So I go

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Speaker 1: out to Las Vegas, and as you like to say,

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Speaker 1: I brought an autograph copy of my book for you,

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Speaker 1: which I thought it was just a super nice thing

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Speaker 1: to do, and you evidently considered to be a super

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Speaker 1: cocky move. No, I mean I didn't say it was

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Speaker 1: a super cocky move. It's something that we laugh about now,

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Speaker 1: because at that point I had read the book and

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Speaker 1: it was definitely something nice to kind of put on

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Speaker 1: the bookshelf for a book that I truly enjoyed. But

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Speaker 1: it was definitely an unusual encounter. The first time you

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Speaker 1: shake hands with somebody when they walk into the sports

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Speaker 1: book of Caesar's. Here they are right hand extended in

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Speaker 1: the left hand. They're also handing you a copy of

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Speaker 1: their books. So autograph copy of the book, but autograph copy.

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Speaker 1: But I don't think it's personalized. I have to look

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Speaker 1: on the bookshelf. I think I still have it, so

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Speaker 1: I might have to double check. But obviously after working

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Speaker 1: together as long as we had, I figured that was

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Speaker 1: a microcosm for what has kind of been our working

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Speaker 1: balance and our professional balance and personal life with one another. Well,

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Speaker 1: all right, so that was let's say it's eight or

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Speaker 1: nine years ago, whatever it was. I was after I

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Speaker 1: started out Kick, I think, but I think I just

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Speaker 1: started out kick. I don't think I've been doing it

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Speaker 1: very long, or maybe I was even about to start

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Speaker 1: out kick. Uh So you at that time had worked

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Speaker 1: your way into working in the Caesar Sports Book. But

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Speaker 1: let's go back in time a little bit. At what

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Speaker 1: point in your life did you think I would like

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Speaker 1: to work in the sports gambling industry. Was it a

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Speaker 1: conscious decision, and if so, when did that sort of

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Speaker 1: bug or interest begin. So I had always had a

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Speaker 1: passion for sports, grew up playing sports, whether it was

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Speaker 1: soccer hockey, the two activities that I stayed with the longest,

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Speaker 1: uh throughout my youth. That I figured, hey, look, I'm

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Speaker 1: not going to be good enough to be a professional athlete.

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Speaker 1: But you have no idea exactly how you get into

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Speaker 1: professional athletics in some capacity. But it was in the

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Speaker 1: DNA because I could think back clayto I might have

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Speaker 1: been four or five years old before the advent of

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Speaker 1: the internet, and every Sunday night I would sit with

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Speaker 1: my dad, whether it was during college football or college

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Speaker 1: bath ketball season, regardless of it was baseball or anything

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Speaker 1: else that was going on. And we had those old

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Speaker 1: school magnetic standing boards, and I actually still have a

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Speaker 1: lot of the magnets today that sit on my fridge

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Speaker 1: to hold up wedding announcements and all that stuff. So

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Speaker 1: my dad would go through the newspaper with me and

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Speaker 1: I had to figure out who the teams were, which

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Speaker 1: one of their logos was which, and then put them

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Speaker 1: in ascending or descending order, depending on how we elected

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Speaker 1: to set that board up. So I was familiar with

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Speaker 1: both the college and professional sports landscapes pretty much from

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Speaker 1: the start for as long as I can remember. And

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Speaker 1: kind of one other thing along those lines. Growing up

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Speaker 1: in the Midwest, I mean, you know what it was

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Speaker 1: like that you couldn't stay up late to always watch

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Speaker 1: Monday night football. So the first thing I would do

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Speaker 1: was a kid, I watched the first half of the game,

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Speaker 1: whether it was Sunday or Monday night football, go to bed,

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Speaker 1: and my dad used to leave the house so early

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Speaker 1: in the morning that on these trading cards he had

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Speaker 1: as a commodities broker, he would have the two helmets.

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Speaker 1: He would have a little football and he would leave

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Speaker 1: the final score for what the game was that I

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Speaker 1: would run down and that would be the first thing

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Speaker 1: that I would look at, so fast forward from there,

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Speaker 1: and it wasn't much further on down the road until

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Speaker 1: I was probably about eight or nine, and you start

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Speaker 1: filling out those office pools. I think everybody gets into

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Speaker 1: it in some capacity. So for us, it was the

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Speaker 1: confidence point. So for two bucks, you went through the

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Speaker 1: NFL schedule each Sunday and the team you were most

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Speaker 1: competent in fifteen or sixteen all the way down to one,

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Speaker 1: and that was more or less where I started to

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Speaker 1: get the gambling bugs. It would continue to steamroll from there.

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Speaker 1: Going to hockey practice early in the morning at five

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Speaker 1: thirty six o'clock, my dad would hand me the Chicago

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Speaker 1: Tribune or the Chicago Sun time and we look at

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Speaker 1: the Danny Sheridan odds or glanced in culver, and we

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Speaker 1: go back and forth picking every single NFL game on

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Speaker 1: the board, setting a bucket piece. He'd pick a game,

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Speaker 1: I'd pick a game. Some weeks, he'd get lazy and

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Speaker 1: he wanted to be the house so he'd let me

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Speaker 1: pick every game. And I think it was at that

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Speaker 1: point that I started to develop that fascination and six

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Speaker 1: Station on sports betting had no idea obviously fast forwarding

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Speaker 1: thirty years later where it was ultimately going to take

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Speaker 1: me from a career paths standpoint. So you grew up

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Speaker 1: in Chicago. We're talking to Todd Ferman. This is the

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Speaker 1: Winds and Losses podcast. I know your background. You've got

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Speaker 1: a younger sister, and it's you, your mom, and your dad.

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Speaker 1: I know your mom and your dad. Uh, and I

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Speaker 1: met your sister as well, all fantastic people. Uh. Your

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Speaker 1: dad was he a big sports gambler? Like did he

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Speaker 1: have a bookie back in the day? Um, what was

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Speaker 1: his relationship like with sports gambling? Yeah, he was. He

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Speaker 1: had been a better through and through and probably a

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Speaker 1: couple of bookies along the way to try and move

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Speaker 1: action back in the day. And so he always had

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Speaker 1: that trading bug in him. So when you work on

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Speaker 1: the stock market in the commodities broker, sports gambling becomes

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Speaker 1: a logical segue. So they got involved in some of

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Speaker 1: the biggest n c A tournament pools that were out

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Speaker 1: there betting games, and a variety of different manners, and sure,

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Speaker 1: you know, when we talked amongst friends, it was always

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Speaker 1: interesting because I think a lot of people as they

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Speaker 1: get into the sports betting space, now they've grown accustomed

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Speaker 1: to betting online or they're depositing into a legal book

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Speaker 1: where there's very little interaction. But there would be saturdays

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Speaker 1: and Sundays as a teenager where my dad, you know,

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Speaker 1: might have been busy. He had given me the phone

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Speaker 1: number and go, hey, here's our account name. We need

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Speaker 1: to call up, we need to check our balance, and

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Speaker 1: he's going to give you what they called the full rundown.

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Speaker 1: So you sit there with your sheet, you call up

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Speaker 1: a guy on the phone who you never actually meet,

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Speaker 1: and he lists off every single game in betting order

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Speaker 1: and what the rotation was, so you knew what the

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Speaker 1: point spreads were. I'd get all those numbers. My dad

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Speaker 1: and I would kind of put our heads together and

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Speaker 1: we figure out what the actually gonna for a given

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Speaker 1: day would be. So there really is a true gambling education,

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Speaker 1: and it's amazing to see how far the space has

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Speaker 1: come from that old school way where you used to

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Speaker 1: hear stories about those bookmakers that would take over banks

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Speaker 1: of phones at airports to try and figure out how

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Speaker 1: they were going to handle their workload on Saturday and

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Speaker 1: the Sundays. It is really fascinating. And the reason why

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Speaker 1: I bring it up with your growing up kind of

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Speaker 1: exposed to sports gambling is I think about this with

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Speaker 1: my kids now, and there are a lot of kids

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Speaker 1: out there that it's gonna be the same for sports

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Speaker 1: gambling in a way that wasn't necessarily the case for

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Speaker 1: me growing up. I remember my dad saying, I remember asking, hey,

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Speaker 1: do you ever gamble on sports? And he said no,

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Speaker 1: because I like the game so much I don't want

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Speaker 1: to get more stressed about him, or something along those lines.

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Speaker 1: Whereas my boys now, uh, you know, the first question

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Speaker 1: they ask usually when they see me watching a game

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Speaker 1: is did you bet this game? Do you have one

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Speaker 1: of the sides? Which side do you have? You know? Like?

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Speaker 1: And so I worry a little bit now because we

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Speaker 1: do lock it in and obviously sports gambling is a

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Speaker 1: substantial part part of what I do for a living

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Speaker 1: that I'm worried that I'm working to make as much

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Speaker 1: money as I can so one day I can leave

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Speaker 1: it all to my boys and they will eventually all

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Speaker 1: lose it. Uh in sports gambling, which is gonna be

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Speaker 1: the great sort of circle of life when it comes

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Speaker 1: to two sports media and sports gambling. Um, but it

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Speaker 1: is kind of fascinating in that respect to think about

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Speaker 1: how much different things are gonna be. Do you remember

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Speaker 1: the first bet that you actually placed with your own money.

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Speaker 1: I'm trying to think back to what it was because normally,

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Speaker 1: of course my dad would call the bets in, we

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Speaker 1: would kind of share, and he always said, hey, you know,

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Speaker 1: you're on the hook for you know, our wins and

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Speaker 1: losses that come along with gambling debt. But I can't

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Speaker 1: remember if he ever actually took money from me. So

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Speaker 1: when I first started to do it, I want, you

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Speaker 1: know what, I'm gonna try and do this. I'm my

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Speaker 1: own And so you couldn't really just go online, open

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Speaker 1: it up an account and deposit. You had to go

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Speaker 1: through the rigamar role of sending money Western Union to

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Speaker 1: places that you had never heard of. I mean you

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Speaker 1: could barely find out a map, whether it was curised out,

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Speaker 1: whether it was other spots in the Caribbean. So I

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Speaker 1: remember working all summer long because they started cleaning pools

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Speaker 1: and a pool attendant all that at fourteen years old,

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Speaker 1: working at open gym for probably six dollars an hour,

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Speaker 1: and at that point the minimum deposit to start with

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Speaker 1: any of these accounts was two hundred bucks, so you

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Speaker 1: had to worked for a long time. It doesn't take

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Speaker 1: a rocket scientist to figure out that map at four

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Speaker 1: dollars and twenty five cents an hour after taxes, to

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Speaker 1: save up two hundred bucks to send off to Antigua.

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Speaker 1: When I finally when I finally had the money and

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Speaker 1: I'd figured out, all right, I'm really gonna do this,

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Speaker 1: I'm gonna set it up. You know, you go in,

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Speaker 1: you get on your bike, you put the cash in

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Speaker 1: your pocket or wherever you're going, and you find that

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Speaker 1: little currency exchange to Western Union the money. But what

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Speaker 1: they don't tell you about it is you're not sending

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Speaker 1: the money directly to the sports book when you call up,

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Speaker 1: You're sending the money to Hector Gonzalez in Guatemala City,

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Speaker 1: and they give you a whole laundry list of stuff

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Speaker 1: that you have to fill out before you send the

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Speaker 1: money over there. So in the back of your head,

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Speaker 1: you're scared shitless going I worked my ass off to

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Speaker 1: make this money and I have no idea if it's

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Speaker 1: going to be in my account. So you open up

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Speaker 1: the account, you fill out all the paperwork, you send

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Speaker 1: the money, and they say you have to give it

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Speaker 1: six ninety minutes. You pick up the phone, which a

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Speaker 1: little bit more difficult to do because you don't quite

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Speaker 1: want your parents phone bill to show you calling Antigua,

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Speaker 1: were anywhere in the Caribbean at that point, and you

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Speaker 1: make sure that your money is in the account. Once

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Speaker 1: the money was there, it became much bigger stakes for

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Speaker 1: me because the minimum bet at that point was, you know,

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Speaker 1: fifty five to win. Fifty essentially is what you had

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Speaker 1: a bet. So I had enough in there for four

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Speaker 1: bets in total if I would have gone oh and four,

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Speaker 1: And it was then figuring out, hey, you don't have

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Speaker 1: a cell phone, how are you actually gonna call these

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Speaker 1: bets in. So I had a buddy who his parents

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Speaker 1: who were a little bit looser in terms of what

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Speaker 1: he could get away within the house that I used

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Speaker 1: to tell, hey, you need to call these bets in

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Speaker 1: for us and be able to make it happen. And

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Speaker 1: I remember going to the Big Ten tournament one day

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Speaker 1: back in Chicago, and I would get up after each game,

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Speaker 1: my dad goes, where the hell do you keep going?

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Speaker 1: And I hadn't told him that I had deposited money

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Speaker 1: and I was doing I think I was fourteen or fifteen,

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Speaker 1: so that I had money on the side where and

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Speaker 1: I would go look for a pay phone and I

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Speaker 1: would try and call in a bet. And there I

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Speaker 1: am calling in a beat on Iowa, Michigan between games

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Speaker 1: and that thirty minute, you know, interlude between contest, and

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Speaker 1: that's kind of the process that you go through. But

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Speaker 1: one of the things I will say, and you talk

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Speaker 1: about your kids, my parents are always big on, hey,

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Speaker 1: we trust our kids. And my dad was huge on,

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Speaker 1: you know, just being responsible with it. And that's one

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Speaker 1: area that you know, I joke about all the time

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Speaker 1: in terms of people that are reckless, and we know

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Speaker 1: gambling can be a very dangerous activity if it's not

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Speaker 1: properly monitored. But I had an open dialogue with my

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Speaker 1: parents on a lot of things about everything. And one

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Speaker 1: funny story along those same lines. So when I had

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Speaker 1: a lot of cash in my pocket one day and

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Speaker 1: came home, I had a little piece of notebook paper

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Speaker 1: wrapped around it has thrown my jeans into the hand

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Speaker 1: emper and didn't think anything of it. And apparently my

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Speaker 1: mom had stumbled on it. And the first thing that

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Speaker 1: any parents thinks when they see a lot of cash

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Speaker 1: in their kids pocket is, oh, my god, my son

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Speaker 1: or daughter is dealing drugs. So my mom sees this

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Speaker 1: little lot of cash, asked my dad what it is.

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Speaker 1: My dad kind of laughs and he sees the numbers

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Speaker 1: that are written down there, and my dad sat me down.

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Speaker 1: We had a man to man conversation. He said, you

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Speaker 1: know what, here's the deal. He said, if you can

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Speaker 1: be responsible with this, I can't tell you not to

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Speaker 1: bet sports if I'm doing it on my own, but

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Speaker 1: if you can prove to me that you can win,

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Speaker 1: you know, your mother and I are going to trust

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Speaker 1: you to make the right decisions, even at that young age.

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Speaker 1: And that kind of launched me into Okay, I have

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Speaker 1: to be responsible with my money. I am going to

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Speaker 1: sweat the games. And you definitely get stressed out when

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Speaker 1: essentially your entire network as a teenager uh is in

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Speaker 1: you know, Inner tops or whatever the hell the sports

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Speaker 1: book I was using back then, and that really got

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Speaker 1: me off on the right foot in a positive mindset.

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Speaker 1: But I will say trying to keep that even keel

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Speaker 1: and you guys bust my balls more than anybody on

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Speaker 1: the show. I really don't live and die with bets

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Speaker 1: at this point. I kind of treat it like the

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Speaker 1: stock portfolo. Yeah, you're gonna you're gonna want to win

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Speaker 1: more best than you lose. But at the same time,

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Speaker 1: if you get too excited when you win, or you

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Speaker 1: get too down with when you lose, you shouldn't even

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Speaker 1: be doing this as a recreational pursuit. What do you

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Speaker 1: think your advantage is? Uh? And I'll get into this

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Speaker 1: a little bit, but what I would say is you

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Speaker 1: and Sal for instance, are instantaneously better at doing math

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Speaker 1: than I am. Right Like I am good at writing,

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Speaker 1: I'm good at speaking live math. And you know, people

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Speaker 1: who listen to the radio show sometimes hear me doing

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Speaker 1: live math on the air or whatever. I'll test fine

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Speaker 1: on math. Can't instantaneously do odds. In my head, you're

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Speaker 1: pretty good at that, right, Like to be able to

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Speaker 1: assess value money lines, like the way the numbers are moving,

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Speaker 1: things like that that kind of comes innately to you.

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Speaker 1: Do you think that's an important advantage. I think one

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Speaker 1: of the big parts of it. And I know you've

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Speaker 1: read all of Malcolm Gladwell stuff. Sin slicing is the

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Speaker 1: first term that comes to mind. I mean, I can

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Speaker 1: kind of look at a betting board and without knowing

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Speaker 1: every single player on every roster, as I just don't

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Speaker 1: have the hours of the day that I used to

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Speaker 1: when I was younger to memorize some of that stuff,

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Speaker 1: and no statistics that I can spout off. You look

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Speaker 1: at the number and go all right, something doesn't pass

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Speaker 1: the sniff test here. Ultimately you find those some of

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Speaker 1: those games you dig back in and see if you're

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Speaker 1: intuition at least steered you in the right direction to

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Speaker 1: try and to find a winner. But math definitely plays

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Speaker 1: a big role. And I joke all the time with

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Speaker 1: some of my younger cousins that if they had learned

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Speaker 1: to bet sports, they would able to be able to

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Speaker 1: do multiplication and division their heads a heck of a

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Speaker 1: lot faster than most people that are out there. Because

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Speaker 1: the perfect illustration of that is you bet a college

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Speaker 1: basketball total at a hundred forty, the initial calculation is

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Speaker 1: all right, a hundred forty into forty how many points

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Speaker 1: per minute do I have? And you're constantly reassessing your

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Speaker 1: risk and what has to happen for those various permutations

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Speaker 1: as a game goes thirty five minutes to go, thirty

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Speaker 1: minutes to go. And I think it's a valuable life

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Speaker 1: skill to be able to think on your feet, maybe

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Speaker 1: not necessarily to actually bet the games, but to be

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Speaker 1: able to do mass that quickly identify the odds in

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Speaker 1: the subsequent probability that comes along with it. Did you

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Speaker 1: go to public school in Chicago when you were growing up?

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Speaker 1: I did. I went to public school all the way

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Speaker 1: up through my sophomore year of high school, and it

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Speaker 1: was at that point that, you know, my academic course

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Speaker 1: of action kind of took a very different turn, where

380
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Speaker 1: I ended up at boarding school, a small school right

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Speaker 1: out that of Boston called the Grottin School. And you

382
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Speaker 1: want to talk about culture shock. That probably was the

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Speaker 1: most transformative two years of my entire life, going from

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Speaker 1: a public school where I never really had to open

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Speaker 1: a book bag or do any homework at home, to

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Speaker 1: essentially going to a six day week academic calendar, uh

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Speaker 1: and being told that you wrote like a second grader

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Speaker 1: and having to go over to my English professor's house

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Speaker 1: before I turned in every single essay to have dinner

390
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Speaker 1: with his family and go through multiple steps. That really

391
00:16:43,480 --> 00:16:46,400
Speaker 1: took my writing from probably pretty pedantic at the public

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Speaker 1: school level into something that I was actually not a

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Speaker 1: shame to publish when you gave me the opportunity rite

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Speaker 1: articles at out Kick. So junior year of high school

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Speaker 1: was that the hardest year of your life? Hands down? Uh,

396
00:16:57,680 --> 00:17:01,480
Speaker 1: nothing has ever been that difficult as going into that

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Speaker 1: kind of environment. I mean, I was raised in a

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Speaker 1: middle class family in a mixed neighborhood, uh, in a

399
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Speaker 1: Jewish household, and now all of a sudden, I'm thrust into,

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Speaker 1: you know, the richest of the rich. I was the

401
00:17:13,000 --> 00:17:16,479
Speaker 1: only new junior mail that came on campus because they

402
00:17:16,480 --> 00:17:18,480
Speaker 1: actually needed a goalie at that point, one that could

403
00:17:18,520 --> 00:17:22,600
Speaker 1: read and write, since they just excused the current the

404
00:17:22,840 --> 00:17:26,040
Speaker 1: goalie who was there before from an academic issue. So

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Speaker 1: I kind of went into an environment site I'm seeing.

406
00:17:28,840 --> 00:17:31,040
Speaker 1: I had done the tours, I had had my overnight visit,

407
00:17:31,240 --> 00:17:34,520
Speaker 1: but you're talking about an Episcopalian boarding school with a

408
00:17:34,640 --> 00:17:37,560
Speaker 1: rich tradition of you know, some of the biggest blue

409
00:17:37,560 --> 00:17:40,919
Speaker 1: blood flat families throughout New England, across the country, and

410
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Speaker 1: you end up going to Chapel Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday,

411
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Speaker 1: where you're sitting amongst your students, and you know, the

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Speaker 1: school him essentially praises Jesus for your father's business. That's

413
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Speaker 1: a little bit different than when you grow up in

414
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Speaker 1: a Jewish household and you've grown accustomed to, you know,

415
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Speaker 1: spending time in a religious institution, getting a little bit

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Speaker 1: of religious education, uh, but also at the same time

417
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Speaker 1: not seeing it as a fundamental cornerstone for everything that

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Speaker 1: you were doing. Did you gamble much when you were

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Speaker 1: there at Groton for junior and senior year? I tried to.

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Speaker 1: It was it's hard to be on top of the sports, probably, right.

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00:18:12,960 --> 00:18:15,200
Speaker 1: That's different compared to when you were in regular high school.

422
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Speaker 1: Just just didn't have access to being able to watch

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Speaker 1: as much TV. We actually didn't have internet in the

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Speaker 1: dorms back then, so you had to go to the

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Speaker 1: computer labs and you were kind of limited in terms

426
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Speaker 1: of how much time you could spend on the computers.

427
00:18:26,560 --> 00:18:29,680
Speaker 1: But I did actually stumble into a website that more

428
00:18:29,760 --> 00:18:32,639
Speaker 1: or less had a very similar concept to lock it In,

429
00:18:32,840 --> 00:18:35,200
Speaker 1: where They gave you a thousand dollar bank roll every

430
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Speaker 1: week and it was a contest. It was completely risk

431
00:18:37,680 --> 00:18:40,119
Speaker 1: free where you had to pick games and whoever finished

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Speaker 1: with the highest bank rolls would be awarded you know,

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Speaker 1: free accounts, t shirts, swag and all of that kind

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Speaker 1: of stuff. So I'm sitting here thinking, all right, this

435
00:18:47,160 --> 00:18:48,280
Speaker 1: is the way I'm going to kind of get my

436
00:18:48,320 --> 00:18:51,080
Speaker 1: actions fixed. I'm gonna get some of my classmates involved

437
00:18:51,119 --> 00:18:53,240
Speaker 1: in this as well. And then one of my buddies

438
00:18:53,280 --> 00:18:56,399
Speaker 1: actually started the stock Market Club and got permission school

439
00:18:56,400 --> 00:18:58,400
Speaker 1: of funding to try and do this. So I'm thinking

440
00:18:58,440 --> 00:19:00,000
Speaker 1: in the back of my head, hey, look, I'm gonn

441
00:19:00,080 --> 00:19:01,639
Speaker 1: go to the headmaster and try and convince them that

442
00:19:01,680 --> 00:19:03,680
Speaker 1: I should be able to start the sports gambling Club.

443
00:19:04,359 --> 00:19:07,600
Speaker 1: Little to say, Grotten wanted no part of encouraging that

444
00:19:07,720 --> 00:19:10,000
Speaker 1: kind of behavior, So the stock Market Club was a

445
00:19:10,040 --> 00:19:12,400
Speaker 1: fixture there for the next two years. My Sports Betting

446
00:19:12,400 --> 00:19:14,399
Speaker 1: Club never really got off the ground. So where do

447
00:19:14,440 --> 00:19:18,560
Speaker 1: you go after you finished Groten? So after two years

448
00:19:18,560 --> 00:19:20,760
Speaker 1: at Groton, like you said, two of the more difficult

449
00:19:20,800 --> 00:19:23,639
Speaker 1: years from an academic and social standpoint from my side,

450
00:19:24,040 --> 00:19:27,480
Speaker 1: I get accepted to Wesleyan University and Middletown, Connecticut, but

451
00:19:27,680 --> 00:19:29,480
Speaker 1: wasn't quite sure that's where I wanted to spend the

452
00:19:29,520 --> 00:19:32,120
Speaker 1: next four years of my life. So rather than going

453
00:19:32,240 --> 00:19:35,199
Speaker 1: right from boarding school onto a college campus, deferred my

454
00:19:35,280 --> 00:19:38,639
Speaker 1: acceptance and actually spend a year in Burlington, Vermont playing

455
00:19:38,720 --> 00:19:41,399
Speaker 1: junior hockey for a program called the Green Mountain Glades.

456
00:19:41,480 --> 00:19:44,359
Speaker 1: And junior hockey kind of becomes that segue or that

457
00:19:44,440 --> 00:19:47,560
Speaker 1: intermediate step for kids to get a little older, bigger, faster,

458
00:19:47,760 --> 00:19:50,840
Speaker 1: stronger before they can go on to potentially Division one

459
00:19:50,840 --> 00:19:54,960
Speaker 1: scholarships or other types of athletic opportunities. Well, so I

460
00:19:55,000 --> 00:19:57,560
Speaker 1: spent a year up there a playing hockey. We pretty

461
00:19:57,640 --> 00:20:00,200
Speaker 1: much kept us on a professional schedule, or you know,

462
00:20:00,240 --> 00:20:02,320
Speaker 1: we have practiced every day. You were required for a

463
00:20:02,359 --> 00:20:05,000
Speaker 1: team lift in the afternoon. But you have to find

464
00:20:05,000 --> 00:20:07,719
Speaker 1: a way to subsidize yourself. So I ended up working

465
00:20:07,840 --> 00:20:10,680
Speaker 1: at a Starbucks as a barista as a brief stuck

466
00:20:11,160 --> 00:20:15,600
Speaker 1: so I had to be there in Burlington, Vermont, so

467
00:20:15,880 --> 00:20:18,360
Speaker 1: at six in the morning. And keep in mind, there

468
00:20:18,440 --> 00:20:21,360
Speaker 1: wasn't a free standing Starbucks in Burlington at this time,

469
00:20:21,560 --> 00:20:23,760
Speaker 1: so the Starbucks I worked at was actually inside a

470
00:20:23,840 --> 00:20:27,040
Speaker 1: Barnes and Noble, so Monday through Thursday. I used to

471
00:20:27,080 --> 00:20:29,480
Speaker 1: have to get into the Starbucks between six and six

472
00:20:29,560 --> 00:20:32,720
Speaker 1: thirty before the store actually opened up at nine o'clock.

473
00:20:32,960 --> 00:20:35,600
Speaker 1: I had to be responsible for all the baked goods,

474
00:20:35,640 --> 00:20:38,800
Speaker 1: all the inventory. So here I am eighteen years old,

475
00:20:39,160 --> 00:20:42,400
Speaker 1: trying to figure out how to balance playing hockey at

476
00:20:42,440 --> 00:20:44,960
Speaker 1: a very advanced level and make sure that I could

477
00:20:45,359 --> 00:20:48,199
Speaker 1: make ends meet with my job and to do so,

478
00:20:48,640 --> 00:20:53,280
Speaker 1: I'm bacon cookies. I'm bacon. Oh. I mean when I

479
00:20:53,280 --> 00:20:54,919
Speaker 1: say bake, it's a little bit different. It's not like

480
00:20:54,920 --> 00:20:57,080
Speaker 1: I'm handling any of this stuff from scratch. You get

481
00:20:57,119 --> 00:21:00,040
Speaker 1: giant boxes of short red cookie sent sent to you.

482
00:21:00,040 --> 00:21:01,520
Speaker 1: You have to put them on the bake sheets, though,

483
00:21:01,680 --> 00:21:03,720
Speaker 1: and make sure you have enough inventory for the day.

484
00:21:03,960 --> 00:21:07,000
Speaker 1: So I'm making oatmeal raising cookies, I'm making short bread cookies,

485
00:21:07,400 --> 00:21:10,280
Speaker 1: chocolate chip I'm making sure we have enough Panini's are

486
00:21:10,320 --> 00:21:13,960
Speaker 1: properly set up in the display case and everything else,

487
00:21:14,119 --> 00:21:17,120
Speaker 1: so we're ready for business. And this store manager would

488
00:21:17,119 --> 00:21:19,000
Speaker 1: always come by check on me. Knew I was a

489
00:21:19,040 --> 00:21:21,280
Speaker 1: little bit on the younger side, but that I was ambitious,

490
00:21:21,440 --> 00:21:24,080
Speaker 1: and my boss typically didn't come in until about nine thirty.

491
00:21:24,320 --> 00:21:26,760
Speaker 1: But here I am trying to balance not only that,

492
00:21:27,200 --> 00:21:30,280
Speaker 1: balancing hockey, and for the first time, I'm really living

493
00:21:30,280 --> 00:21:33,159
Speaker 1: on my own in an unsupervised environment. Because instead of

494
00:21:33,160 --> 00:21:35,560
Speaker 1: electing to stay with a billet family, which is pretty

495
00:21:35,560 --> 00:21:37,679
Speaker 1: common in junior hockey where you have a host family,

496
00:21:38,080 --> 00:21:39,800
Speaker 1: two other guys on the team of myself were a

497
00:21:39,800 --> 00:21:41,840
Speaker 1: little bit older, we decided we were going to rent

498
00:21:41,880 --> 00:21:43,960
Speaker 1: an apartment months to months in one of the sketchier

499
00:21:44,040 --> 00:21:46,760
Speaker 1: parts of Burlington, which quite frankly, was an experience in

500
00:21:46,800 --> 00:21:48,879
Speaker 1: and of its own right. So how did you end

501
00:21:48,960 --> 00:21:51,000
Speaker 1: up with that job? Of all the jobs that you

502
00:21:51,040 --> 00:21:53,000
Speaker 1: could have gotten, how did you end up working at

503
00:21:53,000 --> 00:21:56,000
Speaker 1: a Starbucks inside of Barnes and Noble. So the biggest

504
00:21:56,000 --> 00:21:58,000
Speaker 1: thing was we had to find jobs that we're gonna

505
00:21:58,000 --> 00:22:00,760
Speaker 1: work with our hockey schedule and when you're required to

506
00:22:00,800 --> 00:22:03,600
Speaker 1: be in the team workout facility about two o'clock in

507
00:22:03,640 --> 00:22:06,760
Speaker 1: the afternoon every day, I need some flexible ability on

508
00:22:06,800 --> 00:22:09,760
Speaker 1: the weekends because you're typically traveling and playing game. It

509
00:22:09,840 --> 00:22:11,359
Speaker 1: was all right, where can I get a job that

510
00:22:11,400 --> 00:22:14,119
Speaker 1: will start me early enough in the morning. So I

511
00:22:14,119 --> 00:22:16,880
Speaker 1: had gone. I had gone into the Bonton, a retail

512
00:22:16,920 --> 00:22:19,399
Speaker 1: out was there and thought about working graveyard kind of

513
00:22:19,440 --> 00:22:22,399
Speaker 1: stock shelves. I had gone into a circuit city to

514
00:22:22,440 --> 00:22:24,879
Speaker 1: see if there was anything behind the scenes there to

515
00:22:24,960 --> 00:22:27,480
Speaker 1: try and give me the flexibility of hours. And I'd

516
00:22:27,480 --> 00:22:29,560
Speaker 1: always been an avid reader. So one day when I

517
00:22:29,600 --> 00:22:32,240
Speaker 1: was walking through Barnes and Noble to pick up, you know,

518
00:22:32,280 --> 00:22:34,240
Speaker 1: a book that I really wanted to buy, I happen

519
00:22:34,280 --> 00:22:35,920
Speaker 1: to walk by the cafe and go, what are your

520
00:22:35,920 --> 00:22:38,359
Speaker 1: hours of operation? What do you guys typically look for?

521
00:22:38,880 --> 00:22:41,480
Speaker 1: And filled out an application. Probably about a week later,

522
00:22:41,520 --> 00:22:43,160
Speaker 1: they got back to me and said, hey, we don't

523
00:22:43,160 --> 00:22:45,359
Speaker 1: really have someone that's a true opener, you know, would

524
00:22:45,359 --> 00:22:48,040
Speaker 1: you feel comfortable with these hours because what they had

525
00:22:48,080 --> 00:22:50,119
Speaker 1: seen is college kids didn't want to work that shift

526
00:22:50,160 --> 00:22:52,480
Speaker 1: so early in the morning to pay wasn't great. Uh,

527
00:22:52,480 --> 00:22:54,720
Speaker 1: And ultimately they were willing to work with my schedule

528
00:22:54,920 --> 00:22:57,640
Speaker 1: that I could work Monday through Thursday. I could work

529
00:22:57,720 --> 00:23:00,480
Speaker 1: essentially six to one, six to one thirty, you know,

530
00:23:00,640 --> 00:23:02,240
Speaker 1: end up getting out of there right after the lunch

531
00:23:02,320 --> 00:23:04,879
Speaker 1: rush and still make practice and some of my team responsibilities.

532
00:23:05,000 --> 00:23:07,480
Speaker 1: What did they pay you do you remember? I want

533
00:23:07,520 --> 00:23:09,560
Speaker 1: to say it was seven dollars and twenty five cents

534
00:23:09,560 --> 00:23:13,359
Speaker 1: an hour. Maybe a shade more. I probably spent every

535
00:23:13,359 --> 00:23:16,480
Speaker 1: dollar that I didn't need for rent or food on books,

536
00:23:16,560 --> 00:23:18,720
Speaker 1: using some of my discount And when I look around

537
00:23:18,760 --> 00:23:21,119
Speaker 1: my man cave, now I have more of those you know,

538
00:23:21,200 --> 00:23:24,479
Speaker 1: big sports book, you know, fifty greatest players, hundred greatest

539
00:23:24,480 --> 00:23:26,920
Speaker 1: sluggers that I still have with me. Now they're a

540
00:23:26,960 --> 00:23:29,160
Speaker 1: little bit out of date at this point. Both will

541
00:23:29,160 --> 00:23:31,320
Speaker 1: always kind of serve as a reminder and all holdover

542
00:23:31,560 --> 00:23:33,000
Speaker 1: from how hard I had to work to try and

543
00:23:33,000 --> 00:23:35,000
Speaker 1: balance those two things to make it happen. You know,

544
00:23:35,040 --> 00:23:37,160
Speaker 1: those books aren't autographed, though you didn't get to meet

545
00:23:37,200 --> 00:23:40,359
Speaker 1: those authors. No, those books aren't autographed. Uh that I

546
00:23:40,400 --> 00:23:42,080
Speaker 1: did not get to meet those authors. But if I

547
00:23:42,080 --> 00:23:44,840
Speaker 1: ever have the chance to get some of the sports

548
00:23:44,920 --> 00:23:47,600
Speaker 1: legends and icons that are still alive to sign those books,

549
00:23:47,800 --> 00:23:51,520
Speaker 1: that those will immediately become significantly more valuable. My autographed

550
00:23:51,520 --> 00:23:55,159
Speaker 1: copy of dixieland Delight. We're talking to Todd Ferman. This

551
00:23:55,240 --> 00:23:57,359
Speaker 1: is the Wins and Losses podcast. I'm Clay Travish. You

552
00:23:57,359 --> 00:23:59,480
Speaker 1: can find Todd at Todd Ferman on Twitter. Tell how

553
00:23:59,520 --> 00:24:02,399
Speaker 1: much you think of of this podcast as well. Okay,

554
00:24:02,440 --> 00:24:05,560
Speaker 1: so you like I guess you weren't good enough to

555
00:24:05,560 --> 00:24:07,760
Speaker 1: get up to D one hockey level in that year.

556
00:24:07,840 --> 00:24:10,959
Speaker 1: What happened there? So I had done so I end

557
00:24:11,040 --> 00:24:13,600
Speaker 1: up playing for the Green Mountain Glades, ended up splitting

558
00:24:13,640 --> 00:24:16,000
Speaker 1: time at goalie with with another kid on the roster.

559
00:24:16,800 --> 00:24:18,680
Speaker 1: And what happened is I had done on a couple

560
00:24:18,680 --> 00:24:21,480
Speaker 1: of Division one recruiting visits and I wasn't the biggest guy.

561
00:24:21,560 --> 00:24:24,120
Speaker 1: Still won't consider myself a big guy in the grand

562
00:24:24,119 --> 00:24:26,600
Speaker 1: scheme of things, and a lot of the coaches said, hey, look,

563
00:24:26,640 --> 00:24:28,760
Speaker 1: you know at five ten and I might have been

564
00:24:28,760 --> 00:24:31,440
Speaker 1: a d forty five pounds on some of my best days.

565
00:24:31,720 --> 00:24:33,840
Speaker 1: They said, we're a little bit worried about your ability

566
00:24:33,880 --> 00:24:36,080
Speaker 1: to withstand the barrage that you're going to face at

567
00:24:36,080 --> 00:24:38,439
Speaker 1: the Division one level. And I kind of focused on

568
00:24:38,520 --> 00:24:42,240
Speaker 1: more academically oriented schools. I always wanted athletics to be

569
00:24:42,280 --> 00:24:44,439
Speaker 1: the conduit to get me into a good school. So

570
00:24:44,560 --> 00:24:48,520
Speaker 1: I went on official visits to you know, Dartmouth, Brown, Yale,

571
00:24:48,520 --> 00:24:50,840
Speaker 1: and a couple of the other ivs. Looked at Colgate

572
00:24:50,840 --> 00:24:52,800
Speaker 1: for a little while before they'd really built their hockey

573
00:24:52,840 --> 00:24:55,200
Speaker 1: program up, and kind of had a heart to heart

574
00:24:55,359 --> 00:24:57,560
Speaker 1: discussion with my head coach at the time and my dad,

575
00:24:57,920 --> 00:24:59,480
Speaker 1: and they said, look, I mean, what do you feel

576
00:24:59,520 --> 00:25:01,119
Speaker 1: is going to be the most important part. Do you

577
00:25:01,160 --> 00:25:02,639
Speaker 1: want to go to a big school and never have

578
00:25:02,680 --> 00:25:04,919
Speaker 1: a chance to play just to say that you're on

579
00:25:04,960 --> 00:25:07,400
Speaker 1: a roster, or do you want to try and explore,

580
00:25:07,680 --> 00:25:09,159
Speaker 1: you know, some of the other schools that you had

581
00:25:09,200 --> 00:25:11,760
Speaker 1: looked at before within the NESTCACK, which is the New

582
00:25:11,760 --> 00:25:14,360
Speaker 1: England Small College Athletic Conference. And I said, I want

583
00:25:14,359 --> 00:25:15,600
Speaker 1: to go somewhere where I think I can be a

584
00:25:15,600 --> 00:25:18,840
Speaker 1: part of an organization. So, ironically enough, while I had

585
00:25:18,880 --> 00:25:22,240
Speaker 1: deferred my acceptance from Wesleyan with minimal intentions of actually

586
00:25:22,280 --> 00:25:24,640
Speaker 1: ever setting foot on that campus as a student, that's

587
00:25:24,640 --> 00:25:27,240
Speaker 1: where I ended up um and realized that I was

588
00:25:27,240 --> 00:25:29,879
Speaker 1: gonna have to compete for minutes and walked into a

589
00:25:29,920 --> 00:25:32,920
Speaker 1: situation that was extremely difficult, uh and really didn't see

590
00:25:32,960 --> 00:25:35,080
Speaker 1: that much playing time over the course of my three

591
00:25:35,119 --> 00:25:38,080
Speaker 1: year hockey career there. The coach that recruited me ended

592
00:25:38,119 --> 00:25:41,479
Speaker 1: up retiring after his sophomore year, and ironically enough, one

593
00:25:41,480 --> 00:25:44,679
Speaker 1: of the assistants at Brown that had recruited me previously

594
00:25:45,000 --> 00:25:47,439
Speaker 1: ends up taking over the head coaching job, but he

595
00:25:47,480 --> 00:25:49,280
Speaker 1: was of the mindset that he wanted to turn a

596
00:25:49,359 --> 00:25:52,520
Speaker 1: floundering Division three program into something more akin to what

597
00:25:52,560 --> 00:25:54,600
Speaker 1: he'd grown accustomed to in the Ivy League. And when

598
00:25:54,600 --> 00:25:57,080
Speaker 1: he had a senior class about thirteen or fourteen guys,

599
00:25:57,240 --> 00:25:59,560
Speaker 1: it was a relatively rough transition to get full buy

600
00:25:59,600 --> 00:26:02,120
Speaker 1: in from of us who for the most part loves

601
00:26:02,119 --> 00:26:04,399
Speaker 1: playing hockey, but we love drinking on Friday and Saturday

602
00:26:04,440 --> 00:26:06,960
Speaker 1: nights just as much. All Right, So you realize you're

603
00:26:06,960 --> 00:26:08,560
Speaker 1: not going to be a pro athlete, not gonna be

604
00:26:08,560 --> 00:26:11,040
Speaker 1: a pro hockey player. Uh, what did you major in

605
00:26:11,040 --> 00:26:14,919
Speaker 1: at Wesleyan? So my degree in Wesleyan is uh a

606
00:26:14,960 --> 00:26:17,560
Speaker 1: little bit long winded. It was American Studies with a

607
00:26:17,600 --> 00:26:21,800
Speaker 1: concentration and international economics, And so essentially what that was

608
00:26:21,840 --> 00:26:24,399
Speaker 1: in Lehman's term, it was me kind of taking the

609
00:26:24,520 --> 00:26:29,600
Speaker 1: quantitative opponent quantitative components out of economics and focusing more

610
00:26:29,600 --> 00:26:33,120
Speaker 1: on the qualitative side. So my concentration even within that

611
00:26:33,600 --> 00:26:37,280
Speaker 1: was about developing economy, specifically in Latin America. And there

612
00:26:37,320 --> 00:26:40,080
Speaker 1: you go, a liberal arts education, something that you probably

613
00:26:40,119 --> 00:26:43,240
Speaker 1: weren't going to use anywhere going forward, but it gave

614
00:26:43,280 --> 00:26:45,399
Speaker 1: me the foundation to do a lot of unique things

615
00:26:45,600 --> 00:26:48,440
Speaker 1: and really carve out my course to study that ultimately

616
00:26:48,440 --> 00:26:50,600
Speaker 1: helped lead me into the gambling field. All right, but

617
00:26:50,720 --> 00:26:53,640
Speaker 1: that sounds also like something in the Northeast that would

618
00:26:53,720 --> 00:26:56,200
Speaker 1: maybe be something that would lead somebody into let's say,

619
00:26:56,200 --> 00:26:58,680
Speaker 1: an investment bank, right, I mean, it's your smart guy,

620
00:26:58,800 --> 00:27:02,480
Speaker 1: They pay well for you, hard working three year old.

621
00:27:02,840 --> 00:27:04,480
Speaker 1: You could maybe even go get an m b A.

622
00:27:05,040 --> 00:27:08,160
Speaker 1: Uh did you think about doing that? And that's exactly

623
00:27:08,160 --> 00:27:10,760
Speaker 1: where I thought that career path is gonna take me. Um,

624
00:27:10,840 --> 00:27:13,080
Speaker 1: when I actually got to Wesley and part of me

625
00:27:13,119 --> 00:27:16,040
Speaker 1: wanted to work in the natural sciences field, and then

626
00:27:16,119 --> 00:27:17,680
Speaker 1: quickly realized that, hey, look, if I don't want to

627
00:27:17,680 --> 00:27:20,280
Speaker 1: be a doctor, I'm not sure life as a researcher

628
00:27:20,359 --> 00:27:22,320
Speaker 1: is going to suit me all that well. So pivoted

629
00:27:22,320 --> 00:27:25,320
Speaker 1: relatively quickly into the more of the financial side. With

630
00:27:25,560 --> 00:27:28,280
Speaker 1: just that thought process in mind, said, hey, look, if

631
00:27:28,280 --> 00:27:31,240
Speaker 1: I graduate from here with an economics degree, some of

632
00:27:31,240 --> 00:27:33,040
Speaker 1: the connections that I had made in the network that

633
00:27:33,080 --> 00:27:35,080
Speaker 1: i'd formed through Rotten where all of these kids, a

634
00:27:35,119 --> 00:27:37,240
Speaker 1: lot of their parents, uh and some you know, a

635
00:27:37,320 --> 00:27:40,000
Speaker 1: lums were all tied into the financial world, that that's

636
00:27:40,040 --> 00:27:42,359
Speaker 1: exactly what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna go from you know,

637
00:27:42,480 --> 00:27:44,879
Speaker 1: college campus to working ninety plus hours a week on

638
00:27:44,920 --> 00:27:47,840
Speaker 1: Wall Street as an investment associate, spent two years there

639
00:27:47,880 --> 00:27:49,199
Speaker 1: and figure out what I want to do with the

640
00:27:49,240 --> 00:27:51,960
Speaker 1: rest of my life. And actually one of the jobs

641
00:27:51,960 --> 00:27:54,679
Speaker 1: that I considered most strongly and really wanted to do

642
00:27:54,760 --> 00:27:56,960
Speaker 1: was moving to d C and working for the Inter

643
00:27:56,960 --> 00:28:00,680
Speaker 1: American Development Bank, learning a little bit more about financial

644
00:28:00,720 --> 00:28:04,440
Speaker 1: policy on that particular side. Lo and behold. Though instead

645
00:28:04,480 --> 00:28:07,800
Speaker 1: of playing hockey my senior year, I end up pretty

646
00:28:07,840 --> 00:28:09,920
Speaker 1: much selling the coach. Hey, look, I don't think we're

647
00:28:09,920 --> 00:28:12,520
Speaker 1: seeing eye to eye in terms of the balance of

648
00:28:13,160 --> 00:28:15,920
Speaker 1: you know, work and athletic commitment at the Division three level.

649
00:28:16,240 --> 00:28:18,359
Speaker 1: I'm gonna kind of leave the program. And so I

650
00:28:18,440 --> 00:28:21,560
Speaker 1: spent the first semester of my senior year down in Sydney,

651
00:28:21,560 --> 00:28:26,439
Speaker 1: Australia and their economics program at University of New South Wales.

652
00:28:26,480 --> 00:28:28,080
Speaker 1: To my buddies I was able to convince to go

653
00:28:28,119 --> 00:28:29,920
Speaker 1: with me. We lived closer to the beach than we

654
00:28:29,960 --> 00:28:31,720
Speaker 1: did to campus, so obviously you know where we spent

655
00:28:31,880 --> 00:28:34,600
Speaker 1: both of our time. But then coming back to Wesleyan

656
00:28:35,119 --> 00:28:37,359
Speaker 1: woke up one morning it probably was in early March,

657
00:28:37,400 --> 00:28:38,800
Speaker 1: and like, you know what, I don't like the way

658
00:28:38,840 --> 00:28:42,040
Speaker 1: these interviews are going. I'm not sure working on Wall

659
00:28:42,040 --> 00:28:44,200
Speaker 1: Street is exactly what I want to do. You know,

660
00:28:44,280 --> 00:28:46,320
Speaker 1: I have a passion for the casino industry. I have

661
00:28:46,360 --> 00:28:48,200
Speaker 1: to figure out how I'm going to get into gaming

662
00:28:48,640 --> 00:28:50,560
Speaker 1: and the sequence of events it took to be able

663
00:28:50,600 --> 00:28:52,720
Speaker 1: to make that happen. It's one of those things you

664
00:28:52,760 --> 00:28:55,000
Speaker 1: always need a fortuitous bounce, but you also need a

665
00:28:55,000 --> 00:28:57,640
Speaker 1: game plan because the harder, the harder you work, sometimes

666
00:28:57,640 --> 00:28:59,480
Speaker 1: the luckier you get. All Right, So, like, if you're

667
00:28:59,480 --> 00:29:01,840
Speaker 1: gonna be atn actor actors, there's lots of people who

668
00:29:01,840 --> 00:29:03,720
Speaker 1: are even where I live in Nashville. You know, you

669
00:29:03,720 --> 00:29:06,000
Speaker 1: put your guitar in the back of your car, you

670
00:29:06,120 --> 00:29:09,120
Speaker 1: drive into Nashville. You you know, your your best looking person,

671
00:29:09,240 --> 00:29:11,760
Speaker 1: best actor actors all over the country. You drive out

672
00:29:11,760 --> 00:29:13,240
Speaker 1: to Hollywood. Do you just get in a car and

673
00:29:13,320 --> 00:29:15,360
Speaker 1: drive to Vegas? Like, how does that process work if

674
00:29:15,360 --> 00:29:18,000
Speaker 1: you're going to get involved in gaming? No, it wasn't

675
00:29:18,080 --> 00:29:20,360
Speaker 1: quite that easy at all. So when I tried to

676
00:29:20,400 --> 00:29:22,480
Speaker 1: figure out exactly what I wanted to do once I

677
00:29:22,520 --> 00:29:24,959
Speaker 1: graduated from college, I wasn't going to rush into anything.

678
00:29:25,320 --> 00:29:27,800
Speaker 1: So I had really lived at home essentially full time

679
00:29:28,040 --> 00:29:29,880
Speaker 1: since I was sixteen years old, and I had left

680
00:29:29,880 --> 00:29:32,880
Speaker 1: for boarding school. So what I did, graduated from school,

681
00:29:32,920 --> 00:29:34,640
Speaker 1: you know, had my fun a little bit, came back,

682
00:29:34,760 --> 00:29:37,000
Speaker 1: ended up picking up right where I left off my

683
00:29:37,040 --> 00:29:39,560
Speaker 1: summer job working at a restaurant bartending, trying to pick

684
00:29:39,600 --> 00:29:42,120
Speaker 1: up as many shifts as I possibly could, trying to

685
00:29:42,160 --> 00:29:44,440
Speaker 1: figure out ultimately how I was going to get into

686
00:29:44,440 --> 00:29:47,920
Speaker 1: the casino business or something in that capacity. Took a

687
00:29:47,960 --> 00:29:51,200
Speaker 1: battery of interviews, thought about being a corporate recruiter, you know,

688
00:29:51,240 --> 00:29:53,760
Speaker 1: everything under the sun, just to kind of get out

689
00:29:53,760 --> 00:29:55,720
Speaker 1: of working in the restaurant business because I knew it

690
00:29:55,760 --> 00:29:58,960
Speaker 1: wasn't gonna help take me. So are you waiting or

691
00:29:58,960 --> 00:30:01,280
Speaker 1: what are you doing? I was doing both. So I

692
00:30:01,280 --> 00:30:03,120
Speaker 1: mean I would bartend three nights a week, and I

693
00:30:03,120 --> 00:30:04,960
Speaker 1: would wait on tables and pick up as many shifts

694
00:30:05,000 --> 00:30:07,200
Speaker 1: as I could. I knew I had the flexibility with

695
00:30:07,200 --> 00:30:10,160
Speaker 1: the ownership group. I had been working for this family

696
00:30:10,280 --> 00:30:14,200
Speaker 1: and their restaurants probably since I was eighteen um, and

697
00:30:14,240 --> 00:30:16,560
Speaker 1: then had kind of migrated up to bartending. The nice

698
00:30:16,560 --> 00:30:18,560
Speaker 1: part about bartending on a Friday and Saturday night, I

699
00:30:18,600 --> 00:30:20,760
Speaker 1: was the one that able was able to control the remote,

700
00:30:21,040 --> 00:30:22,800
Speaker 1: and I could sweat some of my games a lot

701
00:30:22,800 --> 00:30:25,080
Speaker 1: easier there than I could walking through the restaurant worrying

702
00:30:25,080 --> 00:30:27,400
Speaker 1: about if I made sure the appetizers came out in

703
00:30:27,400 --> 00:30:31,040
Speaker 1: a timely fashion. But you know, when you look at it,

704
00:30:31,120 --> 00:30:34,200
Speaker 1: you figure things out. There's always breaks everyone, regardless of

705
00:30:34,200 --> 00:30:36,120
Speaker 1: who you know and how hard you work. You need

706
00:30:36,160 --> 00:30:39,320
Speaker 1: a break here there. Well, my break came halfway around

707
00:30:39,360 --> 00:30:42,360
Speaker 1: the world and something that I had absolutely no control over.

708
00:30:42,720 --> 00:30:44,400
Speaker 1: So my aunt at the time was the dean of

709
00:30:44,440 --> 00:30:48,200
Speaker 1: the Teacher's College at Columbia, and she was on safari

710
00:30:48,280 --> 00:30:51,560
Speaker 1: in Africa and Joe, as luck would have it, she

711
00:30:51,680 --> 00:30:54,320
Speaker 1: happened to end up meeting the president of Caesar's Palace

712
00:30:54,640 --> 00:30:57,520
Speaker 1: on some safari they were on. They struck up a conversation.

713
00:30:57,920 --> 00:31:00,440
Speaker 1: He had a young daughter that was looked to try

714
00:31:00,440 --> 00:31:02,560
Speaker 1: and apply to some of the more prestigious schools on

715
00:31:02,600 --> 00:31:05,160
Speaker 1: the East Coast. So my aunt offered some advice there

716
00:31:05,160 --> 00:31:07,720
Speaker 1: about her extracurriculars and how she should kind of structure

717
00:31:07,760 --> 00:31:10,600
Speaker 1: her application. Uh, And she said, well, my nephew is

718
00:31:10,720 --> 00:31:13,320
Speaker 1: very interested in the gaming industry and he's looked for

719
00:31:13,480 --> 00:31:15,240
Speaker 1: ways to try and be able to get into the field.

720
00:31:15,240 --> 00:31:18,120
Speaker 1: Would you have any advice? Well, he gave her contact information.

721
00:31:18,160 --> 00:31:20,480
Speaker 1: They swapped all that while they were commiserating because they

722
00:31:20,480 --> 00:31:23,760
Speaker 1: couldn't get service on their BlackBerry somewhere in Africa. And

723
00:31:24,240 --> 00:31:26,320
Speaker 1: he gets back to the States. My aunt gives me

724
00:31:26,360 --> 00:31:28,480
Speaker 1: all the contact information. So I really think you should

725
00:31:28,480 --> 00:31:30,840
Speaker 1: reach out to this guy. So I end up reaching

726
00:31:30,840 --> 00:31:32,880
Speaker 1: out to him. We go through, you know, a quick

727
00:31:32,920 --> 00:31:35,840
Speaker 1: casual conversation, and he goes, hey, I'd really like to

728
00:31:35,840 --> 00:31:38,160
Speaker 1: send my resume. There might be a perfect role for

729
00:31:38,280 --> 00:31:40,640
Speaker 1: you in the organization. And here I am thinking, you

730
00:31:40,640 --> 00:31:42,280
Speaker 1: know what, I want to get into sports. If I'm

731
00:31:42,320 --> 00:31:44,280
Speaker 1: gonna go out there, you know, how is this going

732
00:31:44,320 --> 00:31:46,680
Speaker 1: to get me into sports to try and open up

733
00:31:46,680 --> 00:31:50,000
Speaker 1: some of those doors and opportunities. Well, he passes my

734
00:31:50,080 --> 00:31:52,840
Speaker 1: resume along to the head of HR and they brought

735
00:31:52,840 --> 00:31:54,880
Speaker 1: in a new vice president at that point in terms

736
00:31:54,960 --> 00:31:59,520
Speaker 1: of financial analysis, and that particular department talked to him.

737
00:31:59,640 --> 00:32:01,720
Speaker 1: They all timately invite me out. I'm there for a

738
00:32:01,800 --> 00:32:03,840
Speaker 1: full day of interviews, talking and to have pretty much

739
00:32:03,840 --> 00:32:05,600
Speaker 1: every executive that I was going to work with on

740
00:32:05,640 --> 00:32:08,880
Speaker 1: a day to day basis, And things go pretty well,

741
00:32:08,920 --> 00:32:11,440
Speaker 1: so I'm not quite sure the next steps. I fly

742
00:32:11,520 --> 00:32:13,760
Speaker 1: back to Chicago. I kind of wait to hear from him,

743
00:32:14,120 --> 00:32:16,960
Speaker 1: and ultimately have a job offer extended to me. About

744
00:32:17,000 --> 00:32:19,160
Speaker 1: two weeks later. They go, you know, how quickly can

745
00:32:19,200 --> 00:32:21,680
Speaker 1: you move out here? And what do you exactly want

746
00:32:21,720 --> 00:32:26,040
Speaker 1: to do within the organization. So this happens probably late fall.

747
00:32:26,840 --> 00:32:29,920
Speaker 1: I have some family stuff playing around Thanksgiving. We don't

748
00:32:29,920 --> 00:32:31,400
Speaker 1: want to bring you out here before the first of

749
00:32:31,400 --> 00:32:34,720
Speaker 1: the year. Well, here's the other thing that becomes a

750
00:32:34,760 --> 00:32:37,560
Speaker 1: sticking point. I end up hearing from Compliance probably about

751
00:32:37,640 --> 00:32:41,640
Speaker 1: ten days after they had initially offered me a position,

752
00:32:41,640 --> 00:32:43,560
Speaker 1: and they said, there's some things in your background were

753
00:32:43,560 --> 00:32:46,000
Speaker 1: a little bit concerned about, and I'm going, you know,

754
00:32:46,040 --> 00:32:48,959
Speaker 1: I have no idea what any of this is. So,

755
00:32:49,120 --> 00:32:51,440
Speaker 1: and when they had gone through a background check on me,

756
00:32:51,640 --> 00:32:53,680
Speaker 1: I would have been involved in a posting forum, a

757
00:32:53,720 --> 00:32:56,280
Speaker 1: paper membership posting forum back in a day that was

758
00:32:56,360 --> 00:32:59,040
Speaker 1: kind of a pet project, and we had aligned ourselves

759
00:32:59,040 --> 00:33:01,880
Speaker 1: with an offshore sports book to take a filiate dollars. Well,

760
00:33:01,960 --> 00:33:05,160
Speaker 1: I probably made about seventy eight dollars in total from

761
00:33:05,240 --> 00:33:08,480
Speaker 1: those from those particular affiliate deals back in the day,

762
00:33:08,560 --> 00:33:10,880
Speaker 1: and they said, you know what they were able to find.

763
00:33:10,960 --> 00:33:13,720
Speaker 1: They were able to find that they can find. I mean,

764
00:33:13,760 --> 00:33:15,800
Speaker 1: as people figure out, and this might be a better

765
00:33:15,880 --> 00:33:18,240
Speaker 1: lesson for you know, some of the younger listeners out there.

766
00:33:18,480 --> 00:33:21,040
Speaker 1: Whatever you put on the internet, whatever you do, someone

767
00:33:21,160 --> 00:33:23,520
Speaker 1: is going to find good, bad, or in different So

768
00:33:23,640 --> 00:33:26,400
Speaker 1: never put anything out there on your digital footprint that

769
00:33:26,440 --> 00:33:29,840
Speaker 1: you don't want a future employer, future dating partner, anybody

770
00:33:29,920 --> 00:33:32,160
Speaker 1: else along those lines to try and find. And if

771
00:33:32,160 --> 00:33:33,840
Speaker 1: they do, you're you're going to have to own it.

772
00:33:34,600 --> 00:33:37,240
Speaker 1: So they found that. Um they said, hey, we don't

773
00:33:37,240 --> 00:33:39,320
Speaker 1: think we're gonna be able to extend the offer. But

774
00:33:39,400 --> 00:33:41,600
Speaker 1: I wasn't gonna take no for an answer, so I said, okay,

775
00:33:41,640 --> 00:33:43,240
Speaker 1: you know, I understand that, but let me talk to

776
00:33:43,280 --> 00:33:45,160
Speaker 1: the head of legal. I end up getting the head

777
00:33:45,160 --> 00:33:47,800
Speaker 1: of llegal on the phone through you know, the property president,

778
00:33:48,120 --> 00:33:50,240
Speaker 1: go through it for about forty five minutes. Say hey,

779
00:33:50,280 --> 00:33:52,920
Speaker 1: look here's what happened. I can explain everything that's there.

780
00:33:53,160 --> 00:33:55,000
Speaker 1: I can show you a bank statement. We do really

781
00:33:55,000 --> 00:33:56,880
Speaker 1: make much money. They said, all right, well, we're gonna

782
00:33:56,880 --> 00:34:00,280
Speaker 1: have to take you back for you know, final review. Thankfully,

783
00:34:00,320 --> 00:34:01,760
Speaker 1: they ended up going, you know what, we're not worried

784
00:34:01,800 --> 00:34:03,400
Speaker 1: about it's not going to create a red flag. We

785
00:34:03,440 --> 00:34:06,560
Speaker 1: still think you can get regulatory approval from the Gaming

786
00:34:06,600 --> 00:34:09,719
Speaker 1: Control Board. Uh. And ultimately I end up moving out

787
00:34:09,760 --> 00:34:12,560
Speaker 1: to Vegas at the end of February. Now, the challenge

788
00:34:12,560 --> 00:34:14,200
Speaker 1: that came with that is I had nowhere to live.

789
00:34:14,520 --> 00:34:16,560
Speaker 1: When I moved out there, wasn't making a lot of money.

790
00:34:16,800 --> 00:34:18,760
Speaker 1: What are they paying you, Like, what does the starting

791
00:34:18,840 --> 00:34:21,719
Speaker 1: job at that time paying like a casino like Caesar's

792
00:34:22,000 --> 00:34:27,839
Speaker 1: starting salary at that point was forty two decent. It's

793
00:34:27,840 --> 00:34:30,120
Speaker 1: a decent salary, but it's not like, I mean, for

794
00:34:30,360 --> 00:34:33,640
Speaker 1: what were you twenty four? I mean, that's pretty decent. Yeah,

795
00:34:33,640 --> 00:34:35,879
Speaker 1: twenty four years old. Cost of living in Vegas far

796
00:34:36,040 --> 00:34:37,919
Speaker 1: less than what it would have been had I've been

797
00:34:37,960 --> 00:34:40,720
Speaker 1: living in Manhattan or some of the other big cities

798
00:34:40,760 --> 00:34:42,560
Speaker 1: out there. So I have nowhere to live. Don't know

799
00:34:42,600 --> 00:34:45,080
Speaker 1: exactly how all of that's gonna go. Reach out to

800
00:34:45,120 --> 00:34:46,759
Speaker 1: a buddy, he's got a friend of a friend, a

801
00:34:46,800 --> 00:34:49,120
Speaker 1: family friend. They go, hey, we're happy to you know,

802
00:34:49,160 --> 00:34:50,480
Speaker 1: let you stay in a room in our house and

803
00:34:50,520 --> 00:34:52,759
Speaker 1: say you kind of figure things out. Lived there for

804
00:34:52,840 --> 00:34:56,200
Speaker 1: three weeks, end up renting a room in somebody's house

805
00:34:56,560 --> 00:34:59,000
Speaker 1: way the hell off the Strip, probably about twelves to

806
00:34:59,040 --> 00:35:03,200
Speaker 1: fifteen miles. And for anybody familiar with the Las Vegas

807
00:35:03,239 --> 00:35:06,080
Speaker 1: north of Craig Road, up by the Canary Resort and

808
00:35:06,160 --> 00:35:07,960
Speaker 1: area clay that I don't think you'll ever set foot in.

809
00:35:08,800 --> 00:35:11,080
Speaker 1: So I rent a room there. It's a girl that

810
00:35:11,160 --> 00:35:13,440
Speaker 1: owns the house. One of the other rooms is rented

811
00:35:13,480 --> 00:35:16,920
Speaker 1: to a guy named Doug who is a uh poker

812
00:35:16,920 --> 00:35:19,600
Speaker 1: dealer in town. Him and I strike up a little

813
00:35:19,600 --> 00:35:22,560
Speaker 1: bit of a friendship, and essentially, you I felt like

814
00:35:22,600 --> 00:35:24,560
Speaker 1: I was a stranger in somebody else's house, that I

815
00:35:24,600 --> 00:35:26,759
Speaker 1: was coming and going, didn't have much in the way

816
00:35:26,760 --> 00:35:28,600
Speaker 1: of possessions, wasn't gonna buy a whole heck of a

817
00:35:28,600 --> 00:35:31,360
Speaker 1: lot outside of the bed, you know, a cabinet here there,

818
00:35:31,800 --> 00:35:33,600
Speaker 1: And I end up living there for a year until

819
00:35:33,600 --> 00:35:36,200
Speaker 1: I ultimately moved closer to Strip as one of my

820
00:35:36,239 --> 00:35:38,319
Speaker 1: colleagues had a room open up in the house he

821
00:35:38,440 --> 00:35:40,960
Speaker 1: was living in, and that was kind of the transitional

822
00:35:41,000 --> 00:35:43,600
Speaker 1: step as I spent year one living out in Las Vegas,

823
00:35:43,880 --> 00:35:46,000
Speaker 1: not moving out here with any friends, not knowing what

824
00:35:46,120 --> 00:35:48,600
Speaker 1: the working environment was going to be like as a

825
00:35:48,640 --> 00:35:51,280
Speaker 1: financial analyst in Caesar's to try and learn the casino business.

826
00:35:51,480 --> 00:35:53,279
Speaker 1: So a lot of people when they hear that, you know,

827
00:35:53,360 --> 00:35:56,160
Speaker 1: like you're a twi year old in Vegas, they think

828
00:35:56,200 --> 00:35:59,640
Speaker 1: it's gonna be incredibly glamorous. There's lots of fun where

829
00:35:59,680 --> 00:36:02,160
Speaker 1: you go out a lot, like what was your existence

830
00:36:02,239 --> 00:36:04,879
Speaker 1: like as a twenty four year old Vegas. Obviously you're

831
00:36:04,920 --> 00:36:07,759
Speaker 1: making dollars a year. It's not like you're rolling in

832
00:36:07,840 --> 00:36:10,760
Speaker 1: money compared to people who may come in one weekend

833
00:36:10,760 --> 00:36:12,839
Speaker 1: and decide to blow through a couple of grand I mean,

834
00:36:12,880 --> 00:36:15,440
Speaker 1: you can't do that every weekend, right, No, you're not

835
00:36:15,560 --> 00:36:17,960
Speaker 1: rolling into nightclubs with bottle service and sitting at the

836
00:36:18,040 --> 00:36:20,160
Speaker 1: DJ's table when you're making that kind of money, by

837
00:36:20,200 --> 00:36:23,160
Speaker 1: any stretch of the imagination. So we've got smart and creative,

838
00:36:23,200 --> 00:36:25,840
Speaker 1: like everybody does. Knowing that, you know, most of the

839
00:36:25,840 --> 00:36:28,320
Speaker 1: analysts were relatively young as they were building up the group,

840
00:36:28,560 --> 00:36:31,200
Speaker 1: So we would typically look for, you know, excuse me,

841
00:36:31,280 --> 00:36:34,080
Speaker 1: dollar beers, for the opportunity to try and find a

842
00:36:34,120 --> 00:36:36,799
Speaker 1: free happy hour on Friday nights, to get after it

843
00:36:36,800 --> 00:36:38,640
Speaker 1: a little bit. You have friends that come to town

844
00:36:38,680 --> 00:36:40,719
Speaker 1: at that point, and you're the Vegas guy or the

845
00:36:40,800 --> 00:36:43,480
Speaker 1: Vegas girl. You have to show everybody around. So you're

846
00:36:43,480 --> 00:36:45,760
Speaker 1: trying to do dinners. You're trying to live well beyond

847
00:36:45,800 --> 00:36:48,360
Speaker 1: your means. But to catch twenty two becomes when you

848
00:36:48,400 --> 00:36:50,800
Speaker 1: come stumbling out of a bar nightclub at two am.

849
00:36:51,080 --> 00:36:53,640
Speaker 1: The temptation there is to play table games, and you're

850
00:36:53,640 --> 00:36:56,560
Speaker 1: thinking to yourself, you know, what's fifty bucks playing black jack?

851
00:36:56,920 --> 00:36:59,000
Speaker 1: You know, at five or ten dollars a hand. Well,

852
00:36:59,000 --> 00:37:01,359
Speaker 1: if you're doing that times a month and you're not

853
00:37:01,400 --> 00:37:02,560
Speaker 1: making a whole lot of money, and all of a

854
00:37:02,560 --> 00:37:04,920
Speaker 1: sudden you're blowing through four or five hundred bucks and gambling,

855
00:37:05,239 --> 00:37:07,480
Speaker 1: you know, that's a big problem, especially for someone like

856
00:37:07,520 --> 00:37:10,920
Speaker 1: me who was betting sports, making money betting sports, but

857
00:37:11,120 --> 00:37:13,760
Speaker 1: blowing it playing cable games. So that lasted for about

858
00:37:13,800 --> 00:37:15,600
Speaker 1: six months before I kind of told myself, hey, look,

859
00:37:15,600 --> 00:37:18,360
Speaker 1: you've got to stop this. Um you're gonna have nothing

860
00:37:18,920 --> 00:37:22,439
Speaker 1: left for for a rainy day should sports gambling start

861
00:37:22,480 --> 00:37:24,600
Speaker 1: to go awry. But we had fun. We went out.

862
00:37:24,640 --> 00:37:27,120
Speaker 1: We tried to take advantage of industry nights. You start

863
00:37:27,200 --> 00:37:30,200
Speaker 1: to develop your own little crew, uh and take advantage

864
00:37:30,239 --> 00:37:32,280
Speaker 1: of some of the things that the city has to offer.

865
00:37:32,480 --> 00:37:35,680
Speaker 1: When you're twenty four, twenty six years old, and you

866
00:37:35,680 --> 00:37:38,640
Speaker 1: don't have any real responsibility outside of making sure you

867
00:37:38,640 --> 00:37:40,160
Speaker 1: get to work for your morning meeting at a a

868
00:37:40,280 --> 00:37:44,239
Speaker 1: in most days, So when you're working at Caesar's, you're

869
00:37:44,280 --> 00:37:47,799
Speaker 1: not on the sports gambling side. Are you trying to

870
00:37:47,840 --> 00:37:50,200
Speaker 1: figure out a way to get to the sports gambling side?

871
00:37:50,200 --> 00:37:52,759
Speaker 1: And how does that happen? That was always in the

872
00:37:52,760 --> 00:37:54,920
Speaker 1: back of my head. So my first office when I

873
00:37:54,960 --> 00:37:57,400
Speaker 1: started with Caesar's Entertainment was actually in the Paris on

874
00:37:57,440 --> 00:37:59,920
Speaker 1: the mezzanine level. So that's a little bit jarring and

875
00:38:00,160 --> 00:38:02,640
Speaker 1: of itself that every day when you're getting into work

876
00:38:02,680 --> 00:38:04,800
Speaker 1: at eight am, where you're leaving it, you know, seven

877
00:38:04,880 --> 00:38:07,400
Speaker 1: thirty eight o'clock, because he typically put in about eleven

878
00:38:07,480 --> 00:38:11,239
Speaker 1: or twelve hour days as analysts. That you're walking through

879
00:38:11,280 --> 00:38:13,720
Speaker 1: a casino, so you're not walking through an empty office

880
00:38:13,719 --> 00:38:16,400
Speaker 1: building or anything along those lines. The energy is just

881
00:38:16,440 --> 00:38:18,680
Speaker 1: starting to get ramped up. You see a ton of

882
00:38:18,719 --> 00:38:21,080
Speaker 1: people coming and going, and it was always in the

883
00:38:21,120 --> 00:38:22,799
Speaker 1: back of my head, Hey, how how do I get

884
00:38:22,800 --> 00:38:25,600
Speaker 1: involved in the sports betting side. The nice part about

885
00:38:25,680 --> 00:38:28,960
Speaker 1: it was the same property president who ultimately gave me

886
00:38:29,000 --> 00:38:31,560
Speaker 1: the opportunity to interview and getting my foot in the door.

887
00:38:31,840 --> 00:38:34,279
Speaker 1: Was willing to make introductions for a gentleman by the

888
00:38:34,360 --> 00:38:36,759
Speaker 1: name of Chuck Sposito, who was the vice president of

889
00:38:36,840 --> 00:38:39,280
Speaker 1: race and Sports at Caesar's for all of Caesar's Entertainment

890
00:38:39,280 --> 00:38:41,640
Speaker 1: back then, and he took a liking to me, and

891
00:38:41,680 --> 00:38:44,520
Speaker 1: I would spend my weekends on Saturdays and Sundays, you know,

892
00:38:44,600 --> 00:38:47,919
Speaker 1: working for free, going down there behind the counter, trying

893
00:38:47,920 --> 00:38:50,279
Speaker 1: to learn the race and sports business because I knew

894
00:38:50,320 --> 00:38:52,600
Speaker 1: that was what my true passion was. That was ultimately

895
00:38:52,640 --> 00:38:54,800
Speaker 1: where I wanted to go, and it was just figuring

896
00:38:54,800 --> 00:38:56,880
Speaker 1: out a means to an end to be able to

897
00:38:57,040 --> 00:39:00,440
Speaker 1: pay my bills, learn the casino business, but ultimately find

898
00:39:00,480 --> 00:39:03,160
Speaker 1: a way to get into the sports betting side of things.

899
00:39:03,760 --> 00:39:06,359
Speaker 1: He ended up leaving Caesar's probably, I want to say,

900
00:39:06,360 --> 00:39:08,200
Speaker 1: maybe two years, I'm not quite sure of did that

901
00:39:08,239 --> 00:39:11,560
Speaker 1: exact timeline, uh, to take a bigger, more lucrative job

902
00:39:11,760 --> 00:39:14,560
Speaker 1: at a casino called Fountain Blue. Well, the catch twenty

903
00:39:14,560 --> 00:39:17,319
Speaker 1: two there was a Fountain Blue never actually opened, and

904
00:39:17,360 --> 00:39:20,400
Speaker 1: the whole plan the entire time when he had gone there, Hey, look,

905
00:39:20,480 --> 00:39:22,920
Speaker 1: you know, once we get this operation up off the ground.

906
00:39:23,120 --> 00:39:24,600
Speaker 1: I want you to kind of come over and be

907
00:39:24,600 --> 00:39:26,640
Speaker 1: pretty high up in my food chain because I know

908
00:39:26,719 --> 00:39:29,120
Speaker 1: you can handle the financial analysis. I know I've taught

909
00:39:29,120 --> 00:39:31,840
Speaker 1: you enough about how to handle the risk management, and

910
00:39:31,840 --> 00:39:34,880
Speaker 1: you're gonna be my utility infield there. Once that casino

911
00:39:34,960 --> 00:39:36,880
Speaker 1: didn't open, I had to kind of go back to

912
00:39:36,920 --> 00:39:39,640
Speaker 1: square one and begin building some of those relationships in

913
00:39:39,680 --> 00:39:42,719
Speaker 1: the sports betting space within Caesar's to figure out, Hey, look,

914
00:39:42,920 --> 00:39:44,759
Speaker 1: how am I going to get into this, how is

915
00:39:44,800 --> 00:39:47,759
Speaker 1: this going to happen, and what's going to be you

916
00:39:47,800 --> 00:39:51,799
Speaker 1: know that crux, that initial tipping point that I can

917
00:39:52,000 --> 00:39:54,720
Speaker 1: begin to make headway, uh and try and ultimately forge

918
00:39:54,719 --> 00:39:57,480
Speaker 1: a passing myself in sports betting more so than financial

919
00:39:57,520 --> 00:40:00,560
Speaker 1: analysis wins and losses. I'm Clay Travis East Tide Firm,

920
00:40:00,600 --> 00:40:02,839
Speaker 1: and you can watch us on lock It in FS

921
00:40:02,880 --> 00:40:06,760
Speaker 1: one Eastern, three thirty Central to thirty Mountain one Pacific

922
00:40:06,840 --> 00:40:10,200
Speaker 1: every day there. So what is that? What is that move?

923
00:40:10,360 --> 00:40:14,080
Speaker 1: What happens? So he ends up leaving. He had handled

924
00:40:14,200 --> 00:40:15,920
Speaker 1: a lot of the media stuff and he was one

925
00:40:15,960 --> 00:40:18,160
Speaker 1: of the guys, probably the leader in the space that

926
00:40:18,239 --> 00:40:20,759
Speaker 1: was doing interviews with you know, E S T N

927
00:40:20,840 --> 00:40:24,000
Speaker 1: S of the world radio networks across the country before

928
00:40:24,080 --> 00:40:28,120
Speaker 1: gambling was really big in terms of radio content, and

929
00:40:28,160 --> 00:40:29,960
Speaker 1: he had taught me an awful lot about ways to

930
00:40:29,960 --> 00:40:33,000
Speaker 1: carry myself on air, things to kind of say, obviously,

931
00:40:33,040 --> 00:40:34,879
Speaker 1: working for a casino, you have to be a little

932
00:40:34,880 --> 00:40:36,640
Speaker 1: bit more buttoned up. You can't just kind of shoot

933
00:40:36,680 --> 00:40:38,440
Speaker 1: from the hip, and you have to make sure that

934
00:40:38,520 --> 00:40:42,360
Speaker 1: you're slightly more guarded on the answers. And so he

935
00:40:42,400 --> 00:40:44,960
Speaker 1: had been gone for probably about a year or so.

936
00:40:45,600 --> 00:40:48,960
Speaker 1: I've been working doing some financial projects, and some of

937
00:40:49,000 --> 00:40:51,480
Speaker 1: the folks in PR had realized, Hey, look, we need

938
00:40:51,520 --> 00:40:53,160
Speaker 1: to try and have a presence in media. We're not

939
00:40:53,239 --> 00:40:55,839
Speaker 1: quite sure how it's going to happen. Um, the then

940
00:40:56,000 --> 00:40:59,080
Speaker 1: VP of the entire race and Sports book, didn't quite

941
00:40:59,080 --> 00:41:02,200
Speaker 1: feel comfortable doing some of the media stuff. So they said,

942
00:41:02,200 --> 00:41:04,920
Speaker 1: how would you feel about kind of doing radio interviews

943
00:41:04,920 --> 00:41:08,160
Speaker 1: and getting started on that particular front. And it started

944
00:41:08,200 --> 00:41:12,040
Speaker 1: with a small radio show in Springfield, Illinois, where they

945
00:41:12,040 --> 00:41:14,000
Speaker 1: had come out and they had done a remote. I

946
00:41:14,040 --> 00:41:15,799
Speaker 1: got down there at the crack of dawn to do

947
00:41:15,840 --> 00:41:18,080
Speaker 1: their radio show, had bantered back and forth for a

948
00:41:18,120 --> 00:41:20,840
Speaker 1: half hour. They were extremely happy with the contemple with

949
00:41:20,880 --> 00:41:24,080
Speaker 1: the casino in the station, end up going back and

950
00:41:24,160 --> 00:41:26,320
Speaker 1: that was kind of the start of what would become

951
00:41:26,560 --> 00:41:30,000
Speaker 1: an opportunity to speak as an ambassador for Caesar's, try

952
00:41:30,080 --> 00:41:32,640
Speaker 1: to get on social media and do more and more

953
00:41:33,000 --> 00:41:35,839
Speaker 1: around the space. Ultimately, what would then happen is they

954
00:41:35,880 --> 00:41:38,120
Speaker 1: created a hybrid role for me in the Sports Book

955
00:41:38,320 --> 00:41:40,600
Speaker 1: where I would work three days a week in international

956
00:41:40,640 --> 00:41:43,840
Speaker 1: marketing with player development specifically in Latin America, and the

957
00:41:43,880 --> 00:41:48,160
Speaker 1: far rest help helping structure you know, deals, discounts and

958
00:41:48,200 --> 00:41:51,040
Speaker 1: everything else to keep that organization going kind of as

959
00:41:51,040 --> 00:41:53,280
Speaker 1: a number crunch or there, and I would spend Saturday

960
00:41:53,280 --> 00:41:55,600
Speaker 1: and Sunday in the Sports Book. So there isn't anybody

961
00:41:55,640 --> 00:41:57,680
Speaker 1: in that space at that time, in my opinion, that

962
00:41:57,760 --> 00:42:00,759
Speaker 1: had a more disjointed work week than what I had

963
00:42:00,800 --> 00:42:03,239
Speaker 1: to do. Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. It was one job.

964
00:42:03,440 --> 00:42:05,960
Speaker 1: Saturday and Sunday was something completely different. But that was

965
00:42:06,000 --> 00:42:08,440
Speaker 1: always the allure of the casino that yes, you were

966
00:42:08,440 --> 00:42:11,760
Speaker 1: still under that name Caesar's Entertainment Umbrella, but you couldn't

967
00:42:11,760 --> 00:42:13,600
Speaker 1: have had two jobs that would be more disparate if

968
00:42:13,640 --> 00:42:15,919
Speaker 1: you try to hand take them. So you start doing

969
00:42:16,040 --> 00:42:19,000
Speaker 1: radio with me right that's where we met initially. When

970
00:42:19,000 --> 00:42:21,160
Speaker 1: you read Dixie Land Delight and you start coming on

971
00:42:21,200 --> 00:42:22,960
Speaker 1: in Nashville and you still do those hits with the

972
00:42:23,000 --> 00:42:25,200
Speaker 1: local show here three h L that I used to

973
00:42:25,239 --> 00:42:29,560
Speaker 1: be on with those guys. But how many radio interviews

974
00:42:29,560 --> 00:42:32,319
Speaker 1: are you doing? Like how does that grow? And did

975
00:42:32,360 --> 00:42:34,960
Speaker 1: you start to see a return? I e. People are

976
00:42:34,960 --> 00:42:38,960
Speaker 1: coming in asking about you. I did, so I started

977
00:42:39,000 --> 00:42:41,080
Speaker 1: with you guys as well, and I think that was, hey,

978
00:42:41,160 --> 00:42:43,200
Speaker 1: let's give a shot for one hit, Let's see how

979
00:42:43,200 --> 00:42:45,400
Speaker 1: it goes, and like you mentioned, you know whatever it did.

980
00:42:45,480 --> 00:42:47,800
Speaker 1: Eight nine years later, I've been on there every Wednesday,

981
00:42:47,840 --> 00:42:50,279
Speaker 1: more or less in a standing spot. But it was

982
00:42:50,520 --> 00:42:52,440
Speaker 1: trying to find markets where I knew some of the

983
00:42:52,560 --> 00:42:55,279
Speaker 1: radio hosts. So that Springfield station, I knew they were

984
00:42:55,320 --> 00:42:57,480
Speaker 1: going to be softball questions and there was gonna be

985
00:42:57,520 --> 00:43:00,480
Speaker 1: nothing controversial with that. I started doing a show with

986
00:43:00,520 --> 00:43:02,600
Speaker 1: you guys, and there were a couple other markets that

987
00:43:02,640 --> 00:43:05,520
Speaker 1: I got into as well that had to be approved

988
00:43:05,560 --> 00:43:08,120
Speaker 1: by Caesar's PR And at that point they listened to

989
00:43:08,160 --> 00:43:10,360
Speaker 1: every radio spot I did. I mean, we kind of

990
00:43:10,360 --> 00:43:11,879
Speaker 1: had to go We kind of had to go through

991
00:43:11,920 --> 00:43:14,680
Speaker 1: and break down film after each hit and they go, hey,

992
00:43:14,880 --> 00:43:17,080
Speaker 1: you know, we like your delivery here, we like some

993
00:43:17,120 --> 00:43:18,760
Speaker 1: of this stuff. You said, you have to be careful

994
00:43:18,800 --> 00:43:20,560
Speaker 1: about saying this because we don't want you to share

995
00:43:20,560 --> 00:43:23,880
Speaker 1: proprietary information. And what was interesting about it was in

996
00:43:23,920 --> 00:43:26,280
Speaker 1: the markets that I was in in a somewhat regular basis,

997
00:43:26,520 --> 00:43:30,040
Speaker 1: people would start making Caesar's a destination market. They'd come

998
00:43:30,040 --> 00:43:32,120
Speaker 1: in and say, hey, we heard Todd on the radio.

999
00:43:32,160 --> 00:43:34,319
Speaker 1: Because I was always saying, hey, you know, you come in,

1000
00:43:34,400 --> 00:43:36,359
Speaker 1: say you heard me on whatever radio station, will buy

1001
00:43:36,360 --> 00:43:38,480
Speaker 1: you a free drink on Caesar's. So we would give

1002
00:43:38,520 --> 00:43:41,719
Speaker 1: them drink coupons and drink vouchers and more and more.

1003
00:43:42,000 --> 00:43:45,840
Speaker 1: Excuse me. That momentum started to grow and Caesar saw

1004
00:43:45,880 --> 00:43:47,839
Speaker 1: all of that, so they went, hey, this is great.

1005
00:43:47,880 --> 00:43:51,440
Speaker 1: We're starting to grow our brand everywhere around the country

1006
00:43:51,640 --> 00:43:54,120
Speaker 1: that we're in these radio markets. I just thought, I

1007
00:43:54,160 --> 00:43:56,000
Speaker 1: want to kind of do a little bit more on

1008
00:43:56,040 --> 00:43:58,920
Speaker 1: social media. Had to try and balance exactly what I

1009
00:43:58,920 --> 00:44:01,320
Speaker 1: couldn't couldn't say that as an ambassador for the company

1010
00:44:01,320 --> 00:44:04,960
Speaker 1: and my own personal brand, and you get radio interviews

1011
00:44:04,960 --> 00:44:07,520
Speaker 1: out of it, You get media interviews on covers. Dot

1012
00:44:07,600 --> 00:44:09,759
Speaker 1: Com back then was one of the only sites really

1013
00:44:09,800 --> 00:44:12,720
Speaker 1: covering sports betting on a daily basis, and there weren't

1014
00:44:12,719 --> 00:44:15,319
Speaker 1: a ton of guys in Vegas that we're willing to

1015
00:44:15,320 --> 00:44:17,960
Speaker 1: give quotes or talk eloquently about some of the topics.

1016
00:44:18,239 --> 00:44:20,520
Speaker 1: So the more and more opportunities that were there, I

1017
00:44:20,600 --> 00:44:22,640
Speaker 1: was happy to take on any interview I could. I

1018
00:44:22,640 --> 00:44:26,160
Speaker 1: would do any radio spot possible. Podcasts weren't really a thing,

1019
00:44:26,160 --> 00:44:27,839
Speaker 1: so I didn't have to worry about that, or if

1020
00:44:27,840 --> 00:44:30,760
Speaker 1: there was ever a chance to get a quote into print,

1021
00:44:31,120 --> 00:44:34,480
Speaker 1: I was gonna do anything and everything with approval from

1022
00:44:34,600 --> 00:44:37,319
Speaker 1: Caesar's to be able to make that happen. And then

1023
00:44:37,320 --> 00:44:38,719
Speaker 1: one of the other markets that I got into on

1024
00:44:38,760 --> 00:44:41,799
Speaker 1: a regular basis as well was Oklahoma City, where I

1025
00:44:41,800 --> 00:44:44,560
Speaker 1: had a friend from my posting forum days who actually

1026
00:44:44,640 --> 00:44:46,480
Speaker 1: knew one of the radio hosts pretty well, and I

1027
00:44:46,560 --> 00:44:48,560
Speaker 1: think everybody kind of laughed on a whim. They go, sure,

1028
00:44:48,600 --> 00:44:49,920
Speaker 1: you know, we'll put you on. We'll see how it

1029
00:44:49,960 --> 00:44:52,000
Speaker 1: goes well. That's another market that I've now been in

1030
00:44:52,040 --> 00:44:54,720
Speaker 1: as long as I've been on in Nashville. Um, because

1031
00:44:54,760 --> 00:44:56,600
Speaker 1: you go on there and you have one chance to

1032
00:44:56,640 --> 00:44:58,399
Speaker 1: make a first impression, and so it's not to put

1033
00:44:58,400 --> 00:45:00,800
Speaker 1: pressure on people to put themselves. Uh, and you're in

1034
00:45:00,800 --> 00:45:02,839
Speaker 1: a comfortable spot. But if you do a good job

1035
00:45:02,880 --> 00:45:04,640
Speaker 1: from day one, you'd be amazed at some of the

1036
00:45:04,640 --> 00:45:08,400
Speaker 1: opportunities that become recurring in life. Uh So, are you

1037
00:45:08,440 --> 00:45:10,640
Speaker 1: gambling the whole time that you're in Vegas? Because the

1038
00:45:10,640 --> 00:45:12,200
Speaker 1: one thing that I would think would be pretty cool

1039
00:45:12,280 --> 00:45:14,279
Speaker 1: for somebody like you who grew up as a huge

1040
00:45:14,280 --> 00:45:17,160
Speaker 1: sports gambler, all the hoops you had to jump through.

1041
00:45:17,360 --> 00:45:19,400
Speaker 1: You know, you talked about going to Western Union, getting

1042
00:45:19,400 --> 00:45:23,120
Speaker 1: your accounts set up, obviously dealing with a legitimate bookie

1043
00:45:23,120 --> 00:45:25,520
Speaker 1: back in the day in Chicago. Suddenly you could just

1044
00:45:25,560 --> 00:45:28,400
Speaker 1: walk into any sports book in America and bet on

1045
00:45:28,480 --> 00:45:31,719
Speaker 1: every kind of event. How do you balance that? That

1046
00:45:31,840 --> 00:45:34,799
Speaker 1: was exactly what I was doing. So Saturdays, I would

1047
00:45:34,840 --> 00:45:36,640
Speaker 1: get up real early in the morning and I would

1048
00:45:36,640 --> 00:45:39,160
Speaker 1: spend pretty much all day in the sports book watching

1049
00:45:39,160 --> 00:45:42,440
Speaker 1: college football. So this was kind of that weekend warrior

1050
00:45:42,480 --> 00:45:45,400
Speaker 1: approach um when I was not on the weekends that

1051
00:45:45,440 --> 00:45:47,799
Speaker 1: I wasn't working, which you know, oddly enough, you know,

1052
00:45:47,920 --> 00:45:50,880
Speaker 1: maybe would be one Saturday a month or were there about,

1053
00:45:51,280 --> 00:45:53,000
Speaker 1: And so I would sit there and I would back

1054
00:45:53,040 --> 00:45:56,400
Speaker 1: games pretty much from sunrise to sunset. I'd have different

1055
00:45:56,400 --> 00:45:57,960
Speaker 1: buddies that would poke their head and they'd want to

1056
00:45:57,960 --> 00:46:00,480
Speaker 1: stop for beer, and they'd come and go, And that's

1057
00:46:00,480 --> 00:46:02,600
Speaker 1: what I would do. Now during the course of the week,

1058
00:46:02,640 --> 00:46:04,239
Speaker 1: it was a little bit trickier. I mean I could

1059
00:46:04,239 --> 00:46:06,880
Speaker 1: bet obviously on my way into work. But what I

1060
00:46:06,880 --> 00:46:09,359
Speaker 1: would normally do is I would break my day right

1061
00:46:09,360 --> 00:46:12,120
Speaker 1: around three o'clock in the afternoon. So with my office

1062
00:46:12,120 --> 00:46:14,880
Speaker 1: in the Paris, the closest walk would have been to

1063
00:46:15,040 --> 00:46:17,799
Speaker 1: what is now you know, I'm trying to think of

1064
00:46:17,840 --> 00:46:19,600
Speaker 1: what the club is there and tells you how it's

1065
00:46:19,600 --> 00:46:21,960
Speaker 1: a little time I spent on the strip. It would

1066
00:46:21,960 --> 00:46:24,680
Speaker 1: have been Barbary Coast back then. So I would walk

1067
00:46:24,760 --> 00:46:27,799
Speaker 1: through the Paris, I would cut through valleys, uh, and

1068
00:46:27,840 --> 00:46:29,919
Speaker 1: I would walk into the Barbary Coast. That typically where

1069
00:46:29,920 --> 00:46:31,680
Speaker 1: I placed most of my best because that's where I

1070
00:46:31,680 --> 00:46:36,040
Speaker 1: was able to get the quickest back and forth within minutes.

1071
00:46:36,239 --> 00:46:38,600
Speaker 1: Put my stuff in for college basketball, and the nice

1072
00:46:38,600 --> 00:46:41,200
Speaker 1: part about being a financial analysts you have multiple computers

1073
00:46:41,200 --> 00:46:44,279
Speaker 1: in your in your cubicle, so I would have one

1074
00:46:44,320 --> 00:46:46,600
Speaker 1: that more or less became my score machine. I didn't

1075
00:46:46,640 --> 00:46:48,759
Speaker 1: stream game, but you try and follow it on those

1076
00:46:48,760 --> 00:46:51,440
Speaker 1: old school sports trackers. I would work and kind of

1077
00:46:51,440 --> 00:46:53,400
Speaker 1: sweat the games at my desk, you knowing that everything

1078
00:46:53,440 --> 00:46:57,080
Speaker 1: started at four o'clock in the afternoon, so being able

1079
00:46:57,120 --> 00:47:00,640
Speaker 1: to bet games at that point obviously significan getting be easier,

1080
00:47:00,640 --> 00:47:03,080
Speaker 1: you didn't have to worry about any limits or whatever

1081
00:47:03,120 --> 00:47:05,520
Speaker 1: you were looking for. Uh. And the funny part about

1082
00:47:05,520 --> 00:47:07,120
Speaker 1: that that some of my co workers would give me

1083
00:47:07,120 --> 00:47:10,120
Speaker 1: a hard time. Uh. For about three or four months,

1084
00:47:10,120 --> 00:47:13,120
Speaker 1: then I started dating a lifeguards that worked on property

1085
00:47:13,680 --> 00:47:17,160
Speaker 1: at Paris. So I would have lunch full suit, and

1086
00:47:17,360 --> 00:47:20,400
Speaker 1: this lifeguard that was nineteen or two, you know, twenty

1087
00:47:20,480 --> 00:47:23,120
Speaker 1: years old and I was twenty four, would be sitting

1088
00:47:23,120 --> 00:47:24,800
Speaker 1: next to me. And you want to talk about getting

1089
00:47:24,880 --> 00:47:27,960
Speaker 1: rased by your coworkers, both male and female. Uh. The

1090
00:47:27,960 --> 00:47:31,000
Speaker 1: amount of jokes that came hurled my way as I

1091
00:47:31,000 --> 00:47:33,200
Speaker 1: would typically try and get her to walk across the

1092
00:47:33,239 --> 00:47:35,120
Speaker 1: street with me when she was on break as well,

1093
00:47:35,320 --> 00:47:37,080
Speaker 1: but she couldn't come into the casino, so she had

1094
00:47:37,080 --> 00:47:39,440
Speaker 1: to stand outside the sports book area when I went

1095
00:47:39,440 --> 00:47:41,600
Speaker 1: into place my bet. And it's just one of those

1096
00:47:41,640 --> 00:47:43,480
Speaker 1: things when you're out here that you look back on

1097
00:47:43,560 --> 00:47:45,359
Speaker 1: you kind of get a good laugh. Uh. And crease

1098
00:47:45,440 --> 00:47:48,359
Speaker 1: for better stories, and it did anything else. So, uh,

1099
00:47:48,600 --> 00:47:51,880
Speaker 1: as you're you know, continuing to adjust to life in

1100
00:47:51,880 --> 00:47:55,000
Speaker 1: in Vegas and as you know sports gambling, the profile,

1101
00:47:55,040 --> 00:47:58,160
Speaker 1: I would say, in general is becoming more and more commonplace.

1102
00:47:58,600 --> 00:48:01,200
Speaker 1: What's your career path and transition at that point in time?

1103
00:48:01,239 --> 00:48:04,960
Speaker 1: Because you started out making you're a single guy, you're

1104
00:48:05,000 --> 00:48:07,759
Speaker 1: working your way towards being in a sports book. You've

1105
00:48:07,800 --> 00:48:10,480
Speaker 1: worked a lot at that point, But what you're in goal?

1106
00:48:10,560 --> 00:48:13,120
Speaker 1: What did you think at that point? So honestly, it

1107
00:48:13,160 --> 00:48:14,920
Speaker 1: wasn't quite sure. I mean I had thought at that

1108
00:48:15,000 --> 00:48:17,360
Speaker 1: point my goal was to be in charge of um

1109
00:48:17,400 --> 00:48:19,879
Speaker 1: a sports book. I wanted to be the one making

1110
00:48:19,880 --> 00:48:22,320
Speaker 1: all the decisions handling media, being in charge of a

1111
00:48:22,440 --> 00:48:27,360
Speaker 1: risk philosophy, setting numbers, hiring my own team, and making

1112
00:48:27,400 --> 00:48:29,840
Speaker 1: sure whatever organization I was a part of was going

1113
00:48:29,920 --> 00:48:33,479
Speaker 1: to be molded by me. Well, as everybody runs into

1114
00:48:33,520 --> 00:48:36,279
Speaker 1: regardless of the field, there are always obstacles in your way,

1115
00:48:36,320 --> 00:48:39,760
Speaker 1: and mind just happened to be my then boss, who uh,

1116
00:48:39,840 --> 00:48:41,960
Speaker 1: you know, more or less had been a guy that

1117
00:48:42,040 --> 00:48:44,400
Speaker 1: really didn't know the sports betting space, hadn't put the

1118
00:48:44,440 --> 00:48:46,279
Speaker 1: time in. He was a guy that had worked his

1119
00:48:46,320 --> 00:48:48,960
Speaker 1: way up the food change through food and beverage and

1120
00:48:49,040 --> 00:48:51,520
Speaker 1: been thrust in a sports betting more so on the

1121
00:48:51,560 --> 00:48:54,879
Speaker 1: hairs in Rio Side pre merger before they took over

1122
00:48:54,920 --> 00:48:58,000
Speaker 1: the Caesar's Entertainment brand, never thinking that he was going

1123
00:48:58,040 --> 00:48:59,960
Speaker 1: to be in charge of one of the more iconic

1124
00:49:00,080 --> 00:49:03,360
Speaker 1: brands in the sports betting space. And as the media

1125
00:49:03,400 --> 00:49:07,600
Speaker 1: profile continued to grow and there were more requests for interviews, radio,

1126
00:49:08,040 --> 00:49:10,880
Speaker 1: even some TV and everything else along those lines, I

1127
00:49:10,920 --> 00:49:13,080
Speaker 1: think he started to feel that I was infringing on

1128
00:49:13,120 --> 00:49:15,600
Speaker 1: his turf. A guy that had been you know, all

1129
00:49:15,640 --> 00:49:17,719
Speaker 1: about me trying to do more to try and help

1130
00:49:17,719 --> 00:49:21,160
Speaker 1: grow business suddenly saw my name appearing in print and

1131
00:49:21,200 --> 00:49:25,240
Speaker 1: people making Todd Ferman's anonymous with Caesar's Palace sports books.

1132
00:49:25,719 --> 00:49:27,719
Speaker 1: So he all of a sudden tried to rein in

1133
00:49:27,840 --> 00:49:29,919
Speaker 1: some of the things I could do, tried to make

1134
00:49:29,960 --> 00:49:32,560
Speaker 1: my life considerably more difficult, wouldn't allow any of my

1135
00:49:32,600 --> 00:49:35,680
Speaker 1: initiatives to pass, and any relationship I had, which was

1136
00:49:36,040 --> 00:49:37,759
Speaker 1: you know, pretty strong with a lot of folks at

1137
00:49:37,800 --> 00:49:40,640
Speaker 1: senior level management because I've been presenting my findings for

1138
00:49:40,719 --> 00:49:43,359
Speaker 1: so long, he tried to get in the way. Went

1139
00:49:43,440 --> 00:49:46,080
Speaker 1: so far as you know, an employee that had always

1140
00:49:46,120 --> 00:49:50,120
Speaker 1: scored extremely well on his employee survey and from a

1141
00:49:50,160 --> 00:49:52,799
Speaker 1: bonus standpoint, would do everything he can to try and

1142
00:49:52,880 --> 00:49:55,640
Speaker 1: chip away at the reputation I had built. And before

1143
00:49:55,719 --> 00:49:58,640
Speaker 1: one football season, I started looking around. I continued to

1144
00:49:58,680 --> 00:50:00,279
Speaker 1: network through the space and when you know, and I'm

1145
00:50:00,320 --> 00:50:02,560
Speaker 1: not sure I can get through another year, uh, in

1146
00:50:02,560 --> 00:50:04,920
Speaker 1: this particular organization, I don't think I'm gonna be given

1147
00:50:04,960 --> 00:50:07,919
Speaker 1: more opportunity to try and do some of the things

1148
00:50:07,960 --> 00:50:10,920
Speaker 1: I want. End up taking a consulting job for a

1149
00:50:10,960 --> 00:50:13,120
Speaker 1: company called don Best. They brought me on for a

1150
00:50:13,160 --> 00:50:16,160
Speaker 1: six month consulting position. I had never made more than

1151
00:50:16,239 --> 00:50:20,279
Speaker 1: sixty dollars in in a year working at Casers. I

1152
00:50:20,280 --> 00:50:22,799
Speaker 1: think I tapped out about fifty eight five. And this

1153
00:50:22,880 --> 00:50:25,120
Speaker 1: was six years after I had started there. So a

1154
00:50:25,160 --> 00:50:27,200
Speaker 1: lot of my colleagues and some of the kids that

1155
00:50:27,239 --> 00:50:29,760
Speaker 1: i'd broken into with finance, we're in now in positions

1156
00:50:29,800 --> 00:50:33,160
Speaker 1: where they were making a thousand dollars a year because

1157
00:50:33,200 --> 00:50:35,240
Speaker 1: they had been on the fast track the different director

1158
00:50:35,320 --> 00:50:37,719
Speaker 1: level roles within the casino. But I had always see

1159
00:50:37,760 --> 00:50:39,360
Speaker 1: true to the passion in sports and go, you know what,

1160
00:50:39,360 --> 00:50:40,759
Speaker 1: I'm gonna ride this thing out as long as I

1161
00:50:40,800 --> 00:50:44,080
Speaker 1: possibly can and make it work. So I end up

1162
00:50:44,080 --> 00:50:46,799
Speaker 1: getting a consulting job. We go through some negotiations and

1163
00:50:46,840 --> 00:50:48,400
Speaker 1: I hate you know, I said, you know, hey, for

1164
00:50:48,440 --> 00:50:50,399
Speaker 1: me to leave, you know, I need to make sure

1165
00:50:50,440 --> 00:50:52,880
Speaker 1: that there's enough money and I have security, so you

1166
00:50:52,920 --> 00:50:54,840
Speaker 1: know where you guys be willing to pay me sixty

1167
00:50:55,239 --> 00:50:58,239
Speaker 1: dollars for the six month consulting role and they don't

1168
00:50:58,239 --> 00:51:00,759
Speaker 1: hesitate at the chance at all. So I end up

1169
00:51:00,760 --> 00:51:04,200
Speaker 1: taking a six month consulting role, UH for sixty dollars

1170
00:51:04,239 --> 00:51:06,400
Speaker 1: at the time. And the one thing that this company

1171
00:51:06,400 --> 00:51:08,560
Speaker 1: did they had relationships with a lot of books, the

1172
00:51:08,600 --> 00:51:12,360
Speaker 1: European operators and through South America, all in the legal market,

1173
00:51:12,600 --> 00:51:15,359
Speaker 1: and they were big making white label content at that time.

1174
00:51:15,640 --> 00:51:20,239
Speaker 1: So if you were in you know, match Matchbook or

1175
00:51:20,440 --> 00:51:23,600
Speaker 1: you were in sports betting Australia, they would come to you.

1176
00:51:23,680 --> 00:51:25,759
Speaker 1: We go, hey, we want an NBA video. We need

1177
00:51:25,760 --> 00:51:27,719
Speaker 1: two of your hosts to try and break down the game.

1178
00:51:28,120 --> 00:51:29,920
Speaker 1: And that was kind of what we did. UH did

1179
00:51:29,960 --> 00:51:31,920
Speaker 1: a lot of media stuff try to figure out, you know,

1180
00:51:31,920 --> 00:51:35,160
Speaker 1: how we could monetize that strategy and create a business

1181
00:51:35,160 --> 00:51:38,520
Speaker 1: to consumer product line the exact same way and it

1182
00:51:38,600 --> 00:51:40,239
Speaker 1: was about that time as well, where I was still

1183
00:51:40,280 --> 00:51:42,480
Speaker 1: doing radio with you, where I reached out and said, hey,

1184
00:51:42,520 --> 00:51:44,560
Speaker 1: I really want to start writing for OutKick And I

1185
00:51:44,600 --> 00:51:46,839
Speaker 1: think you had already been bitten by the gambling bug

1186
00:51:46,880 --> 00:51:49,880
Speaker 1: long since before gave me the opportunity. And I was

1187
00:51:49,960 --> 00:51:52,520
Speaker 1: kind of doing those two things, working as a consultant

1188
00:51:52,560 --> 00:51:55,839
Speaker 1: for a sports betting uh company out here and also

1189
00:51:55,880 --> 00:51:57,920
Speaker 1: writing for outkicks at the same time. All right, and

1190
00:51:57,960 --> 00:52:01,080
Speaker 1: then we get into and I think we're moving up

1191
00:52:01,080 --> 00:52:04,680
Speaker 1: on that point, like FS one launching, right F S

1192
00:52:04,800 --> 00:52:07,880
Speaker 1: one h F S one probably would have launched the

1193
00:52:07,960 --> 00:52:10,399
Speaker 1: second year, so I had been consulting. It didn't launch

1194
00:52:10,480 --> 00:52:12,719
Speaker 1: the first year that I had been a consultant, but

1195
00:52:12,800 --> 00:52:15,880
Speaker 1: it was probably early August of what two thousand and fourteen,

1196
00:52:15,880 --> 00:52:17,399
Speaker 1: I think that's where we're at. Then when they launch

1197
00:52:17,440 --> 00:52:22,120
Speaker 1: August nineteen through thereabouts. I think they launched in thirteen. Okay,

1198
00:52:22,120 --> 00:52:24,560
Speaker 1: so it would have been two thousand thirteen. Uh so,

1199
00:52:24,880 --> 00:52:27,360
Speaker 1: But we pitched them on an idea of starting to

1200
00:52:27,360 --> 00:52:29,719
Speaker 1: do some sports gambling things. And you know, this is

1201
00:52:29,760 --> 00:52:33,080
Speaker 1: before the Supreme Courts acted and everything else. And so

1202
00:52:33,400 --> 00:52:36,600
Speaker 1: with the launch of FS one, we start doing an

1203
00:52:36,600 --> 00:52:39,440
Speaker 1: occasional let it ride segment, right, so they will bring

1204
00:52:39,880 --> 00:52:42,279
Speaker 1: you out, they hire me, and then I'm like, hey,

1205
00:52:42,280 --> 00:52:44,520
Speaker 1: this guy Todd Furman will be really good on television.

1206
00:52:44,520 --> 00:52:47,239
Speaker 1: I'm telling you. So you would come out and like

1207
00:52:47,440 --> 00:52:49,560
Speaker 1: as part of the Fox Sports Live show, we might

1208
00:52:49,600 --> 00:52:52,120
Speaker 1: do like a one or two benette thing with like

1209
00:52:52,480 --> 00:52:56,840
Speaker 1: Charissa Thompson sometimes Andy Roddick. Different. Andy Roddick actually hosted

1210
00:52:56,880 --> 00:52:59,399
Speaker 1: it with us, and they were pretty gung ho about

1211
00:52:59,440 --> 00:53:01,880
Speaker 1: it at five, which makes sense because they were already

1212
00:53:01,920 --> 00:53:05,359
Speaker 1: I think, contemplating the idea of what would eventually turn

1213
00:53:05,400 --> 00:53:08,960
Speaker 1: into a Fox bed and more substantial gambling relationship. But

1214
00:53:09,080 --> 00:53:11,440
Speaker 1: for people out there, what do you remember about those

1215
00:53:11,480 --> 00:53:17,799
Speaker 1: early days of shows? Um? How disjointed U. Some of

1216
00:53:17,800 --> 00:53:20,520
Speaker 1: this stuff was that we would do it first because

1217
00:53:20,520 --> 00:53:23,520
Speaker 1: we didn't actually do our segments live. We did all

1218
00:53:23,560 --> 00:53:26,120
Speaker 1: of our stuff tape to live. So you were talking

1219
00:53:26,160 --> 00:53:28,440
Speaker 1: about doing a three to four minute hit where, like

1220
00:53:28,480 --> 00:53:30,360
Speaker 1: you said, it was you and me sitting at a

1221
00:53:30,360 --> 00:53:33,319
Speaker 1: table typically and Erotic was our host. Charissa then took

1222
00:53:33,360 --> 00:53:36,960
Speaker 1: over some of that hosting responsibility as well, But it

1223
00:53:37,040 --> 00:53:38,920
Speaker 1: was just trying to figure out for somebody who had

1224
00:53:38,960 --> 00:53:41,560
Speaker 1: never been on a staged out large before. How do

1225
00:53:41,600 --> 00:53:44,120
Speaker 1: you get your points across. You're gonna basically be given,

1226
00:53:44,400 --> 00:53:46,279
Speaker 1: you know, a minute to speak in this three to

1227
00:53:46,360 --> 00:53:48,400
Speaker 1: four minute hit, and how can you make all of

1228
00:53:48,440 --> 00:53:50,880
Speaker 1: those words impactful? How can you figure out the games

1229
00:53:51,200 --> 00:53:54,120
Speaker 1: and create that rapport uh and that dialogue that I

1230
00:53:54,120 --> 00:53:56,160
Speaker 1: think the three of us ultimately built and four of

1231
00:53:56,200 --> 00:53:59,200
Speaker 1: us we throw Charissa in there as well. That it was,

1232
00:53:59,480 --> 00:54:01,640
Speaker 1: you know, no moment is too big, and just kind

1233
00:54:01,640 --> 00:54:04,640
Speaker 1: of reminding yourself that, no matter what happened, you're talking

1234
00:54:04,680 --> 00:54:07,000
Speaker 1: sports betting, you're trying to have fun on a sports show.

1235
00:54:07,239 --> 00:54:09,399
Speaker 1: And Fox Sports Live at that point was really trying

1236
00:54:09,400 --> 00:54:11,799
Speaker 1: to figure out its identity. But the biggest thing for

1237
00:54:11,840 --> 00:54:14,000
Speaker 1: me was just having a chance to interact, you know,

1238
00:54:14,080 --> 00:54:16,800
Speaker 1: not only with the executives who were always around that show.

1239
00:54:16,840 --> 00:54:18,399
Speaker 1: And so it was a real luxury to be able

1240
00:54:18,440 --> 00:54:21,640
Speaker 1: to fly out every Friday back and forth from Las

1241
00:54:21,760 --> 00:54:23,560
Speaker 1: Vegas to do the show. I think I think the

1242
00:54:23,600 --> 00:54:26,600
Speaker 1: network paying me a thousand dollars a day for all that.

1243
00:54:26,680 --> 00:54:28,880
Speaker 1: So by the time there's taxes and everything else, and

1244
00:54:28,920 --> 00:54:30,799
Speaker 1: if you've taken a few bucks, but it's more to

1245
00:54:30,840 --> 00:54:34,279
Speaker 1: try and be seen, uh and have that kind of platform,

1246
00:54:34,600 --> 00:54:37,160
Speaker 1: but just interacting with some of the athletes, meeting some

1247
00:54:37,239 --> 00:54:40,040
Speaker 1: of the host being able to talk to such talented producers.

1248
00:54:40,200 --> 00:54:42,719
Speaker 1: I mean back then Clay Royce was our producer for

1249
00:54:42,840 --> 00:54:45,319
Speaker 1: Let It Ride, was now, you know, the lead man

1250
00:54:45,360 --> 00:54:48,600
Speaker 1: for everything we do to rocket In. So pretty crazy

1251
00:54:48,840 --> 00:54:51,120
Speaker 1: to see how that relationship kind of stayed in tact

1252
00:54:51,160 --> 00:54:53,600
Speaker 1: and came full circle for all of us to continue

1253
00:54:53,600 --> 00:54:56,400
Speaker 1: working together. But the branding obviously switched. Some of the

1254
00:54:56,440 --> 00:54:58,960
Speaker 1: content was there, and I'll never forget the first night

1255
00:54:59,000 --> 00:55:00,840
Speaker 1: that we did the show, they tried to do a

1256
00:55:00,880 --> 00:55:03,040
Speaker 1: bad beat segment, and they tried to do the NFL,

1257
00:55:03,320 --> 00:55:05,360
Speaker 1: and by ten o'clock the next morning, the NFL it

1258
00:55:05,440 --> 00:55:08,240
Speaker 1: called said absolutely not, there will be no NFL gambling

1259
00:55:08,280 --> 00:55:11,400
Speaker 1: content to be had on this. So we became college

1260
00:55:11,440 --> 00:55:14,040
Speaker 1: football only for all of those Friday night hits. We're

1261
00:55:14,040 --> 00:55:17,839
Speaker 1: talking to Todd Ferman. So that continues to grow. Uh,

1262
00:55:17,840 --> 00:55:20,000
Speaker 1: And now we have the lock It In Show, which

1263
00:55:20,040 --> 00:55:22,239
Speaker 1: I imagine a lot of people here listening hopefully have

1264
00:55:22,280 --> 00:55:24,520
Speaker 1: seen the clips or watched the show in the first

1265
00:55:24,520 --> 00:55:26,719
Speaker 1: two years that we've been doing. UH, And we have

1266
00:55:26,760 --> 00:55:28,759
Speaker 1: a really good time. Rachel, but at a cousin sal

1267
00:55:28,920 --> 00:55:32,440
Speaker 1: Todd Ferman and myself on that show, uh less than

1268
00:55:32,480 --> 00:55:35,840
Speaker 1: two years ago. So we're recording this in February of

1269
00:55:36,719 --> 00:55:39,279
Speaker 1: because people will listen to this older or whatnot. In

1270
00:55:39,400 --> 00:55:43,200
Speaker 1: May of eighteen, sports gambling, according to the Supreme Court

1271
00:55:43,640 --> 00:55:47,000
Speaker 1: becomes a state decision. They strike down pass but which

1272
00:55:47,000 --> 00:55:51,040
Speaker 1: a which was a federal prohibition. Have you been surprised

1273
00:55:51,360 --> 00:55:54,640
Speaker 1: or not surprised by how quickly things have changed since

1274
00:55:54,680 --> 00:55:56,920
Speaker 1: May of two thousand eighteen, and what was your initial

1275
00:55:56,960 --> 00:56:00,680
Speaker 1: reaction when you heard about that Supreme Court ruling? Well,

1276
00:56:00,760 --> 00:56:02,839
Speaker 1: even before we get there, Clay, there is a part

1277
00:56:02,880 --> 00:56:04,799
Speaker 1: of this story as it pertains to Fox that I

1278
00:56:04,800 --> 00:56:06,560
Speaker 1: think it is kind of worth sharing. So we did

1279
00:56:07,080 --> 00:56:09,240
Speaker 1: let it ride. I want to stay on Fox Sports

1280
00:56:09,239 --> 00:56:11,000
Speaker 1: Live for two years. We did part of the College

1281
00:56:11,000 --> 00:56:14,040
Speaker 1: Football Show as well, but also in the interim there,

1282
00:56:14,080 --> 00:56:15,680
Speaker 1: I was able to kind of carve out a unique

1283
00:56:15,760 --> 00:56:19,080
Speaker 1: niche for myself with the network by covering Nascar. Yeah,

1284
00:56:19,120 --> 00:56:24,480
Speaker 1: that's a good point because the gambling, well, it was

1285
00:56:24,520 --> 00:56:26,839
Speaker 1: funny about it. I remember sitting in the wind and

1286
00:56:26,880 --> 00:56:29,360
Speaker 1: I think it was with Jacob Aleman, John Ent and

1287
00:56:29,480 --> 00:56:32,239
Speaker 1: Scott Atcherson. They were out here for an event and

1288
00:56:32,239 --> 00:56:34,800
Speaker 1: I can't remember exactly what it was. We had already

1289
00:56:34,800 --> 00:56:36,839
Speaker 1: done the first season of Let It Ride, and we're

1290
00:56:36,840 --> 00:56:39,759
Speaker 1: sitting shooting the ship in the Winds Sports Book and

1291
00:56:39,800 --> 00:56:41,719
Speaker 1: we're joking about NASCAR, and I want to say Steve

1292
00:56:41,760 --> 00:56:43,680
Speaker 1: Crattick might have been out here as well, who's still

1293
00:56:43,719 --> 00:56:46,680
Speaker 1: in charge of NASCAR operations in Charlotte for Fox? And

1294
00:56:46,680 --> 00:56:49,080
Speaker 1: then they go, you know, does anybody actually bet on Nascar?

1295
00:56:49,120 --> 00:56:51,600
Speaker 1: I said, well, ironically enough, I said, I actually do,

1296
00:56:52,239 --> 00:56:53,719
Speaker 1: uh and I spent quite a bit of time on

1297
00:56:53,760 --> 00:56:56,000
Speaker 1: it because it's one of the more inefficient markets that's

1298
00:56:56,040 --> 00:56:58,759
Speaker 1: out there. And they said, really, you know, we didn't

1299
00:56:58,800 --> 00:57:00,719
Speaker 1: think anybody better than I said, ya, yause, here's kind

1300
00:57:00,719 --> 00:57:02,680
Speaker 1: of the laundry list of stuff that you can bet.

1301
00:57:03,080 --> 00:57:05,680
Speaker 1: And so they started to get their gears grinding, going,

1302
00:57:05,680 --> 00:57:07,759
Speaker 1: you know what, this may be an opportunity to do

1303
00:57:07,800 --> 00:57:10,640
Speaker 1: something a little bit different in sports betting, not necessarily

1304
00:57:10,640 --> 00:57:12,920
Speaker 1: what we were doing on the Friday Night show, but

1305
00:57:13,040 --> 00:57:16,080
Speaker 1: in the fabric of everything Else's Fox knowing how invested

1306
00:57:16,120 --> 00:57:19,800
Speaker 1: they were a Nascar to get NASCAR's approval as something

1307
00:57:19,840 --> 00:57:22,760
Speaker 1: that they thought could potentially drive eyeballs. So I started

1308
00:57:22,760 --> 00:57:25,600
Speaker 1: doing race Hub on Thursdays. It was on a semi

1309
00:57:25,600 --> 00:57:28,840
Speaker 1: sporadic basis, you know, once every three or four weeks,

1310
00:57:28,840 --> 00:57:32,480
Speaker 1: probably the second year that I was within network, and

1311
00:57:32,760 --> 00:57:35,320
Speaker 1: that ultimately ended up being one of the better and

1312
00:57:35,400 --> 00:57:38,479
Speaker 1: more furtuitous bounces that my career in media would take

1313
00:57:38,640 --> 00:57:40,800
Speaker 1: because there was a shift in regime. We kind of

1314
00:57:40,800 --> 00:57:43,760
Speaker 1: went away from gambling, and I was never really appearing

1315
00:57:44,120 --> 00:57:46,360
Speaker 1: on Fox Works one for the next couple of years

1316
00:57:46,400 --> 00:57:49,600
Speaker 1: outside of doing our Nascar hits. So fast forward to

1317
00:57:49,720 --> 00:57:51,560
Speaker 1: as you mentioned, lock it In kind of gets paid.

1318
00:57:51,640 --> 00:57:53,440
Speaker 1: We should we should mention too, by the way, we

1319
00:57:53,520 --> 00:57:56,840
Speaker 1: did with the original Fox Sports Alive crew the first

1320
00:57:56,960 --> 00:58:01,800
Speaker 1: live show on a sports network from uh the Westgate

1321
00:58:01,880 --> 00:58:06,600
Speaker 1: super Book with Carrisso with Andy roddick Um, you and

1322
00:58:06,680 --> 00:58:09,720
Speaker 1: me and a lot of the awesome producers including Royce

1323
00:58:09,720 --> 00:58:12,080
Speaker 1: who's now the producer of our show now, but a

1324
00:58:12,160 --> 00:58:15,360
Speaker 1: lot of people involved in that production, and we did

1325
00:58:15,400 --> 00:58:18,480
Speaker 1: it live from from for back to back years, right

1326
00:58:18,560 --> 00:58:22,280
Speaker 1: from the from the Westgate Sports Book, which is pretty awesome. Yeah,

1327
00:58:22,400 --> 00:58:24,440
Speaker 1: we did it the first year we were there from

1328
00:58:24,520 --> 00:58:27,760
Speaker 1: selection Sunday on that Sunday night to do hits from there,

1329
00:58:28,120 --> 00:58:30,480
Speaker 1: and then we basically carried it through the entire week

1330
00:58:30,480 --> 00:58:32,760
Speaker 1: through I think Sunday nights. We were there full eight

1331
00:58:32,880 --> 00:58:38,240
Speaker 1: nights in Vegas Hotel. Yeah. And the second year, I

1332
00:58:38,240 --> 00:58:40,160
Speaker 1: think we only did a little bit more in a

1333
00:58:40,200 --> 00:58:42,600
Speaker 1: bridge that starting on that Wednesday night all the way

1334
00:58:42,600 --> 00:58:45,440
Speaker 1: through Sunday. But that was definitely one of the first

1335
00:58:45,520 --> 00:58:48,080
Speaker 1: It was the first time that's something had happened. Jake

1336
00:58:48,120 --> 00:58:51,400
Speaker 1: Cornegete and his team at Westgate, We're willing to do

1337
00:58:51,560 --> 00:58:53,640
Speaker 1: whatever it took to help us set up our set

1338
00:58:53,640 --> 00:58:56,160
Speaker 1: in the back corner, and it looks phenomenal like they

1339
00:58:56,160 --> 00:58:59,200
Speaker 1: did a spectacular job setting it up. Yeah. Yeah, the

1340
00:58:59,240 --> 00:59:02,400
Speaker 1: sidelines were outstanding and to be their live in the casino,

1341
00:59:02,840 --> 00:59:04,880
Speaker 1: it was simply incredible. And I think it was kind

1342
00:59:04,880 --> 00:59:06,640
Speaker 1: of at that point where it dawned on you and what,

1343
00:59:06,720 --> 00:59:08,080
Speaker 1: wait a second, you know this is gonna be a

1344
00:59:08,080 --> 00:59:10,720
Speaker 1: lot bigger than people think. We're not quite sure of

1345
00:59:10,760 --> 00:59:13,120
Speaker 1: what the evolution is going to look like. And then

1346
00:59:13,200 --> 00:59:15,440
Speaker 1: fast forward, as you said, the repeal of past but

1347
00:59:16,000 --> 00:59:18,720
Speaker 1: Fox On our boss Charlie at the time already having

1348
00:59:18,720 --> 00:59:21,600
Speaker 1: a vision. It's springing into action to try and figure

1349
00:59:21,600 --> 00:59:23,720
Speaker 1: out how quickly they could bring a sports betting show

1350
00:59:23,760 --> 00:59:25,760
Speaker 1: to market. But if you'd have told me, as we

1351
00:59:25,800 --> 00:59:27,840
Speaker 1: sit here in you know, two thousand and twenty, that

1352
00:59:27,960 --> 00:59:30,440
Speaker 1: sports betting would take off the way it had and

1353
00:59:30,440 --> 00:59:32,560
Speaker 1: to see all of the networks, not only Fox, get

1354
00:59:32,600 --> 00:59:35,240
Speaker 1: fully behind it and figure out, you know, monetization strategies

1355
00:59:35,240 --> 00:59:37,720
Speaker 1: and everything else, I just told you were nuts. And

1356
00:59:37,800 --> 00:59:41,400
Speaker 1: to that, you know, bright eyed, you know, Bushy paled

1357
00:59:41,600 --> 00:59:44,560
Speaker 1: Todd back in two thousand and five, first moving to

1358
00:59:44,640 --> 00:59:47,120
Speaker 1: Vegas saying, hey, look, fifteen years from now, not only

1359
00:59:47,160 --> 00:59:49,080
Speaker 1: are you gonna be able to cover sports gambling on

1360
00:59:49,240 --> 00:59:51,440
Speaker 1: TV and to do what you love, Vegas is going

1361
00:59:51,480 --> 00:59:53,880
Speaker 1: to have an NFL football team, They're gonna have a

1362
00:59:54,040 --> 00:59:57,160
Speaker 1: NHL team, They're gonna have a variety of professional sports

1363
00:59:57,160 --> 00:59:59,200
Speaker 1: as well. I just told you were absolutely the same.

1364
00:59:59,800 --> 01:00:01,840
Speaker 1: So a couple of things, uh that I think people

1365
01:00:01,880 --> 01:00:05,200
Speaker 1: will be intrigued by on this the uh, the passpal

1366
01:00:05,280 --> 01:00:09,080
Speaker 1: laws repealed. The Supreme Court strikes down the federal prohibition

1367
01:00:09,080 --> 01:00:12,320
Speaker 1: and allows individual states to make decisions in sports gambling.

1368
01:00:12,680 --> 01:00:17,720
Speaker 1: In May of eighteen, within a couple of weeks, Charlie Dixon,

1369
01:00:17,760 --> 01:00:20,200
Speaker 1: who is uh in charge of our show and put

1370
01:00:20,200 --> 01:00:22,280
Speaker 1: it together and built the entire show, and I think

1371
01:00:22,280 --> 01:00:25,560
Speaker 1: you did an incredible job on the work there calls

1372
01:00:25,640 --> 01:00:28,640
Speaker 1: me it's around a Memorial Day, so it's that month

1373
01:00:28,800 --> 01:00:31,480
Speaker 1: of May, and says, hey, I want to do a

1374
01:00:31,640 --> 01:00:34,080
Speaker 1: daily gambling show. Would you be interested in doing it?

1375
01:00:34,200 --> 01:00:36,880
Speaker 1: And I remember getting the call from him because I

1376
01:00:36,960 --> 01:00:40,240
Speaker 1: was at I was down in Florida at a and

1377
01:00:40,320 --> 01:00:42,760
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure it was a Memorial Day itself, I

1378
01:00:42,800 --> 01:00:45,920
Speaker 1: feel like, but I was down in Florida at a

1379
01:00:46,320 --> 01:00:48,640
Speaker 1: water park with my kids because I remember having the

1380
01:00:48,680 --> 01:00:51,479
Speaker 1: conversation hanging up with my with with Charlie and turning

1381
01:00:51,520 --> 01:00:53,480
Speaker 1: my wife and being like, hey, I think Fox is

1382
01:00:53,480 --> 01:00:55,320
Speaker 1: gonna do a sports gambling show and they want me

1383
01:00:55,320 --> 01:00:56,440
Speaker 1: to be a part of it, and I think they

1384
01:00:56,480 --> 01:00:58,880
Speaker 1: want Furman uh. And I was like, this is gonna

1385
01:00:58,880 --> 01:01:01,680
Speaker 1: be really really cool. And then that same year, at

1386
01:01:01,760 --> 01:01:05,080
Speaker 1: the US Open, which I believe was in god, I

1387
01:01:05,120 --> 01:01:07,360
Speaker 1: can't even remember was anyway, I was in the we

1388
01:01:07,600 --> 01:01:09,480
Speaker 1: had a big conversation about it in June. A couple

1389
01:01:09,520 --> 01:01:14,320
Speaker 1: of weeks later, the show launched in September. I mean,

1390
01:01:14,360 --> 01:01:16,920
Speaker 1: so for people out there who are not familiar maybe

1391
01:01:16,920 --> 01:01:21,040
Speaker 1: with television, Charlie Dixon went album therese all the people

1392
01:01:21,040 --> 01:01:24,560
Speaker 1: who put this show together, they came up with the idea.

1393
01:01:24,600 --> 01:01:26,360
Speaker 1: I mean they've been contemplating in it, I think a

1394
01:01:26,360 --> 01:01:29,560
Speaker 1: little bit, but put it into execution in May and

1395
01:01:29,640 --> 01:01:34,240
Speaker 1: it launched by September. And you and me and cousin

1396
01:01:34,320 --> 01:01:39,320
Speaker 1: Sal and Rachel had never met as a group until August.

1397
01:01:39,680 --> 01:01:42,320
Speaker 1: So we've been now done. Yeah, I mean we didn't

1398
01:01:42,320 --> 01:01:43,720
Speaker 1: even know who was going to be on there. I

1399
01:01:43,720 --> 01:01:45,640
Speaker 1: mean you and I had kind of agreed in principle.

1400
01:01:45,720 --> 01:01:48,040
Speaker 1: We knew that we had the chemistry, we had worked together,

1401
01:01:48,440 --> 01:01:50,880
Speaker 1: but we couldn't even get answers in terms of some

1402
01:01:51,000 --> 01:01:53,760
Speaker 1: of the lists and potential candidates they were talking to

1403
01:01:53,760 --> 01:01:59,640
Speaker 1: to help round out that panel with us being talked

1404
01:01:59,680 --> 01:02:02,440
Speaker 1: about up front. Of the names, I know, Chris's name

1405
01:02:02,480 --> 01:02:04,280
Speaker 1: was thrown out for hosting, in a variety of other

1406
01:02:04,360 --> 01:02:06,320
Speaker 1: names in the space. We had no idea what the

1407
01:02:06,320 --> 01:02:08,680
Speaker 1: show was actually gonna look like. And this is probably

1408
01:02:08,720 --> 01:02:11,800
Speaker 1: what early August we still didn't have any idea, and

1409
01:02:11,840 --> 01:02:13,960
Speaker 1: we had with un totally all four were in a

1410
01:02:14,080 --> 01:02:16,080
Speaker 1: room together. I think we did it. We did a

1411
01:02:16,160 --> 01:02:19,720
Speaker 1: table read out in l a of like a mock show,

1412
01:02:20,280 --> 01:02:22,640
Speaker 1: and again we didn't know each other. We've now done

1413
01:02:22,680 --> 01:02:26,160
Speaker 1: over three hundred shows, which is pretty crazy since then

1414
01:02:26,240 --> 01:02:29,240
Speaker 1: three three D hour long shows. So, I mean we've

1415
01:02:29,240 --> 01:02:33,040
Speaker 1: obviously worked together a ton since then. But I thought

1416
01:02:33,040 --> 01:02:35,240
Speaker 1: our table read was pretty decent. I don't know what

1417
01:02:35,320 --> 01:02:38,080
Speaker 1: you thought. And uh, it's not fake, I mean, you know,

1418
01:02:38,120 --> 01:02:40,840
Speaker 1: and I'm not trying to throw anybody under under the

1419
01:02:40,840 --> 01:02:43,760
Speaker 1: bus here in terms of sports television, but you know,

1420
01:02:43,800 --> 01:02:47,120
Speaker 1: we just did the Super Bowl, and I would almost

1421
01:02:47,120 --> 01:02:50,040
Speaker 1: be willing to stake my life on I bet that

1422
01:02:50,160 --> 01:02:54,360
Speaker 1: our show went out to dinner and or drinks together

1423
01:02:54,800 --> 01:02:58,680
Speaker 1: more than almost any show did combined on any other

1424
01:02:58,720 --> 01:03:01,120
Speaker 1: sports network out we get the super Bowl. Do you

1425
01:03:01,120 --> 01:03:04,960
Speaker 1: think that's a crazy suggestion? You know, I don't think

1426
01:03:04,960 --> 01:03:06,520
Speaker 1: that's the leap of faith at all. I mean we

1427
01:03:06,560 --> 01:03:09,280
Speaker 1: did dinner, drinks together, or saw each other in some

1428
01:03:09,320 --> 01:03:12,320
Speaker 1: capacity outside of the actual time we spent on set

1429
01:03:12,680 --> 01:03:15,680
Speaker 1: every single day we were there. I mean, so we

1430
01:03:15,720 --> 01:03:18,720
Speaker 1: all had obviously other obligations. You was radio in the morning,

1431
01:03:18,760 --> 01:03:21,560
Speaker 1: I had some podcast stuff time on radio row. Cousin

1432
01:03:21,600 --> 01:03:24,800
Speaker 1: Sal and Rachel each with their own stuff too, But

1433
01:03:24,960 --> 01:03:27,080
Speaker 1: I mean everybody spent time together, and I think we

1434
01:03:27,120 --> 01:03:28,960
Speaker 1: did dinner at least three or four nights in some

1435
01:03:29,080 --> 01:03:31,600
Speaker 1: capacity with a couple of us, two or three of us,

1436
01:03:32,200 --> 01:03:34,920
Speaker 1: a couple of nights with everybody. Sal's wife was down

1437
01:03:35,000 --> 01:03:37,040
Speaker 1: there with us as well. I mean there was one

1438
01:03:37,120 --> 01:03:39,480
Speaker 1: night Clay where you had I think you had a

1439
01:03:39,560 --> 01:03:45,240
Speaker 1: radio dinner. It was Rachel cousin, Sal, Sal's wife, Melissa, myself, Scott,

1440
01:03:45,240 --> 01:03:47,440
Speaker 1: who one of the more talented writers we have on

1441
01:03:47,480 --> 01:03:50,080
Speaker 1: our show, and Mohun, our social media guys. All of

1442
01:03:50,160 --> 01:03:52,680
Speaker 1: us cramming into an uber to go get pizza in

1443
01:03:52,720 --> 01:03:56,160
Speaker 1: some often complex not being able to find a seat there.

1444
01:03:56,200 --> 01:03:59,720
Speaker 1: Coming back to the hotel, we end up sitting outside

1445
01:03:59,720 --> 01:04:01,800
Speaker 1: on the well deck eating pizza, end up going into

1446
01:04:01,800 --> 01:04:04,439
Speaker 1: the restaurant, and then you joined us later in the night.

1447
01:04:04,480 --> 01:04:06,640
Speaker 1: A lot of the other bosses from Fox were out there,

1448
01:04:06,840 --> 01:04:09,439
Speaker 1: and it just creates that real family atmosphere that well,

1449
01:04:09,760 --> 01:04:12,360
Speaker 1: we love to bust each other's balls more than probably

1450
01:04:12,360 --> 01:04:14,480
Speaker 1: any other show on TV on a day and day

1451
01:04:14,480 --> 01:04:17,200
Speaker 1: out basis, there is a genuine connection and it does

1452
01:04:17,280 --> 01:04:19,880
Speaker 1: have that family feel. So when people say we love

1453
01:04:19,960 --> 01:04:22,960
Speaker 1: the show because the report feels real, there's nothing faked

1454
01:04:22,960 --> 01:04:25,600
Speaker 1: about it. And quite frankly, for anybody that's watched the skit,

1455
01:04:25,880 --> 01:04:27,640
Speaker 1: they know you and I can't act, so I don't

1456
01:04:27,640 --> 01:04:29,320
Speaker 1: think we'd even be able to fake it if we tried.

1457
01:04:29,760 --> 01:04:32,720
Speaker 1: That's exactly true. And also the conversation is really not

1458
01:04:32,800 --> 01:04:35,640
Speaker 1: that much different on air than it would be during

1459
01:04:35,640 --> 01:04:38,840
Speaker 1: the commercial breaks of the show either, Like if you

1460
01:04:38,920 --> 01:04:41,600
Speaker 1: just kept everything running, the goal is to just have

1461
01:04:41,640 --> 01:04:44,240
Speaker 1: a conversation. So I think Charlie and Witt and Therese

1462
01:04:44,280 --> 01:04:47,000
Speaker 1: and everybody who was instrumental in putting the crew together,

1463
01:04:47,440 --> 01:04:49,720
Speaker 1: even though it happened so insanely quickly, I mean, I

1464
01:04:49,720 --> 01:04:53,000
Speaker 1: don't know how often that. I would wager again that

1465
01:04:53,080 --> 01:04:55,240
Speaker 1: if you talk to anybody who's ever put a show

1466
01:04:55,320 --> 01:04:59,880
Speaker 1: on television daily, there's never one that went from inception

1467
01:05:00,160 --> 01:05:03,720
Speaker 1: creation because again, there never been a daily sports gambling

1468
01:05:03,720 --> 01:05:06,000
Speaker 1: television show on So they had to build it, Charlie

1469
01:05:06,040 --> 01:05:10,400
Speaker 1: in particular, like the entire show element for itself, and

1470
01:05:10,440 --> 01:05:12,400
Speaker 1: go all the way through and launch it a couple

1471
01:05:12,440 --> 01:05:14,760
Speaker 1: of months later, like it's unheard of. Um. And so

1472
01:05:14,800 --> 01:05:17,800
Speaker 1: you have showed daily from Vegas, I'm daily and Nashville,

1473
01:05:18,040 --> 01:05:21,120
Speaker 1: and then Sal and Rachel are in l A. Sometimes

1474
01:05:21,120 --> 01:05:23,520
Speaker 1: we're together, but the vast majority not to have all

1475
01:05:23,560 --> 01:05:25,280
Speaker 1: those moving parts and have it come together and have

1476
01:05:25,360 --> 01:05:28,080
Speaker 1: it be successful is really kind of crazy. No, And

1477
01:05:28,080 --> 01:05:30,040
Speaker 1: I don't think anybody could have expected us to have

1478
01:05:30,120 --> 01:05:32,720
Speaker 1: the chemistry we did, or to build a rapport us quickly,

1479
01:05:33,000 --> 01:05:35,280
Speaker 1: you know, almost overnight, but there wasn't one. And I

1480
01:05:35,280 --> 01:05:37,400
Speaker 1: can't remember deathly with the timeline because you and I

1481
01:05:37,440 --> 01:05:39,120
Speaker 1: were in l a one summer and had to be

1482
01:05:39,160 --> 01:05:41,480
Speaker 1: two or three years before where they had actually pitch

1483
01:05:41,560 --> 01:05:44,080
Speaker 1: us on a gambling concept. Then there just wasn't funding

1484
01:05:44,120 --> 01:05:45,880
Speaker 1: to be able to get it off the ground because

1485
01:05:45,880 --> 01:05:47,720
Speaker 1: he hadn't had to repeal it passed by I think

1486
01:05:47,760 --> 01:05:50,960
Speaker 1: acts was the one that brought that proposal to Scott

1487
01:05:50,960 --> 01:05:52,880
Speaker 1: Ackerson was it was a great guy who was at

1488
01:05:52,880 --> 01:05:55,800
Speaker 1: Fox for a very long time. Yeah, And so we

1489
01:05:55,880 --> 01:05:58,520
Speaker 1: had one proposal that was there, just wasn't able. The

1490
01:05:58,600 --> 01:06:02,120
Speaker 1: timing for that particular show wasn't right. So everything kind

1491
01:06:02,120 --> 01:06:06,200
Speaker 1: of came together, perfect confluence of events for locking In

1492
01:06:06,280 --> 01:06:09,200
Speaker 1: to get off the ground. And obviously the assemblage of talent.

1493
01:06:09,240 --> 01:06:10,840
Speaker 1: You never know what you're gonna get until you put

1494
01:06:10,840 --> 01:06:13,640
Speaker 1: everybody in the room together. And by the way you were,

1495
01:06:14,640 --> 01:06:16,920
Speaker 1: you were a part. I I think I hold the

1496
01:06:16,960 --> 01:06:21,840
Speaker 1: record for most Fox Sports pilots that have never aired,

1497
01:06:22,000 --> 01:06:25,120
Speaker 1: Like I I feel like Petro's Petro's papadecas is up

1498
01:06:25,160 --> 01:06:28,520
Speaker 1: there too. But I did so many different iterations of

1499
01:06:28,560 --> 01:06:32,480
Speaker 1: potential shows that could air. Um, and you were a

1500
01:06:32,520 --> 01:06:36,200
Speaker 1: part we did right. Uh like it. They they brought

1501
01:06:36,240 --> 01:06:37,440
Speaker 1: us in and they were like, we want to do

1502
01:06:37,520 --> 01:06:41,040
Speaker 1: a weekly out kick show. Um. And they were like, uh,

1503
01:06:41,080 --> 01:06:44,360
Speaker 1: you know, we want you to do a pilot. So

1504
01:06:44,680 --> 01:06:46,680
Speaker 1: we did a pilot and you were a part of

1505
01:06:46,720 --> 01:06:48,600
Speaker 1: that pilot. And I remember we shot it. I don't

1506
01:06:48,600 --> 01:06:52,000
Speaker 1: remember what year it was, maybe maybe in like December

1507
01:06:53,080 --> 01:06:55,280
Speaker 1: or fifteen. I'm not sure which one, but it was

1508
01:06:55,320 --> 01:06:58,720
Speaker 1: the night after the Fox Holiday party. Do you remember that?

1509
01:06:59,200 --> 01:07:01,840
Speaker 1: And H and Matt Schneider, who's a really good dude

1510
01:07:01,880 --> 01:07:04,360
Speaker 1: who works at the NFL network now was involved in

1511
01:07:04,400 --> 01:07:07,200
Speaker 1: the production. And he was like, you guys have to

1512
01:07:07,200 --> 01:07:10,120
Speaker 1: be in your bed, you know, by like you know, midnight.

1513
01:07:10,200 --> 01:07:12,120
Speaker 1: This is a big deal. We're gonna be shooting all

1514
01:07:12,240 --> 01:07:15,360
Speaker 1: day tomorrow. You can't be hungover. Remember that conversation where

1515
01:07:15,400 --> 01:07:17,440
Speaker 1: like he talked to us like we were eighteen year

1516
01:07:17,440 --> 01:07:21,400
Speaker 1: olds on a school trip. Yeah, crack me up. I'm

1517
01:07:21,400 --> 01:07:23,680
Speaker 1: going okay, I just kind of sit there, going is

1518
01:07:23,680 --> 01:07:26,280
Speaker 1: this a real discussion that we're having about all of

1519
01:07:26,280 --> 01:07:28,320
Speaker 1: this to try and be able to get this potential

1520
01:07:28,320 --> 01:07:30,240
Speaker 1: pilot off the ground. But I can let you fill

1521
01:07:30,280 --> 01:07:32,080
Speaker 1: in the gaps because I think, as most of the

1522
01:07:32,080 --> 01:07:34,560
Speaker 1: listeners out there were realized, none of those pilots actually

1523
01:07:34,560 --> 01:07:36,320
Speaker 1: saw the light of day, So they might be somewhere

1524
01:07:36,400 --> 01:07:38,400
Speaker 1: very deep in the Fox laul. There's a there's a

1525
01:07:38,480 --> 01:07:41,680
Speaker 1: vault out there of me and like six different Fox

1526
01:07:41,880 --> 01:07:44,920
Speaker 1: Television shows that have never aired that we did pilots

1527
01:07:44,960 --> 01:07:46,960
Speaker 1: of that that I would think would be at some

1528
01:07:47,000 --> 01:07:49,320
Speaker 1: point funny to all put back together and just look at.

1529
01:07:49,720 --> 01:07:51,560
Speaker 1: And by the way, speaking of maybe we did need

1530
01:07:51,600 --> 01:07:53,480
Speaker 1: to get lectured when we we well, we had a

1531
01:07:53,520 --> 01:07:56,480
Speaker 1: lot of fun because we would do uh. Initially, when

1532
01:07:56,520 --> 01:07:58,560
Speaker 1: I went to work at Fox, we had a Saturday

1533
01:07:58,560 --> 01:08:01,320
Speaker 1: morning college football show. That was the first year I

1534
01:08:01,320 --> 01:08:04,680
Speaker 1: think that was. That was with Aaron Andrews, Mike Pereira,

1535
01:08:05,040 --> 01:08:08,600
Speaker 1: Petros Papadakis, Joel Klatt and me and Eddie George. I

1536
01:08:08,640 --> 01:08:10,600
Speaker 1: think that was the basically the entirety of the show

1537
01:08:10,960 --> 01:08:13,720
Speaker 1: and we were on every morning from seven to nine.

1538
01:08:13,800 --> 01:08:15,360
Speaker 1: Like that was the idea, We're going to compete with

1539
01:08:15,400 --> 01:08:17,680
Speaker 1: Game Day from an l A studio right when they

1540
01:08:17,800 --> 01:08:21,439
Speaker 1: launched FS one, and so that was a fun show.

1541
01:08:21,479 --> 01:08:23,000
Speaker 1: But it was super early in the morning. This was

1542
01:08:23,080 --> 01:08:25,320
Speaker 1: before I got up every morning at four thirty, and

1543
01:08:25,320 --> 01:08:26,960
Speaker 1: I remember thinking, oh my god, who in the world

1544
01:08:27,040 --> 01:08:29,320
Speaker 1: could get up at five am Pacific? You know, I

1545
01:08:29,400 --> 01:08:31,840
Speaker 1: was like, this is so early. It's not even you know,

1546
01:08:31,880 --> 01:08:34,080
Speaker 1: like I was such a total pussy then because I

1547
01:08:34,080 --> 01:08:36,080
Speaker 1: didn't get up super early in the morning. Now, you know,

1548
01:08:36,080 --> 01:08:39,400
Speaker 1: I'm up at four thirty every day. But so, so

1549
01:08:39,439 --> 01:08:42,400
Speaker 1: we did that show. It got canceled, right, but they're like,

1550
01:08:42,439 --> 01:08:44,360
Speaker 1: we want you to do a Friday night show and

1551
01:08:44,360 --> 01:08:46,599
Speaker 1: that's what you were talking about earlier, which was awesome.

1552
01:08:46,880 --> 01:08:49,760
Speaker 1: We did a Friday night college football shows me. You

1553
01:08:49,840 --> 01:08:53,360
Speaker 1: were a part of the Gambling Show. Stewart Mandel, Bruce Feldman,

1554
01:08:53,479 --> 01:08:56,719
Speaker 1: Lindsay Theory, Matt Leiner was on it a lot, George

1555
01:08:56,840 --> 01:08:59,320
Speaker 1: Rice Stir. We had an incredible job. And I still

1556
01:08:59,360 --> 01:09:02,800
Speaker 1: think Friday night college football show is something that I

1557
01:09:02,880 --> 01:09:04,519
Speaker 1: would like to do because I just think there's a

1558
01:09:04,520 --> 01:09:06,840
Speaker 1: lot of college kids and people who are geared up

1559
01:09:06,880 --> 01:09:08,840
Speaker 1: for college football that are ready for it to be

1560
01:09:08,880 --> 01:09:11,080
Speaker 1: able to go. And I still think there's a market

1561
01:09:11,120 --> 01:09:13,360
Speaker 1: for it even before it gets to Saturday morning. But

1562
01:09:13,479 --> 01:09:15,960
Speaker 1: that's a pitch out there for any executives who are

1563
01:09:15,960 --> 01:09:19,040
Speaker 1: happening to listen to this podcast. But so we did

1564
01:09:19,080 --> 01:09:21,400
Speaker 1: that Friday show. But it was awesome because we would

1565
01:09:21,400 --> 01:09:23,240
Speaker 1: finish it like on the West Coast and then you

1566
01:09:23,240 --> 01:09:25,960
Speaker 1: could go out Friday night, right, And I'm just gonna

1567
01:09:25,960 --> 01:09:29,120
Speaker 1: throw throw you under the bus. Here here we go.

1568
01:09:29,200 --> 01:09:30,679
Speaker 1: We know what. I know where this is going before

1569
01:09:30,680 --> 01:09:32,679
Speaker 1: it gets there. So I think my connection is starting

1570
01:09:32,680 --> 01:09:36,960
Speaker 1: to break up. So we went out for Halloween that year. Uh,

1571
01:09:37,000 --> 01:09:38,320
Speaker 1: and there was a party. Do you remember where the

1572
01:09:38,360 --> 01:09:42,000
Speaker 1: part the Viceroy? It was an awesome party in Hollywood? Right,

1573
01:09:42,320 --> 01:09:46,120
Speaker 1: costume party? Um, And so I don't even remember what

1574
01:09:46,200 --> 01:09:49,720
Speaker 1: I was dressed as, but you go, did you have

1575
01:09:49,760 --> 01:09:51,840
Speaker 1: the crab? Oh? Yeah, that's right. I did the show

1576
01:09:52,000 --> 01:09:54,280
Speaker 1: dressed as like James as a crab. They got a

1577
01:09:54,320 --> 01:09:56,880
Speaker 1: crab costume for me because Jamis Winston. That was the

1578
01:09:56,960 --> 01:09:58,880
Speaker 1: year that he sold the crabs. I think it was

1579
01:09:58,920 --> 01:10:01,760
Speaker 1: actually I was a lobster, but the difference to a

1580
01:10:01,800 --> 01:10:03,840
Speaker 1: lobster and a crab, like only a few people were

1581
01:10:04,160 --> 01:10:07,080
Speaker 1: enough of experts to notice that note that species failure.

1582
01:10:07,280 --> 01:10:11,639
Speaker 1: But so I was a lobster. You had a chicken costume, right, yep,

1583
01:10:11,760 --> 01:10:15,200
Speaker 1: giant chicken costume. Uh, because I remember Joel Klatt refused

1584
01:10:15,240 --> 01:10:18,080
Speaker 1: to dress up, Like Joel is just anti costume in general.

1585
01:10:18,120 --> 01:10:20,719
Speaker 1: And so I did the whole show dressed as a lobster.

1586
01:10:21,240 --> 01:10:24,080
Speaker 1: Um and uh and you know, we broke down games

1587
01:10:24,080 --> 01:10:28,160
Speaker 1: and everything else. Uh And then uh, you were like,

1588
01:10:28,240 --> 01:10:29,840
Speaker 1: I've got to get up early the next day. Because

1589
01:10:29,840 --> 01:10:32,519
Speaker 1: one of the fun things about doing uh college football

1590
01:10:32,680 --> 01:10:36,000
Speaker 1: or or NFL football is Fox is the Green Room

1591
01:10:36,160 --> 01:10:38,320
Speaker 1: is just a huge bank of television screen. So for

1592
01:10:38,360 --> 01:10:40,559
Speaker 1: people who may never have been on the Fox lot before,

1593
01:10:40,560 --> 01:10:42,920
Speaker 1: they call it the Avocado Room. But you can sit

1594
01:10:42,960 --> 01:10:44,960
Speaker 1: down and it's kind of like the awesome best sports

1595
01:10:44,960 --> 01:10:48,040
Speaker 1: bar you can imagine. Right, So every game is going on,

1596
01:10:48,120 --> 01:10:50,599
Speaker 1: there's a huge bank of TVs. You can basically get

1597
01:10:50,840 --> 01:10:53,479
Speaker 1: any sporting event that's going on anywhere in the world.

1598
01:10:53,800 --> 01:10:56,240
Speaker 1: There's somebody who could put the right satellite dish on

1599
01:10:56,320 --> 01:10:58,320
Speaker 1: and you can watch it, right. I mean, it's it's

1600
01:10:58,400 --> 01:11:03,040
Speaker 1: kind of like a sports lover's paradise. Oh, It's it's tremendous.

1601
01:11:03,080 --> 01:11:05,360
Speaker 1: I mean, you sit there and not only are you there,

1602
01:11:05,560 --> 01:11:08,519
Speaker 1: you're with some of the biggest names in the sport

1603
01:11:08,560 --> 01:11:11,360
Speaker 1: as far as personalities are concerned, whether they're former athletes

1604
01:11:11,360 --> 01:11:13,600
Speaker 1: that are working on the network or a lot of

1605
01:11:13,640 --> 01:11:16,040
Speaker 1: the talking heads. Yeah, so you can find yourself sitting

1606
01:11:16,080 --> 01:11:17,960
Speaker 1: like there there was a time I'm watching the World

1607
01:11:18,000 --> 01:11:22,080
Speaker 1: Series and a Rod, Pete Rose, Frank Thomas, They're all

1608
01:11:22,120 --> 01:11:24,960
Speaker 1: sitting there breaking down the game while you're watching let's

1609
01:11:24,960 --> 01:11:27,879
Speaker 1: say the World Series, right, I mean it's just crazy

1610
01:11:27,920 --> 01:11:30,439
Speaker 1: and the same thing. And then their guests walking through,

1611
01:11:30,560 --> 01:11:33,240
Speaker 1: like Justin Verlin, Like any big name you can think

1612
01:11:33,240 --> 01:11:35,080
Speaker 1: of in the world of sports that might do Fox

1613
01:11:35,080 --> 01:11:38,160
Speaker 1: Television can walk through. And so you know, whether for

1614
01:11:38,200 --> 01:11:41,839
Speaker 1: college football, like you're watching games with Joel Clatt, Matt Liner,

1615
01:11:42,160 --> 01:11:45,680
Speaker 1: Brady Quinn, uh, Mike Pereira, who's there breaking even when

1616
01:11:45,680 --> 01:11:47,840
Speaker 1: he's not on air, like he's watching every game and

1617
01:11:47,840 --> 01:11:50,240
Speaker 1: breaking down what the right calls are. And so you

1618
01:11:50,360 --> 01:11:52,720
Speaker 1: and I'm Bruce Feldman, Stewart Mandel are there Like it's

1619
01:11:52,760 --> 01:11:54,599
Speaker 1: an awesome crowd, right of people who are just all

1620
01:11:54,600 --> 01:11:58,200
Speaker 1: sitting around watching college football or the NFL or whatever is.

1621
01:11:58,200 --> 01:12:01,280
Speaker 1: And for the NFL, it's Jimmy Johnson, Erry Michael Strayhand,

1622
01:12:01,560 --> 01:12:03,080
Speaker 1: like you can just sit there and watch the games

1623
01:12:03,080 --> 01:12:05,920
Speaker 1: with him. It's it's really like fantasy camp if you

1624
01:12:05,960 --> 01:12:08,400
Speaker 1: are a sports fan. Right, So you're like, oh, I

1625
01:12:08,400 --> 01:12:11,960
Speaker 1: gotta be up early tomorrow. We're out like Halloween, West

1626
01:12:12,000 --> 01:12:15,040
Speaker 1: Coast Halloween, So it's gonna be like two or three

1627
01:12:15,080 --> 01:12:18,479
Speaker 1: am before everybody gets home. Uh, we get home. You know,

1628
01:12:18,560 --> 01:12:20,400
Speaker 1: you're staying at a different hotel than me, but it's

1629
01:12:20,439 --> 01:12:22,800
Speaker 1: literally right next door, and so we're I don't I

1630
01:12:22,960 --> 01:12:24,479
Speaker 1: don't even know if this were Uber air. I guess

1631
01:12:24,479 --> 01:12:26,160
Speaker 1: it was Uber air. Maybe we're in an uber We're

1632
01:12:26,160 --> 01:12:28,040
Speaker 1: in a cab, I don't remember which one, and I'm like,

1633
01:12:28,080 --> 01:12:29,960
Speaker 1: are you sure you're gonna be over there early tomorrow?

1634
01:12:30,080 --> 01:12:32,600
Speaker 1: It's like you're really you're really pretty drunk. And I

1635
01:12:32,640 --> 01:12:34,479
Speaker 1: was drunk, but I wasn't like you were a lot

1636
01:12:34,560 --> 01:12:38,559
Speaker 1: drunker than me. After being that was probably the drunkest

1637
01:12:38,600 --> 01:12:41,800
Speaker 1: I've been on any work related trip four Fox, to

1638
01:12:41,840 --> 01:12:43,760
Speaker 1: the extent that that's oh you mean, like, yeah, it

1639
01:12:43,800 --> 01:12:45,599
Speaker 1: was not a work related trip. It was me and

1640
01:12:45,600 --> 01:12:48,000
Speaker 1: you and a couple of people out of there. It

1641
01:12:48,120 --> 01:12:49,680
Speaker 1: wasn't a work event. I mean, I had done my

1642
01:12:49,720 --> 01:12:52,880
Speaker 1: responsibilities on Friday night. Um, I had ended up staying over.

1643
01:12:52,920 --> 01:12:55,080
Speaker 1: I didn't have any work stuff to actually do on

1644
01:12:55,120 --> 01:12:58,320
Speaker 1: Saturday outside of watching games. But I wanted to try

1645
01:12:58,360 --> 01:13:00,040
Speaker 1: and get over the early because my play wasn't of

1646
01:13:00,080 --> 01:13:02,080
Speaker 1: the late afternoon. And figured, all right, I'm gonna shoot

1647
01:13:02,080 --> 01:13:04,240
Speaker 1: the ship with everybody. I'm gonna come over there and

1648
01:13:04,240 --> 01:13:07,479
Speaker 1: watch games. So I think we're gonna absolutely let loose

1649
01:13:07,520 --> 01:13:09,040
Speaker 1: and go have a good time. So one of the

1650
01:13:09,080 --> 01:13:11,280
Speaker 1: fun things about waking up on the West Coast, if

1651
01:13:11,320 --> 01:13:13,439
Speaker 1: you're listening and you're an East Coast listener, Central Times

1652
01:13:13,439 --> 01:13:15,639
Speaker 1: on or whatever, is a lot of times you wake

1653
01:13:15,720 --> 01:13:17,559
Speaker 1: up on the East Coast. Let's say you gotta wait

1654
01:13:17,600 --> 01:13:19,320
Speaker 1: around till noon when the games kick off, and you

1655
01:13:19,360 --> 01:13:21,400
Speaker 1: watch Game Day or you watch the big big noon

1656
01:13:21,439 --> 01:13:24,360
Speaker 1: show on Fox, and there's a decent amount of time

1657
01:13:24,400 --> 01:13:26,600
Speaker 1: to to run up. The great thing about waking up

1658
01:13:26,640 --> 01:13:29,080
Speaker 1: on the West Coast is games are going at nine am,

1659
01:13:29,120 --> 01:13:31,559
Speaker 1: so I don't know we get back let's say three am,

1660
01:13:31,760 --> 01:13:34,080
Speaker 1: and and that might be even earlier than we actually

1661
01:13:34,120 --> 01:13:36,680
Speaker 1: get back. I wake up, I'm good to go. I

1662
01:13:36,680 --> 01:13:39,240
Speaker 1: don't feel bad at all. I walk over. So there's

1663
01:13:39,240 --> 01:13:41,360
Speaker 1: hotels right by the Fox A lot. You can just

1664
01:13:41,439 --> 01:13:42,840
Speaker 1: walk right over. You don't have to get in a

1665
01:13:42,880 --> 01:13:45,680
Speaker 1: car when you stay there. And I walk over and

1666
01:13:45,680 --> 01:13:46,960
Speaker 1: by the by the way, this is the Winds and

1667
01:13:47,040 --> 01:13:49,519
Speaker 1: Losses podcast. I'm Clay Travis. You're listening to me and

1668
01:13:49,640 --> 01:13:54,479
Speaker 1: Todd Ferman. I walk over and uh and I am

1669
01:13:54,560 --> 01:13:57,559
Speaker 1: walking over and I walk in, and I'm thinking, there's

1670
01:13:57,600 --> 01:14:01,639
Speaker 1: no way Furman is gonna be here. And you know Stewartman, Dell, Bruce, Feldman, Liner,

1671
01:14:01,800 --> 01:14:04,160
Speaker 1: that crew is all They're already watching games. They have

1672
01:14:04,200 --> 01:14:06,639
Speaker 1: food laid out force I should say, by the way,

1673
01:14:06,680 --> 01:14:10,040
Speaker 1: they have breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Oftentimes that they will

1674
01:14:10,080 --> 01:14:13,679
Speaker 1: deliver catered, which is crazy. You know, it's phenomenal food,

1675
01:14:13,800 --> 01:14:16,599
Speaker 1: like anything you want basically. Right. So we're sitting there,

1676
01:14:16,640 --> 01:14:18,920
Speaker 1: we're chilling. This is this is the life. Ferman is

1677
01:14:18,960 --> 01:14:21,439
Speaker 1: not there, and everybody's asking there, like, what do you

1678
01:14:21,479 --> 01:14:23,280
Speaker 1: guys do last night for Halloween? I'm like, you know,

1679
01:14:23,360 --> 01:14:24,680
Speaker 1: I don't know, I don't know where firm You know,

1680
01:14:24,680 --> 01:14:27,760
Speaker 1: when when's Firman gonna come in? And eventually you come

1681
01:14:27,800 --> 01:14:30,320
Speaker 1: in and you look like absolute death. I mean it's

1682
01:14:30,320 --> 01:14:34,000
Speaker 1: probably halftime, maybe even late in the in the third

1683
01:14:34,080 --> 01:14:36,439
Speaker 1: or fourth quarter of the early games. Yeah, I think

1684
01:14:36,479 --> 01:14:38,479
Speaker 1: it was a little bit later because I actually needed

1685
01:14:38,520 --> 01:14:41,840
Speaker 1: to go to find myself a drink before I even

1686
01:14:41,920 --> 01:14:43,120
Speaker 1: was going to come in there, because I needed a

1687
01:14:43,160 --> 01:14:45,760
Speaker 1: hair of the dog desperately. I think as far as

1688
01:14:45,760 --> 01:14:47,599
Speaker 1: Bloody Mary's go, that would have been a top five

1689
01:14:47,680 --> 01:14:49,360
Speaker 1: day that I need to get some alcohol back in

1690
01:14:49,439 --> 01:14:52,040
Speaker 1: my system. So and I look at you and I'm like,

1691
01:14:52,080 --> 01:14:55,559
Speaker 1: oh my God, Like, what happened to you? Your entire

1692
01:14:55,800 --> 01:15:00,519
Speaker 1: eye is just it's totally bloody, Like all the white

1693
01:15:00,520 --> 01:15:02,799
Speaker 1: in your eye is just blood. And I'm like, dude,

1694
01:15:03,160 --> 01:15:05,559
Speaker 1: what because it hadn't happened, you know, before I dropped

1695
01:15:05,560 --> 01:15:08,680
Speaker 1: you off. I'm like, what happened? And you tell me

1696
01:15:08,880 --> 01:15:13,000
Speaker 1: what happened? What did you do? So? Um, you know,

1697
01:15:13,080 --> 01:15:14,880
Speaker 1: as any of us have done, when you have a

1698
01:15:14,920 --> 01:15:17,879
Speaker 1: lot to drink in those that wear contacts, you sometimes

1699
01:15:17,960 --> 01:15:19,960
Speaker 1: forget that your contact may or may not be in

1700
01:15:20,000 --> 01:15:23,160
Speaker 1: your eye. And I apparently had taken my contact out,

1701
01:15:23,200 --> 01:15:25,000
Speaker 1: but unbeknownst to me, when I woke up in a

1702
01:15:25,080 --> 01:15:27,800
Speaker 1: drunken stupor, had pretty much tried to continue to take

1703
01:15:27,840 --> 01:15:30,920
Speaker 1: a contact out that had long since from my eye.

1704
01:15:31,200 --> 01:15:33,559
Speaker 1: So I'm just glad it wasn't more serious than that

1705
01:15:33,640 --> 01:15:36,759
Speaker 1: in terms of a crash Cornia or anything else along

1706
01:15:36,760 --> 01:15:39,920
Speaker 1: those lines, but that I was about his bloodshot as

1707
01:15:39,960 --> 01:15:42,680
Speaker 1: it's I've never said, I've never seen an eye that

1708
01:15:42,800 --> 01:15:44,760
Speaker 1: read in my life. I'm being honest and I mean,

1709
01:15:44,840 --> 01:15:46,439
Speaker 1: and I was trying to figure out trust me, Clay,

1710
01:15:46,479 --> 01:15:48,840
Speaker 1: I went through the whole cost benefit analysis and do

1711
01:15:48,920 --> 01:15:50,880
Speaker 1: I actually show my face on the lot to watch

1712
01:15:50,920 --> 01:15:53,120
Speaker 1: games or do I just sit in the hotel bar,

1713
01:15:53,200 --> 01:15:56,040
Speaker 1: because if the executives come through, they're gonna think I

1714
01:15:56,040 --> 01:15:58,720
Speaker 1: got in some sort of real racy shift the night

1715
01:15:58,760 --> 01:16:01,120
Speaker 1: before and I'm my not be the kind of employee

1716
01:16:01,160 --> 01:16:03,160
Speaker 1: that they want to try and keep on staff. And

1717
01:16:03,240 --> 01:16:05,560
Speaker 1: sure enough I walk in, you know, Bruce Feldman and

1718
01:16:05,560 --> 01:16:07,600
Speaker 1: Stewart Mandel look at me like, oh my god, you

1719
01:16:07,640 --> 01:16:10,240
Speaker 1: look like absolute death. And then you proceed to tell

1720
01:16:10,320 --> 01:16:13,880
Speaker 1: the entire room the entire story about what transpired the

1721
01:16:14,000 --> 01:16:16,400
Speaker 1: night before, how we had gotten after it as a

1722
01:16:16,479 --> 01:16:18,960
Speaker 1: bar and let's just say that was a rough day

1723
01:16:19,000 --> 01:16:22,360
Speaker 1: of watching college football and an even rougher flight home.

1724
01:16:22,840 --> 01:16:25,960
Speaker 1: So uh, Since that time Locking In launches, we've done

1725
01:16:26,120 --> 01:16:28,040
Speaker 1: a show at the Super Bowl which we just did

1726
01:16:28,120 --> 01:16:30,680
Speaker 1: recently for an entire week, which was awesome. We were

1727
01:16:30,680 --> 01:16:32,800
Speaker 1: out in Vegas. We did a show for an entire

1728
01:16:32,840 --> 01:16:35,880
Speaker 1: week from the MGM Sports Book, which was phenomenal and

1729
01:16:35,920 --> 01:16:40,120
Speaker 1: they did an incredible job setting it up. Uh And

1730
01:16:40,000 --> 01:16:41,720
Speaker 1: and maybe we're gonna be back out there again. I

1731
01:16:41,760 --> 01:16:44,720
Speaker 1: don't know, but I think I feel very strongly that

1732
01:16:44,800 --> 01:16:47,519
Speaker 1: we're going to continue to do more live shows because

1733
01:16:47,520 --> 01:16:50,360
Speaker 1: sports gambling is continuing to spread. I believe it's in

1734
01:16:50,400 --> 01:16:53,480
Speaker 1: twenty one states right now and the District of Columbia.

1735
01:16:53,800 --> 01:16:55,720
Speaker 1: So we've talked for a long time here and I'm

1736
01:16:55,720 --> 01:16:58,720
Speaker 1: Clay Travis again talking to Todd Ferman. And sometimes people say,

1737
01:16:58,720 --> 01:17:01,040
Speaker 1: why do you keep saying sing who the guest is?

1738
01:17:01,240 --> 01:17:03,679
Speaker 1: It's so we can put ads in the reason why

1739
01:17:03,720 --> 01:17:05,560
Speaker 1: I do most things. By the way, people like I

1740
01:17:05,560 --> 01:17:07,160
Speaker 1: don't know why you keep saying who you're talking to.

1741
01:17:07,200 --> 01:17:09,080
Speaker 1: If we've listened for an hour, we already know it's

1742
01:17:09,120 --> 01:17:11,240
Speaker 1: so I can make money, asshole, all right, So that's

1743
01:17:11,280 --> 01:17:14,160
Speaker 1: why I introduce and say this is wins and Losses.

1744
01:17:14,200 --> 01:17:17,320
Speaker 1: I'm Clay Travis. You're listening to Todd Ferman because when

1745
01:17:17,360 --> 01:17:19,799
Speaker 1: I do that, they can more easily put in ads.

1746
01:17:19,840 --> 01:17:22,400
Speaker 1: All right, so stop tweeting me about that. I don't

1747
01:17:22,400 --> 01:17:23,720
Speaker 1: know what you have to tell us who were listening

1748
01:17:23,720 --> 01:17:25,240
Speaker 1: to do so I can make money, is the answer?

1749
01:17:25,280 --> 01:17:29,639
Speaker 1: All right? Uh? And so uh so what in terms

1750
01:17:29,640 --> 01:17:32,360
Speaker 1: of making money? Where do we go from here? Uh?

1751
01:17:32,400 --> 01:17:34,200
Speaker 1: So that that's kind of the broad question. I'll let

1752
01:17:34,200 --> 01:17:38,400
Speaker 1: you finish with because it's twenty and it's February, and

1753
01:17:38,439 --> 01:17:40,200
Speaker 1: people might be listening to this in six months, they

1754
01:17:40,240 --> 01:17:42,400
Speaker 1: might be listening to this in a year. But if

1755
01:17:42,439 --> 01:17:46,120
Speaker 1: you had to predict bar stool is sold to pen National, Uh,

1756
01:17:46,160 --> 01:17:48,559
Speaker 1: there's a just a I would say a rush on

1757
01:17:48,680 --> 01:17:52,280
Speaker 1: sports media content in general in terms of the value

1758
01:17:52,360 --> 01:17:56,320
Speaker 1: Fox bet has launched and they're obviously embedded deeply with

1759
01:17:56,720 --> 01:17:59,680
Speaker 1: with our show. You have CBS doing a deal with

1760
01:17:59,680 --> 01:18:03,760
Speaker 1: Will m Hill. Uh. You have Caesar's with a relationship

1761
01:18:03,840 --> 01:18:07,640
Speaker 1: with the ESPN Bleacher Report I believe has a relationship

1762
01:18:07,680 --> 01:18:11,320
Speaker 1: with Caesar's. To Turner, there's all these different moving parts.

1763
01:18:11,960 --> 01:18:16,000
Speaker 1: Where are we headed? What's next? You know what? I

1764
01:18:16,040 --> 01:18:18,800
Speaker 1: think that every one of these sports betting entities is

1765
01:18:18,800 --> 01:18:22,200
Speaker 1: going to quickly realize that the fastest driver to create

1766
01:18:22,280 --> 01:18:27,040
Speaker 1: brand awareness is to create that unique, original, branded content.

1767
01:18:27,120 --> 01:18:29,080
Speaker 1: Because you look at what's going on in the space

1768
01:18:29,160 --> 01:18:30,719
Speaker 1: right now, and I think a lot of the major

1769
01:18:30,760 --> 01:18:34,320
Speaker 1: sports book players in Jersey, in Pennsylvania and the other

1770
01:18:34,360 --> 01:18:37,200
Speaker 1: states that are student to come online, the acquisition costs

1771
01:18:37,240 --> 01:18:39,760
Speaker 1: are through the roof. And the unfortunate part is when

1772
01:18:39,800 --> 01:18:41,920
Speaker 1: you come up with match plays or you're offering a

1773
01:18:42,000 --> 01:18:45,280
Speaker 1: variety of different things, you can't really create that brand

1774
01:18:45,360 --> 01:18:49,400
Speaker 1: loyalty with the actual customer unless they're returning to your

1775
01:18:49,439 --> 01:18:52,400
Speaker 1: first your site for something other than a bet. And

1776
01:18:52,439 --> 01:18:54,679
Speaker 1: I joke about it all the time in sports betting

1777
01:18:54,680 --> 01:18:57,040
Speaker 1: because I think it's even more apparent now in this

1778
01:18:57,160 --> 01:18:59,559
Speaker 1: current landscape where people have so many different options right

1779
01:18:59,600 --> 01:19:01,800
Speaker 1: at their thing, your tips on their mobile device then

1780
01:19:01,840 --> 01:19:04,160
Speaker 1: they did years ago with brick and mortar. I was

1781
01:19:04,200 --> 01:19:06,040
Speaker 1: always taught in sports betting you want to sell the

1782
01:19:06,120 --> 01:19:09,040
Speaker 1: right product to the right customer at the right price.

1783
01:19:09,560 --> 01:19:12,639
Speaker 1: And ideally every sports book wants to try and create

1784
01:19:12,640 --> 01:19:15,680
Speaker 1: a relationship with players that aren't price sensitive. And what

1785
01:19:15,720 --> 01:19:17,600
Speaker 1: do I mean there that they want to try and

1786
01:19:17,640 --> 01:19:19,559
Speaker 1: find someone that's not going to shop around for the

1787
01:19:19,560 --> 01:19:21,679
Speaker 1: best of the number that doesn't care on an SEC

1788
01:19:21,800 --> 01:19:23,960
Speaker 1: football game that the number is minus three at one

1789
01:19:23,960 --> 01:19:26,200
Speaker 1: book and minus two and a half somewhere else. They

1790
01:19:26,240 --> 01:19:28,200
Speaker 1: want to try and keep their dollars in the same

1791
01:19:28,240 --> 01:19:30,800
Speaker 1: sports book and perpetuity. They want to try and create

1792
01:19:30,800 --> 01:19:33,559
Speaker 1: a loyalty program or something along those lines, and in

1793
01:19:33,600 --> 01:19:36,040
Speaker 1: my opinion, branded content is going to do that faster

1794
01:19:36,080 --> 01:19:38,240
Speaker 1: than anything else. I mean, there's a reason that Penn

1795
01:19:38,280 --> 01:19:40,519
Speaker 1: spent what they did on bar stool because they know

1796
01:19:40,600 --> 01:19:44,000
Speaker 1: bar stool can mobilize. The maths is about as fast

1797
01:19:44,040 --> 01:19:47,600
Speaker 1: as any content platform out there. And you've seen that

1798
01:19:47,640 --> 01:19:49,920
Speaker 1: without kick. I mean, you know your listeners will follow

1799
01:19:49,920 --> 01:19:52,519
Speaker 1: you through thick and thin, the folks that pay for

1800
01:19:52,680 --> 01:19:54,759
Speaker 1: v i P, that read you on a daily basis

1801
01:19:54,960 --> 01:19:56,920
Speaker 1: that if you begin to work with a sports book

1802
01:19:57,080 --> 01:19:59,479
Speaker 1: or our podcast does I mean, we had a strong

1803
01:19:59,520 --> 01:20:02,160
Speaker 1: relationship up with an offshore book and there was a

1804
01:20:02,200 --> 01:20:05,120
Speaker 1: ton of business and brand awareness that was created because

1805
01:20:05,160 --> 01:20:07,960
Speaker 1: the two are always connected hand in hand. And I

1806
01:20:08,000 --> 01:20:09,880
Speaker 1: think a lot of the sports book players out there

1807
01:20:09,880 --> 01:20:11,800
Speaker 1: are going to figure out that, hey, look, you know

1808
01:20:11,880 --> 01:20:15,120
Speaker 1: content is great, but if we can identify content with

1809
01:20:15,200 --> 01:20:17,160
Speaker 1: people that are going to push our product, that have

1810
01:20:17,200 --> 01:20:21,080
Speaker 1: a consistent brand message to get to that year old

1811
01:20:21,080 --> 01:20:24,479
Speaker 1: male male demo with discretionary income and I don't want

1812
01:20:24,520 --> 01:20:26,320
Speaker 1: to sell the women out there in sports betting, because

1813
01:20:26,320 --> 01:20:28,920
Speaker 1: it is a growing segment of the population that they're

1814
01:20:28,960 --> 01:20:31,920
Speaker 1: going to find a relationship and the first sports book

1815
01:20:31,960 --> 01:20:34,479
Speaker 1: that they deposited in their state, whether it's Colorado, whether

1816
01:20:34,520 --> 01:20:37,880
Speaker 1: it's Michigan, whether it's Tennessee, more often than not, that's

1817
01:20:37,880 --> 01:20:40,640
Speaker 1: where they're going to continue to bet their games for

1818
01:20:40,720 --> 01:20:43,519
Speaker 1: the next eighteen months, for the next year and a half,

1819
01:20:43,560 --> 01:20:46,519
Speaker 1: for the next you know, four years, five years, and

1820
01:20:46,720 --> 01:20:48,800
Speaker 1: on into the future. So I think it's such an

1821
01:20:48,840 --> 01:20:52,799
Speaker 1: important vehicle to have content that branded accordingly and identify

1822
01:20:52,920 --> 01:20:55,040
Speaker 1: with the right personalities they can push out your message.

1823
01:20:55,479 --> 01:20:58,479
Speaker 1: We're talking to Todd Ferman. It's interesting. In and Fox,

1824
01:20:58,520 --> 01:21:01,639
Speaker 1: I would say has been super uh. I would say

1825
01:21:01,680 --> 01:21:05,639
Speaker 1: progressive and also aggressive, which is oftentimes a good combo

1826
01:21:05,680 --> 01:21:09,040
Speaker 1: in the world of business. Eric Shanks who runs Fox Sports,

1827
01:21:09,479 --> 01:21:13,080
Speaker 1: Mark Silverman, who was obviously the number two there. I mentioned,

1828
01:21:13,160 --> 01:21:16,160
Speaker 1: Charlie Dixon who who got our show running, and I

1829
01:21:16,200 --> 01:21:18,200
Speaker 1: would say Mike Mulvehill and a lot of other people

1830
01:21:18,320 --> 01:21:21,320
Speaker 1: Jacob Aleman recognized that have been mentioned throughout the course

1831
01:21:21,320 --> 01:21:24,880
Speaker 1: of this program, recognized what sports gambling could be and

1832
01:21:24,920 --> 01:21:27,800
Speaker 1: how transformative it could be for someone who is in

1833
01:21:27,840 --> 01:21:31,760
Speaker 1: the sports content business. Uh. One question I'd like to

1834
01:21:31,800 --> 01:21:35,000
Speaker 1: ask people on the show, Todd as we kind of

1835
01:21:35,040 --> 01:21:37,719
Speaker 1: go out, is there are a lot of young people

1836
01:21:37,720 --> 01:21:40,000
Speaker 1: who are gonna end up listening to this right Uh.

1837
01:21:40,040 --> 01:21:42,479
Speaker 1: There are people who want to be the next you know,

1838
01:21:42,520 --> 01:21:44,519
Speaker 1: they're eighteen years old and they want to be Todd

1839
01:21:44,560 --> 01:21:47,080
Speaker 1: Ferman when they're approaching forty years old. Or there's people,

1840
01:21:47,080 --> 01:21:49,719
Speaker 1: believe it or not, Furman, who are seventeen or eighteen

1841
01:21:49,840 --> 01:21:52,800
Speaker 1: or or older who listen to this and they're like, man,

1842
01:21:52,800 --> 01:21:55,519
Speaker 1: I'd like to do what Clay Travis does one day. Um.

1843
01:21:55,560 --> 01:21:58,160
Speaker 1: I give people a lot of advice, uh, and try

1844
01:21:58,200 --> 01:22:00,840
Speaker 1: to and some of it's hopefully helpful or what I do.

1845
01:22:01,080 --> 01:22:03,840
Speaker 1: But I'm not firmly in sports gambling in the same

1846
01:22:03,840 --> 01:22:05,920
Speaker 1: way that you don't. You are. I love it, but

1847
01:22:06,000 --> 01:22:08,760
Speaker 1: this is your lifeblood. This has been your industry since

1848
01:22:08,800 --> 01:22:11,759
Speaker 1: you were a kid and on up through your career.

1849
01:22:12,280 --> 01:22:14,680
Speaker 1: If you were talking to those kids right now and

1850
01:22:14,720 --> 01:22:17,240
Speaker 1: they are eighteen years old, Todd Furman, they are twenty

1851
01:22:17,280 --> 01:22:19,280
Speaker 1: two year old, Todd Ferman, and they want to get

1852
01:22:19,320 --> 01:22:22,880
Speaker 1: a job in the sports gambling industry. Media or otherwise

1853
01:22:23,280 --> 01:22:25,639
Speaker 1: what would you tell them they should be doing right now.

1854
01:22:26,439 --> 01:22:28,400
Speaker 1: So the biggest thing is you're gonna want to spend

1855
01:22:28,400 --> 01:22:31,960
Speaker 1: plenty of time learning the mass behind its statistics and probability.

1856
01:22:32,040 --> 01:22:35,400
Speaker 1: Take whatever classes that your university or high school offers

1857
01:22:35,800 --> 01:22:37,920
Speaker 1: in that particular realm, because it's going to give you

1858
01:22:37,960 --> 01:22:40,599
Speaker 1: a leg up potentially on the competition that's out there.

1859
01:22:41,000 --> 01:22:43,000
Speaker 1: You're gonna want to read voraciously. But I think that

1860
01:22:43,040 --> 01:22:45,760
Speaker 1: holds true regardless of the field you ultimately want to

1861
01:22:45,800 --> 01:22:48,439
Speaker 1: go into to to learn opinions of people that have

1862
01:22:48,560 --> 01:22:51,240
Speaker 1: been there and done that before. But I think one

1863
01:22:51,280 --> 01:22:53,960
Speaker 1: of the biggest things for me was that every path

1864
01:22:54,040 --> 01:22:56,599
Speaker 1: isn't always a two B. Sometimes you have to try

1865
01:22:56,640 --> 01:22:58,880
Speaker 1: and figure out how can I develop a skill set

1866
01:22:58,880 --> 01:23:01,679
Speaker 1: in one job that's ultimately going to take me where

1867
01:23:01,720 --> 01:23:04,160
Speaker 1: I want to go in a different field. So while

1868
01:23:04,160 --> 01:23:06,360
Speaker 1: I knew I wanted to work in sports and gambling,

1869
01:23:06,360 --> 01:23:08,800
Speaker 1: I thought in some capacity it was getting my foot

1870
01:23:08,840 --> 01:23:11,800
Speaker 1: into the door for the casino business and then figuring out,

1871
01:23:11,840 --> 01:23:13,920
Speaker 1: all right, once I'm in the house, how do I

1872
01:23:14,000 --> 01:23:15,920
Speaker 1: find the room which just happened to be the sports

1873
01:23:15,920 --> 01:23:19,880
Speaker 1: book to be able to make my dream ultimately become

1874
01:23:19,880 --> 01:23:21,800
Speaker 1: a reality. And I think a lot of that stuff

1875
01:23:21,800 --> 01:23:24,080
Speaker 1: holds true for like you said, in media, where people

1876
01:23:24,080 --> 01:23:26,679
Speaker 1: have to get their start doing you know, early morning

1877
01:23:26,760 --> 01:23:29,360
Speaker 1: radio or late at night where nobody might be listening.

1878
01:23:29,560 --> 01:23:31,360
Speaker 1: But you always want to try and take advantage of

1879
01:23:31,400 --> 01:23:33,800
Speaker 1: every opportunity that's there to hone your craft. I mean

1880
01:23:33,840 --> 01:23:36,800
Speaker 1: my podcast a perfect example. We started doing it four

1881
01:23:36,880 --> 01:23:39,240
Speaker 1: or five years ago, before podcast had really taken off.

1882
01:23:39,439 --> 01:23:42,439
Speaker 1: We had listeners to show and we were recording it

1883
01:23:42,520 --> 01:23:45,280
Speaker 1: on a platform called go to Meeting. Now here we

1884
01:23:45,320 --> 01:23:49,000
Speaker 1: are with one of the larger unaffiliated sports betting podcast

1885
01:23:49,040 --> 01:23:52,200
Speaker 1: that's out there. We've never had distribution. We've had great sponsors.

1886
01:23:52,240 --> 01:23:54,880
Speaker 1: Fox bet Um was kind enough to kind of take

1887
01:23:54,960 --> 01:23:58,519
Speaker 1: over that leading role on our podcast this year, but

1888
01:23:58,600 --> 01:24:00,400
Speaker 1: just to kind of grow that foot for it little

1889
01:24:00,400 --> 01:24:03,240
Speaker 1: by little. But I think it's always about specializing and

1890
01:24:03,280 --> 01:24:05,280
Speaker 1: that was one of the best professional lessons that I

1891
01:24:05,360 --> 01:24:08,200
Speaker 1: was given. Be willing to do things that others aren't.

1892
01:24:08,439 --> 01:24:11,479
Speaker 1: As far as sports gambling is concerned, everybody wants to

1893
01:24:11,520 --> 01:24:14,120
Speaker 1: cover the NFL and college football. If you're gonna do that,

1894
01:24:14,120 --> 01:24:16,599
Speaker 1: you're gonna get lost in the shuffle. So make yourself

1895
01:24:16,640 --> 01:24:19,000
Speaker 1: a sports gambling expert in a field that other people

1896
01:24:19,040 --> 01:24:21,479
Speaker 1: haven't even thought about. For me, it was NASCAR that

1897
01:24:21,520 --> 01:24:23,040
Speaker 1: allowed me to keep my foot in the door with

1898
01:24:23,120 --> 01:24:25,559
Speaker 1: Fox and stay very much on their radar for when

1899
01:24:25,600 --> 01:24:28,320
Speaker 1: lock it In kind of came to fruition for somebody

1900
01:24:28,360 --> 01:24:31,080
Speaker 1: listening at home out there now, with the sports continuing

1901
01:24:31,080 --> 01:24:33,479
Speaker 1: to grow, maybe it's figuring out how they can take

1902
01:24:33,520 --> 01:24:35,799
Speaker 1: their love of e sports and learn the sports gambling

1903
01:24:35,880 --> 01:24:38,640
Speaker 1: side of that particular market. The w n B, A,

1904
01:24:38,880 --> 01:24:42,360
Speaker 1: MLS docker sports betting isn't going away. We've seen more

1905
01:24:42,400 --> 01:24:44,639
Speaker 1: and more coverage of it. But try and find those

1906
01:24:44,640 --> 01:24:46,760
Speaker 1: sports that people don't want to try and dive into

1907
01:24:46,920 --> 01:24:49,800
Speaker 1: that same passion, that same fervor, and you're gonna be

1908
01:24:49,840 --> 01:24:52,600
Speaker 1: able to distance yourself from the competition. Because better to

1909
01:24:52,640 --> 01:24:55,839
Speaker 1: be the best in a small field of other talented

1910
01:24:55,840 --> 01:24:58,960
Speaker 1: individuals than just be middling in mediocre. If you're gonna

1911
01:24:59,040 --> 01:25:01,920
Speaker 1: make yourself a college book fault or NFL expert, where

1912
01:25:01,960 --> 01:25:04,320
Speaker 1: everybody wants to try and be there, and the unfortunate

1913
01:25:04,320 --> 01:25:07,320
Speaker 1: reality of it is established personalities are always going to

1914
01:25:07,400 --> 01:25:09,360
Speaker 1: get a leg up. It's not as easy to get

1915
01:25:09,360 --> 01:25:11,320
Speaker 1: to the top of the heap and then ultimately pivot

1916
01:25:11,640 --> 01:25:13,479
Speaker 1: until you have that platform to be able to make

1917
01:25:13,520 --> 01:25:16,880
Speaker 1: those choices. Yeah, and you mentioned earlier your social media platforms.

1918
01:25:16,920 --> 01:25:19,040
Speaker 1: If you're a young person out there, you're gonna be

1919
01:25:19,080 --> 01:25:22,080
Speaker 1: found for everything that you have said or done, So

1920
01:25:22,200 --> 01:25:24,280
Speaker 1: be cognizant of that, both good or bad. Because you

1921
01:25:24,600 --> 01:25:27,000
Speaker 1: and I met because you said you like Dixie Land

1922
01:25:27,000 --> 01:25:29,040
Speaker 1: to Light and I happen to be scrolling through and

1923
01:25:29,080 --> 01:25:31,160
Speaker 1: see your profile and be like, Oh, he's at Caesar

1924
01:25:31,240 --> 01:25:33,600
Speaker 1: sports Book. I'd like to meet somebody who works in

1925
01:25:33,640 --> 01:25:36,040
Speaker 1: a sports book because I'm curious how that business is

1926
01:25:36,080 --> 01:25:39,320
Speaker 1: put in place. And that's just me being intellectually curious

1927
01:25:39,400 --> 01:25:42,639
Speaker 1: about something that honestly I wasn't involved in at the time,

1928
01:25:42,640 --> 01:25:44,439
Speaker 1: but I thought might be an area that I was

1929
01:25:44,439 --> 01:25:46,280
Speaker 1: going to be spending more time in in the future.

1930
01:25:46,560 --> 01:25:48,920
Speaker 1: And I've tried to learn the process of what we

1931
01:25:48,960 --> 01:25:51,519
Speaker 1: do now along the way, as I think a lot

1932
01:25:51,560 --> 01:25:54,160
Speaker 1: of people out there are learning and listening now. All right,

1933
01:25:54,200 --> 01:25:55,800
Speaker 1: I know I said last question a couple of times.

1934
01:25:55,800 --> 01:25:57,800
Speaker 1: This is the real last question. I don't know if

1935
01:25:57,880 --> 01:26:01,559
Speaker 1: Rachel or sal have actually listened to this program, but

1936
01:26:01,720 --> 01:26:04,080
Speaker 1: if they have, they've listened for a long time now.

1937
01:26:04,600 --> 01:26:07,479
Speaker 1: Would you like to take a shot at them as

1938
01:26:07,520 --> 01:26:11,280
Speaker 1: a as a basically a test to see whether or

1939
01:26:11,320 --> 01:26:14,360
Speaker 1: not they actually paid any attention to what you said,

1940
01:26:14,360 --> 01:26:16,120
Speaker 1: because I don't know if they lied or not. But

1941
01:26:16,240 --> 01:26:18,439
Speaker 1: sal was like, yeah, I listened to Rachel's wins and

1942
01:26:18,479 --> 01:26:20,679
Speaker 1: lost his podcast, And Rachel was like, yeah, I listened

1943
01:26:20,720 --> 01:26:23,840
Speaker 1: to Sal's. Will either of them actually listen to this

1944
01:26:24,000 --> 01:26:26,240
Speaker 1: and if they do well, they listen long enough to

1945
01:26:26,360 --> 01:26:30,040
Speaker 1: hear themselves ridiculed open forum for you Todd Ferman to

1946
01:26:30,080 --> 01:26:32,120
Speaker 1: see off on them to finish the program. I mean,

1947
01:26:32,160 --> 01:26:34,680
Speaker 1: if I'm sitting on here, my feeling is this that

1948
01:26:34,800 --> 01:26:37,639
Speaker 1: what's gonna happen, Clay, is that Rachel listened to this

1949
01:26:37,680 --> 01:26:41,160
Speaker 1: and a lot more extended format that cousin salwell, she'll

1950
01:26:41,280 --> 01:26:43,679
Speaker 1: hear some of this, and you know, I take jabs

1951
01:26:43,680 --> 01:26:45,720
Speaker 1: that Salve shall then relay it to him so he'll

1952
01:26:45,800 --> 01:26:48,360
Speaker 1: jump on there. So if we're gonna take shots at

1953
01:26:48,400 --> 01:26:50,759
Speaker 1: our colleagues and coast on the show, in the grand

1954
01:26:50,760 --> 01:26:53,519
Speaker 1: scheme of things, the biggest thing is that Rachel's got

1955
01:26:53,520 --> 01:26:55,559
Speaker 1: to make sure that she finds a replacement. You know,

1956
01:26:55,560 --> 01:26:57,479
Speaker 1: as we continue to do this, we know that Rachel

1957
01:26:57,560 --> 01:26:59,400
Speaker 1: is probably what what do you figure, Clay, she's with us,

1958
01:26:59,600 --> 01:27:01,479
Speaker 1: you know what's our contract runs out or maybe she

1959
01:27:01,520 --> 01:27:04,639
Speaker 1: decided to sign a short Rachel is and I said

1960
01:27:04,680 --> 01:27:07,439
Speaker 1: this on the podcast with Rachel when she was on

1961
01:27:08,080 --> 01:27:12,000
Speaker 1: she is so incredibly talented, right that she will not

1962
01:27:12,320 --> 01:27:14,720
Speaker 1: continue to do I don't and I don't mean this

1963
01:27:15,080 --> 01:27:17,320
Speaker 1: like she will not continue. I don't think to do

1964
01:27:17,439 --> 01:27:20,439
Speaker 1: sports for more than I would set the over under,

1965
01:27:20,479 --> 01:27:23,320
Speaker 1: since we're a gambling show, at most at two and

1966
01:27:23,320 --> 01:27:26,040
Speaker 1: a half years that she will even do sports. And

1967
01:27:26,080 --> 01:27:28,200
Speaker 1: that's not because she's not gonna have a ton of

1968
01:27:28,200 --> 01:27:31,120
Speaker 1: opportunities in sports. It's that she's so good if you

1969
01:27:31,160 --> 01:27:33,439
Speaker 1: just watch the stupid skits that we do, like, she's

1970
01:27:33,439 --> 01:27:36,960
Speaker 1: a legitimately good actress. So I think in living in

1971
01:27:37,120 --> 01:27:39,240
Speaker 1: l a and being as young and talented as she is,

1972
01:27:39,479 --> 01:27:42,080
Speaker 1: she's gonna have a ton of options to spiral off

1973
01:27:42,120 --> 01:27:44,920
Speaker 1: in different directions. So I'm not even just on our show.

1974
01:27:45,240 --> 01:27:48,320
Speaker 1: I'm putting the over under Rachel Bonetta is primarily in

1975
01:27:48,360 --> 01:27:50,360
Speaker 1: the world of sports. At two and a half years,

1976
01:27:50,360 --> 01:27:53,360
Speaker 1: would you take the over the under? I think that's

1977
01:27:53,360 --> 01:27:55,439
Speaker 1: a fair number because I think there'll always be a

1978
01:27:55,479 --> 01:27:58,080
Speaker 1: place for her in sports. But she has bigger aspirations

1979
01:27:58,080 --> 01:28:00,800
Speaker 1: than dealing with us three knuckleheads for as long as

1980
01:28:00,840 --> 01:28:02,880
Speaker 1: they elect to keep our show on the airwaves. So

1981
01:28:03,200 --> 01:28:04,800
Speaker 1: we know she move on a bigger and better things.

1982
01:28:04,800 --> 01:28:06,560
Speaker 1: So I guess this is probably better opportunity, maybe not

1983
01:28:06,640 --> 01:28:08,960
Speaker 1: take shots at Rachel, but more sell. You actually were

1984
01:28:08,960 --> 01:28:10,720
Speaker 1: trying to take a shot at Rachel, and you ended

1985
01:28:10,800 --> 01:28:14,040
Speaker 1: up praising her mentally by saying that she's so that

1986
01:28:14,040 --> 01:28:16,600
Speaker 1: she's thinking to continue to do our show. Well, I

1987
01:28:16,600 --> 01:28:18,840
Speaker 1: mean that's you know, out of sight, out of mind,

1988
01:28:18,920 --> 01:28:20,400
Speaker 1: and you know, people don't want to do our show,

1989
01:28:20,400 --> 01:28:22,759
Speaker 1: they essentially become dead dust clay that that's not works.

1990
01:28:22,800 --> 01:28:25,280
Speaker 1: So you know, once Rachel moves on to bigger things

1991
01:28:25,280 --> 01:28:27,400
Speaker 1: and forgets about the three of us, you know, we

1992
01:28:27,479 --> 01:28:29,640
Speaker 1: forget about her. We don't mention her name, and you know,

1993
01:28:29,680 --> 01:28:32,080
Speaker 1: we pretend she never existed. But it was more about

1994
01:28:32,160 --> 01:28:34,640
Speaker 1: kind of learning the space than anything else. I can

1995
01:28:34,680 --> 01:28:37,920
Speaker 1: tell folks that watch our show, cousin sells money line

1996
01:28:38,040 --> 01:28:40,519
Speaker 1: parlay strategy that he's tried to employ and that you've

1997
01:28:40,560 --> 01:28:42,759
Speaker 1: kind of taken a liking to and actually has record

1998
01:28:42,840 --> 01:28:45,080
Speaker 1: this on February four. Teams. The fact that you want

1999
01:28:45,080 --> 01:28:46,800
Speaker 1: a leg on a money line parley where your team

2000
01:28:46,840 --> 01:28:50,240
Speaker 1: never let a basketball game for the entire forty minutes.

2001
01:28:50,760 --> 01:28:52,519
Speaker 1: Is the kind of bullshit that I've dealt with. All

2002
01:28:53,240 --> 01:28:55,679
Speaker 1: people want to read. That's the Pepper die Baby, Pepper

2003
01:28:55,840 --> 01:28:59,080
Speaker 1: You don't You don't bet in favor of San Diego

2004
01:28:59,320 --> 01:29:01,760
Speaker 1: with Pepper I did in San Diego. Roll it out

2005
01:29:01,800 --> 01:29:05,479
Speaker 1: in the dub CC you gotta be on Pepperdine absolute garbage.

2006
01:29:05,600 --> 01:29:07,840
Speaker 1: They had didn't have a lead for the entire bat

2007
01:29:08,800 --> 01:29:12,400
Speaker 1: at the Buzzer Baby as time expired. So the strategy

2008
01:29:12,439 --> 01:29:14,639
Speaker 1: that you and cousin Sal is employed is money line

2009
01:29:14,680 --> 01:29:19,719
Speaker 1: parlates that couldn't be further five just occasionally, I only

2010
01:29:19,760 --> 01:29:23,559
Speaker 1: occasionally jump into the money line parlay play that couldn't

2011
01:29:23,600 --> 01:29:27,280
Speaker 1: be further from a long term money making strategy in

2012
01:29:27,280 --> 01:29:30,519
Speaker 1: this particular space. So if you're gonna watch our show

2013
01:29:30,600 --> 01:29:32,719
Speaker 1: and try and learn, and I can't really take shots

2014
01:29:32,760 --> 01:29:35,200
Speaker 1: because I didn't come down about ten million dollars, can

2015
01:29:35,280 --> 01:29:38,320
Speaker 1: you go dollars against you too so far this season?

2016
01:29:38,720 --> 01:29:40,880
Speaker 1: That is not the approach you want to try and employ.

2017
01:29:41,120 --> 01:29:43,479
Speaker 1: And despite what cousin Sal will try and tell everybody,

2018
01:29:43,640 --> 01:29:45,759
Speaker 1: you don't go through the betting board on a Saturday

2019
01:29:45,840 --> 01:29:47,960
Speaker 1: during the fall and try and find the biggest favorite,

2020
01:29:48,280 --> 01:29:50,559
Speaker 1: pair them together and be willing to put up four

2021
01:29:50,600 --> 01:29:53,160
Speaker 1: dollars to make a dollar coming back. But you know

2022
01:29:53,160 --> 01:29:54,960
Speaker 1: those are about the best shots. You're a lot better

2023
01:29:54,960 --> 01:29:56,680
Speaker 1: shot taker than that. And most of these things that

2024
01:29:56,680 --> 01:29:58,880
Speaker 1: I'll say about everyone, we'll stay right to their face

2025
01:29:58,960 --> 01:30:01,040
Speaker 1: on air, So one aoble to tune into the show.

2026
01:30:01,479 --> 01:30:03,479
Speaker 1: But all kidding aside, I mean, it's been such a

2027
01:30:03,560 --> 01:30:06,360
Speaker 1: great experience to be part of a daily show. First off,

2028
01:30:06,360 --> 01:30:08,240
Speaker 1: which is a ton of goddamn work. I never realized

2029
01:30:08,280 --> 01:30:10,479
Speaker 1: how much it was. How much. Well, yeah, we've seen

2030
01:30:10,520 --> 01:30:12,559
Speaker 1: the preparation you do. You pretty much mail it in

2031
01:30:12,600 --> 01:30:15,000
Speaker 1: Monday through Friday. So maybe your radio show is where

2032
01:30:15,000 --> 01:30:17,600
Speaker 1: you put in all your heart and hustle. Um. But

2033
01:30:17,680 --> 01:30:20,440
Speaker 1: to do a daily show has been such an outstanding experience.

2034
01:30:20,600 --> 01:30:22,680
Speaker 1: I have to be the only person in America who

2035
01:30:22,680 --> 01:30:24,840
Speaker 1: could be accused of mailing it in when I do

2036
01:30:25,000 --> 01:30:28,000
Speaker 1: a three hour daily radio show, a one hour daily

2037
01:30:28,000 --> 01:30:32,040
Speaker 1: television show, an additional podcast, and run a website. I

2038
01:30:32,080 --> 01:30:34,400
Speaker 1: didn't say you mailed in your radio show. I know

2039
01:30:34,560 --> 01:30:37,320
Speaker 1: you put just a TV show. I said you mailed

2040
01:30:37,360 --> 01:30:40,040
Speaker 1: in the TV show. So there's a difference I have

2041
01:30:40,080 --> 01:30:44,519
Speaker 1: to distinguish between the two supremely talented a television it

2042
01:30:44,560 --> 01:30:46,719
Speaker 1: comes easy to me, Oh my god, I can't believe

2043
01:30:46,720 --> 01:30:48,559
Speaker 1: I gotta listen to this, especially at my own time.

2044
01:30:48,880 --> 01:30:50,720
Speaker 1: And now all those add dollars, I'm gonna try and

2045
01:30:50,720 --> 01:30:53,679
Speaker 1: take a percentage of the action. But to honestly say

2046
01:30:53,720 --> 01:30:56,120
Speaker 1: that we have one of the greatest opportunities with the

2047
01:30:56,160 --> 01:30:58,400
Speaker 1: four of us, to continue doing this show on a

2048
01:30:58,439 --> 01:31:00,519
Speaker 1: day to day basis where we feel like it's the family,

2049
01:31:00,560 --> 01:31:02,639
Speaker 1: to have the support of the network, to have such

2050
01:31:02,680 --> 01:31:05,160
Speaker 1: a talented team behind the scenes, and you obviously can't

2051
01:31:05,240 --> 01:31:08,360
Speaker 1: rattle off every producer that's involved in making us look

2052
01:31:08,400 --> 01:31:10,559
Speaker 1: like stars and put folks out there who go, well,

2053
01:31:10,600 --> 01:31:13,360
Speaker 1: you guys, don't take it all that seriously. Sports gambling

2054
01:31:13,479 --> 01:31:16,960
Speaker 1: is meant to be fun. The people that are out

2055
01:31:16,960 --> 01:31:19,360
Speaker 1: there are going to treat sports gambling as a form

2056
01:31:19,400 --> 01:31:22,120
Speaker 1: of recreation. They want to have a sweat on games,

2057
01:31:22,360 --> 01:31:24,320
Speaker 1: they want to be involved. And while we'll try and

2058
01:31:24,360 --> 01:31:26,880
Speaker 1: teach them different lessons, there's a form and a vehicle

2059
01:31:26,960 --> 01:31:29,040
Speaker 1: for all of that. If you're serious sports better, you're

2060
01:31:29,080 --> 01:31:31,439
Speaker 1: not tuning in to lock it in to watch us,

2061
01:31:31,680 --> 01:31:33,719
Speaker 1: to try and hear us sound like the smartest guys

2062
01:31:33,720 --> 01:31:36,240
Speaker 1: in the room. You guys ridicule me NonStop when I

2063
01:31:36,280 --> 01:31:39,160
Speaker 1: try and break out offensive efficiency ratings or talk about

2064
01:31:39,200 --> 01:31:42,080
Speaker 1: any semblance of analytics. There are other platforms to try

2065
01:31:42,120 --> 01:31:44,559
Speaker 1: and get that information, so I think it's important for

2066
01:31:44,560 --> 01:31:47,320
Speaker 1: people to understand what our show is. I'm on the

2067
01:31:47,320 --> 01:31:49,280
Speaker 1: bet the Board podcast, which is a lot more in

2068
01:31:49,360 --> 01:31:53,160
Speaker 1: depth dive typically at NFL and college football throughout the fall, UH,

2069
01:31:53,240 --> 01:31:55,280
Speaker 1: to try and get behind that. But there's so many

2070
01:31:55,360 --> 01:31:58,600
Speaker 1: different vehicles to get your sports betting information. But I

2071
01:31:58,720 --> 01:32:01,080
Speaker 1: tell people out there that haven't been exposed to all

2072
01:32:01,080 --> 01:32:04,080
Speaker 1: of it right now, just identify the people understand a

2073
01:32:04,080 --> 01:32:06,320
Speaker 1: lot of this is for entertainment, and take some of

2074
01:32:06,320 --> 01:32:08,439
Speaker 1: the things that go on as a grain as salt

2075
01:32:08,680 --> 01:32:10,759
Speaker 1: more so as an active god. And for those folks

2076
01:32:10,760 --> 01:32:13,400
Speaker 1: that are there eight nineteen years old, they're just trying

2077
01:32:13,439 --> 01:32:16,960
Speaker 1: to figure things out. Once the gambling stops being fun,

2078
01:32:17,160 --> 01:32:19,360
Speaker 1: or you're betting with money that should be earmarked for

2079
01:32:19,880 --> 01:32:22,280
Speaker 1: rent or to put food on the table, make sure

2080
01:32:22,320 --> 01:32:24,880
Speaker 1: you reach out to somebody, because we joke about it,

2081
01:32:25,120 --> 01:32:26,920
Speaker 1: and I know you do with your beach house and

2082
01:32:27,120 --> 01:32:30,280
Speaker 1: the real estate portfolio and everything else you've built. Gambling

2083
01:32:30,280 --> 01:32:32,559
Speaker 1: should be best enjoyed as a form of recreation, not

2084
01:32:32,600 --> 01:32:35,240
Speaker 1: where it's negatively impact in your life, the same way

2085
01:32:35,240 --> 01:32:38,280
Speaker 1: that anything else, whether it's excessive drinking or things along

2086
01:32:38,320 --> 01:32:40,360
Speaker 1: those lines. And I always feel as an ambassador for

2087
01:32:40,400 --> 01:32:42,559
Speaker 1: sports betting that has to be said because we joke

2088
01:32:42,600 --> 01:32:44,760
Speaker 1: about things regularly. But there is a percentage of the

2089
01:32:44,800 --> 01:32:47,160
Speaker 1: population that can't handle it. And if you see those people,

2090
01:32:47,160 --> 01:32:49,400
Speaker 1: whether do you or people that are involved in your

2091
01:32:49,439 --> 01:32:52,240
Speaker 1: daily life seek out help because there's no worse feeling

2092
01:32:52,240 --> 01:32:55,080
Speaker 1: and having gambling being the driver to take away some

2093
01:32:55,120 --> 01:32:57,960
Speaker 1: of the opportunities that you otherwise would have at your disposal. Yeah. Look,

2094
01:32:58,120 --> 01:33:01,000
Speaker 1: if you're doing anything that is in your leisure time

2095
01:33:01,240 --> 01:33:04,240
Speaker 1: and it isn't fun for you, you shouldn't be doing it.

2096
01:33:04,840 --> 01:33:07,439
Speaker 1: Like the reason why I gamble on sports is because

2097
01:33:07,479 --> 01:33:10,080
Speaker 1: it's more fun than not gambling on sports. It's the

2098
01:33:10,120 --> 01:33:13,640
Speaker 1: same reason that I occasionally drink, right, But if you

2099
01:33:13,720 --> 01:33:17,800
Speaker 1: are unable to restrict your enjoyment of that in moderation,

2100
01:33:18,160 --> 01:33:19,960
Speaker 1: then you need to get help. And I think that's

2101
01:33:20,000 --> 01:33:24,120
Speaker 1: true regardless of what that substance or activity is. That

2102
01:33:24,240 --> 01:33:28,559
Speaker 1: you find yourself unable to escape Todd Ferman outstanding stuff.

2103
01:33:28,600 --> 01:33:31,040
Speaker 1: Appreciate you coming on the Wins and Losses podcast again

2104
01:33:31,120 --> 01:33:34,120
Speaker 1: the show on television. Lock it in uh four thirty

2105
01:33:35,360 --> 01:33:37,799
Speaker 1: one thirty as you move from right to left across

2106
01:33:37,840 --> 01:33:40,240
Speaker 1: the country east to the west coast. If people want

2107
01:33:40,240 --> 01:33:42,599
Speaker 1: to hear more from you, your podcast is called again

2108
01:33:43,680 --> 01:33:46,280
Speaker 1: that's the Board podcast. They can follow me on Twitter,

2109
01:33:46,320 --> 01:33:48,400
Speaker 1: of course, that's Tod firm in our podcast. A little

2110
01:33:48,439 --> 01:33:50,720
Speaker 1: bit of sabbatical. I we'll be back with some March

2111
01:33:50,840 --> 01:33:53,800
Speaker 1: Madness episodes, but yeah, I mean we do a little

2112
01:33:53,800 --> 01:33:55,559
Speaker 1: bit deeper dive on some of the games. It's not

2113
01:33:55,640 --> 01:33:58,280
Speaker 1: exactly for everyone, but for those folks looking to learn

2114
01:33:58,320 --> 01:34:01,240
Speaker 1: a little bit more about how professional editors view the

2115
01:34:01,240 --> 01:34:04,519
Speaker 1: sports betting space, it'll be a deep deeper dive than

2116
01:34:04,560 --> 01:34:07,240
Speaker 1: what you've grown accustomed to. Unlock it in and Clay.

2117
01:34:07,320 --> 01:34:09,640
Speaker 1: Because TV comes to you so naturally, I know, you

2118
01:34:09,680 --> 01:34:12,000
Speaker 1: get to take a week off and spend it down

2119
01:34:12,040 --> 01:34:15,639
Speaker 1: with your fans. I'm headed to Mexico, Yeah, where ironically enough,

2120
01:34:15,800 --> 01:34:19,240
Speaker 1: Sal is also going. The real grinders on the show

2121
01:34:19,360 --> 01:34:21,839
Speaker 1: will be at home making sure that they can continue

2122
01:34:21,840 --> 01:34:24,519
Speaker 1: to take our TV show in a forward thinking manner

2123
01:34:24,560 --> 01:34:27,920
Speaker 1: in direction, breaking down baseball and everything else there as

2124
01:34:27,960 --> 01:34:30,280
Speaker 1: I try and create the greatest comeback that we've ever

2125
01:34:30,320 --> 01:34:32,600
Speaker 1: seen in locket in history. And I'll allow you to

2126
01:34:32,760 --> 01:34:35,559
Speaker 1: knuckleheads to sit atop the throne when season two comes

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Speaker 1: to an end. What sometime we think in July, but

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Speaker 1: we're not quite sure. Yeah, that's exactly right. I am

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Speaker 1: Clay Travisy is Todd Furman. This has been the Wins

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Speaker 1: and Losses podcast. If you enjoyed this one, there's twenty

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Speaker 1: some odd more, Kirk curb Street, Paul fine bomb or

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Speaker 1: h ol Bonetta, as we just mentioned, Todd Ferman, cousin

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Speaker 1: sal who were on the show with me. Coaches, Mike

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Speaker 1: Leach the new head coaches we said beginning, Mel Tucker

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Speaker 1: of Washington of Michigan State. So many different people you

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Speaker 1: can check out, Shannon Terry, the founder of seven Sports.

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Speaker 1: Lots of different cool stories. Make sure you don't miss them.

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Speaker 1: Wins and Losses. I'm Clay Travis. This is the podcast.