Speaker 1: I'm t T and I'm Zakiah and this is Dope Labs.
Speaker 1: Welcome to Dope Labs, a weekly podcast that mixes hardcore
Speaker 1: science with pop culture and a healthy dose of friendship.
Speaker 1: It's Super Bowl Sunday, Oh yes, and I feel like
Speaker 1: it's highly anticipated by a lot of folks, not necessarily me,
Speaker 1: but I am excited for the halftime show. I can't
Speaker 1: say that, yes, bad bunny, Yes, fresh off the heels
Speaker 1: of a Grammy win a year. Oh, It's it's up,
Speaker 1: It's up, It's up. It feels like even if the
Speaker 1: super Bowl isn't for you, it's still for you, like
Speaker 1: if you like the ads, or you're just there for
Speaker 1: the buffalo chicken dip at the party, or even if
Speaker 1: you're just making it alone.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: I feel like this year, though, people are already talking
Speaker 1: about the bets who they're betting on, right, and look,
Speaker 1: I just don't remember that as much from the past. Honestly,
Speaker 1: I remember. I don't remember any of that. And it
Speaker 1: feels like the whole betting thing has is like not
Speaker 1: new because people always been betting, but like so in
Speaker 1: your face, that feels like no recent thing, Like I
Speaker 1: even just saw that Kendall Jenner put a million dollars
Speaker 1: on the Patriots. Like, when do we know what the
Speaker 1: celebrities are doing? I know Drake always says every year
Speaker 1: who he always is, but I mean, it just feels
Speaker 1: like so in your face these days. And I think
Speaker 1: because it feels so in your face, you know me,
Speaker 1: I'm like, let's pull out our magnifying glass. I am
Speaker 1: curious about it. So let's go ahead and jump right
Speaker 1: into the recitation. What do we know? Okay? I think
Speaker 1: the first thing that we know is that sports bring
Speaker 1: us together, Like sports is one of the great uniters.
Speaker 1: Whether you have rival teams or you are supporting the
Speaker 1: same team, people love using sports to bring them together.
Speaker 1: We also know that there's a lot of money in sports,
Speaker 1: particularly fantasy sports. Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2: Yes.
Speaker 1: In twenty twenty four, the market was estimated at over
Speaker 1: twenty four million dollars and it's projected to reach over
Speaker 1: fifty five million in twenty thirty. That's huge. I need
Speaker 1: to put my little coins over there, because that feels
Speaker 1: like a lot of growth. And that growth is not
Speaker 1: just limited to fantasy but it also extends to sports
Speaker 1: betting and even prediction markets. Now that gets us right
Speaker 1: up against what we want to write, because that's the
Speaker 1: limit of the things that I do know. So I
Speaker 1: want to know what's the difference between everything, Like I
Speaker 1: hear these words fantasy betting, prediction markets, Like what is
Speaker 1: the difference between all of this? Yeah, like where's the
Speaker 1: best Exactly when does it go from fantasy to being
Speaker 1: a bet or bet to being fantasy? Right? Because I've
Speaker 1: been seeing a lot of players in different leagues. NBA
Speaker 1: has had some controversy, but other these too and their
Speaker 1: players have been like tied up in gambling or sports betting,
Speaker 1: And I'm like, is this something we need to keep
Speaker 1: our eye on? Right? And then it also feels like
Speaker 1: sports betting is everywhere. I see ads for fan duel
Speaker 1: and DraftKings, and I'm not their target audience. I don't
Speaker 1: think because I don't know the first thing about it
Speaker 1: that it's everywhere. I mean, even when they're the sports
Speaker 1: casters are doing their thing, they're talking about the betting,
Speaker 1: Like how has the rise of legalized betting changed sports
Speaker 1: culture and media? I want to know, like what the
Speaker 1: impact is now that it's everywhere? And you know, I
Speaker 1: think we have just the right person to answer those
Speaker 1: questions for us. So let's jump into the dissection. Today's
Speaker 1: expert is Jess Bryant.
Speaker 2: Just Brian. I'm senior editor in Fantasy Sports and Betting
Speaker 2: at the Athletic.
Speaker 1: Now, Jess, we're excited to talk to you because t
Speaker 1: T I did pickskin pick them? But have you ever
Speaker 1: done fantasy sports pigskin pick them? No, I've never done
Speaker 1: fantasy sports. Never. Yeah. Back in grad school, Bj, the
Speaker 1: guy who used to sit behind me was like, you
Speaker 1: can participate in this fantasy sports league with us. All
Speaker 1: you do is pick the win. So I never made
Speaker 1: a full team. Oh, I just picked who I thought
Speaker 1: would win out of the matchups each week. Okay, that
Speaker 1: sounds simple enough, Jess. I mean that's my extent of
Speaker 1: fantasy sports. So does that count?
Speaker 2: I would say, I would say your pigskin pick and
Speaker 2: falls into the category of fantasy sports because.
Speaker 3: You are picking.
Speaker 2: I don't know if you had a pool, did you
Speaker 2: have money.
Speaker 3: Involved in your pigskin?
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, I mean that's that is one that I
Speaker 2: was really right on the line. And so are the
Speaker 2: March Madness brackets, which for us at the Athletic are
Speaker 2: some of our biggest stories and clicks are just on
Speaker 2: the bracket sheet download.
Speaker 3: It qualifies it as.
Speaker 2: Fantasy, but it isn't traditional fantasy sports, which are more
Speaker 2: rooted in players often than teams. But yeah, it's kind
Speaker 2: of on the line between fantasy and betting. I would say,
Speaker 2: I think fantasy typically you're thinking of a traditional twelve
Speaker 2: team league in any given sport, where you're drafting a
Speaker 2: roster of those individual players. That's what people think of
Speaker 2: when they think of fantasy sports. I would say, you're
Speaker 2: still a rookie with that experience, but or at least
Speaker 2: maybe a second year player or something you know early
Speaker 2: in your career.
Speaker 1: I think my question kind of piggybacks off of that one.
Speaker 1: Now you are participating in fantasy sports, what are you
Speaker 1: doing week to week? Like what skills are you looking for?
Speaker 1: And like what does that look like, you know, from
Speaker 1: game to game.
Speaker 2: I want to first say you can do as little
Speaker 2: or as much as you want, and you don't even
Speaker 2: have to have twelve teams. Like, if you have six
Speaker 2: friends that want to play, you can start a league
Speaker 2: on any platform, Yahoo, ESPN, Sleeper. For the people who
Speaker 2: are a little bit more experienced in it, week to
Speaker 2: week is a lot of research, and a lot of
Speaker 2: people pay premium subscriptions to various websites to do that.
Speaker 2: So Fantasy pros is one that has a lot of
Speaker 2: data and information and consensus rankings. And then we at
Speaker 2: the Athletic have Jake Seely's our ranker, but we also
Speaker 2: have a lot of fantasy experts in the space, and
Speaker 2: you're really researching different stat lines, matchup ratings.
Speaker 3: If it's football, because.
Speaker 2: We're at the end of football season, who is the
Speaker 2: quarterback playing, who are the coverage matchups? Is it a
Speaker 2: given team good against tight ends or wide receivers particularly,
Speaker 2: are they good at the pass rush? Do they stop
Speaker 2: the run well?
Speaker 3: Part one?
Speaker 2: And then like part two, you're looking at once you're
Speaker 2: say four weeks into the season. You can find trends
Speaker 2: with players and how they're playing and what types of
Speaker 2: matchups they're more likely or less likely to do well.
Speaker 2: So there's a lot of research that can go into it.
Speaker 2: And then a lot of fantasy folks that are called
Speaker 2: themselves fantasy experts, who are fantasy experts have multiple teams
Speaker 2: they're playing against experts. A lot of them have their
Speaker 2: own projection models. If they don't have their own projection models.
Speaker 2: They're at least adapting someone else's oftentimes to see what
Speaker 2: they think.
Speaker 1: If you want to win, basically you have to have
Speaker 1: a part time job. I mean, you told me the minimum,
Speaker 1: But if you're really in this thing to win, you
Speaker 1: got to find somebody that's ranking or some model or
Speaker 1: you know, you have to have this information. You have
Speaker 1: to collect the data, you have to analyze it. I'm
Speaker 1: sorry it's giving sciencey for some of this, yes, and
Speaker 1: so I'm curious though, because as much as people say
Speaker 1: they hate math, I'm like, this is giving a lot
Speaker 1: of statistical things I'm curious about, Like what makes people
Speaker 1: stick with fantasy year after year? Like, I know you've
Speaker 1: done some stories just that follow people who are in
Speaker 1: a fantasy sports, but I'm like, this is a lot
Speaker 1: of work. Why are people continuing to show up and
Speaker 1: do this?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I think the most basic reason is community.
Speaker 2: A lot of people are playing against their friends or coworkers,
Speaker 2: or even if they are in more cemented leagues, people
Speaker 2: that they have met randomly, but I have played with
Speaker 2: for a number of years. I think the community aspect
Speaker 2: is what keeps people coming back. I've talked to groups
Speaker 2: of people who have started leagues just because they want
Speaker 2: to talk to their friends. More so, a group of
Speaker 2: women who did not know like people in their life
Speaker 2: liked sports, but they didn't really enjoy sports. But they
Speaker 2: were all good friends who lived across the country, went
Speaker 2: to college together, wanted to stay in touch. The group
Speaker 2: chats weren't working, and they're like, what if we just
Speaker 2: start this fantasy football league, you know? And that was
Speaker 2: their way of like all season, they're texting back and forth,
Speaker 2: they're being competitive.
Speaker 3: That was a league.
Speaker 2: I think that was free and it was only six people.
Speaker 2: So again, you don't have to have a lot of
Speaker 2: people to play fantasy. You don't have to play for money.
Speaker 1: But what if you actually do like sports and you're
Speaker 1: super competitive and you are following all the teams, like
Speaker 1: I have a cousin in mind, I have a husband
Speaker 1: in mind.
Speaker 2: If you are a sports fan, it adds another level
Speaker 2: to the game. So if you think about watching a
Speaker 2: football game and maybe the score is like seven to
Speaker 2: zero at halftime and it feels kind of like a
Speaker 2: boring game with very little movement, if you're invested in
Speaker 2: a player in that game, the second half is still
Speaker 2: very meaningful to you you know, and how that player
Speaker 2: plays is meaningful to you. So I think once people
Speaker 2: do get into it, they enjoy that they're able to
Speaker 2: watch multiple games and those games become more meaningful, and
Speaker 2: then they become a bigger fan of like the sport
Speaker 2: and not just their team. And I think that's another
Speaker 2: reason people come back outside of the competitive nature. And
Speaker 2: then obviously experts who do use it as a career
Speaker 2: or sometimes part time, sometimes full time. I know somebody
Speaker 2: who left a freelance writing job to enter a high
Speaker 2: stakes fantasy basketball draft.
Speaker 1: What's the winnings?
Speaker 2: So I don't want to be exact on this, but
Speaker 2: my memory is that it was a sixty thousand dollars
Speaker 2: entry fee for this particular person, and then the winnings
Speaker 2: can be over a million because he plays with a
Speaker 2: larger league and more people and more experts. So he
Speaker 2: and another person teamed up to run this fantasy basketball team.
Speaker 2: And it's so much work, so they are doing it
Speaker 2: full time, committing their resources and like you said, doing
Speaker 2: a lot of math and a lot of research.
Speaker 1: All this makes me think of Moneyball. Have y'all seen
Speaker 1: that movie?
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, I did a long time ago.
Speaker 1: So it's about a baseball team. It's about the Oakland Athletics,
Speaker 1: and they were struggling and then they hired somebody on
Speaker 1: to do like all of these statistics about like which pictures,
Speaker 1: all these things like that, and then they were able
Speaker 1: to you know, course correct and ended up doing really well.
Speaker 1: But it was like a brand new strategy. So I
Speaker 1: guess that impacts like how people would be able to
Speaker 1: bet if all of a sudden you have this pivot
Speaker 1: in how well your team is doing. But if we're
Speaker 1: thinking of fantasy and gambling, do those circles just overlap?
Speaker 1: It's fantasymbling is gambling fantasy? What is the distinction between
Speaker 1: the two?
Speaker 3: By nature?
Speaker 2: If you're entering money and then hoping to win, that's gambling.
Speaker 2: But when you enter in fantasy, you're entering against other people,
Speaker 2: and you don't have to have like the best players.
Speaker 2: You just have to have the players that are relatively
Speaker 2: the best, like relatively the best lineup. But in betting,
Speaker 2: you're not competing against others. When you're betting, you're playing
Speaker 2: against the house. They're statistical models, their algorithms, their proprietary
Speaker 2: systems are incredible. I mean, fantasy players could look at
Speaker 2: betting sites at MGM, DraftKings, FanDuel and see what the
Speaker 2: lines are and what some of the player proposition bets
Speaker 2: are and actually probably help inform their fantasy lineup. But
Speaker 2: you know, the house does all of this research to win,
Speaker 2: so you're already at a disadvantage, right, because they're going
Speaker 2: to win. That's why they're multimillion dollar businesses, whereas in
Speaker 2: fantasy is still I think gambling, but with I don't know,
Speaker 2: with a little bit more level of a playing field
Speaker 2: and yeah, a different overall strategy.
Speaker 1: Do players pay attention to their fantasy stuff? Because I
Speaker 1: feel like this would affect myself a Steve. If somebody
Speaker 1: was like, get Tt off that team, you need to
Speaker 1: put Zaki in as quarterback. TT sucks, I'm like, oh
Speaker 1: my god.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think there are huge problems with it.
Speaker 2: So players pay attention on accident. A lot of times,
Speaker 2: if they don't do well or if they're injured, they
Speaker 2: might hear from fantasy players even more so better.
Speaker 3: A lot of them don't love it.
Speaker 2: Because the value isn't placed on them as like a
Speaker 2: human right, which they would love to be humanized more.
Speaker 2: In sports, each player we typically dehumanize them and Myriya
Speaker 2: out of ways, but so it kind of dehumanizes them,
Speaker 2: and when they're injured, it's about, oh, who can we
Speaker 2: replace this person with, not like can you imagine.
Speaker 1: What will soon?
Speaker 2: Like right, I think they're often paying attention out of
Speaker 2: like self preservation and responding to how the fantasy sports
Speaker 2: have impacted the game.
Speaker 1: When you were talking about the auction league, I was like,
Speaker 1: this sounds terrible. Valuing people at different mouths and putting
Speaker 1: a team together.
Speaker 2: When we write or and when I edit, myself and
Speaker 2: the folks on our editorial staff are always trying to
Speaker 2: veer away from like who do you own on your team,
Speaker 2: like just making sure the language doesn't own or purchase
Speaker 2: or buy or you know, to your point about auction leagues,
Speaker 2: like we do try to pay attention to the language
Speaker 2: of that, but inevitably, I you know, like you're saying
Speaker 2: auction links, there's this purchasing aspect and evaluation of people
Speaker 2: into dollar amounts.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's real.
Speaker 1: This was making me think a little bit about this
Speaker 1: control element, which it feels like a lot of this
Speaker 1: is the ability to control who's Like when we were
Speaker 1: talking about replacing people, if they get injured. And it's
Speaker 1: also making me think about that book by Christopher Mems
Speaker 1: Arriving Today. Arriving Today, there's a book by Christopher Mems
Speaker 1: who writes for the Journal, and it makes me think
Speaker 1: about like the changing workforce, where we were trying to
Speaker 1: get people to perform against metrics and to be faster,
Speaker 1: and it feels like a little bit of that is
Speaker 1: in the fantasy world.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I think there's not a lot out on
Speaker 2: some of these human elements around fantasy sports, or like
Speaker 2: I said, like the humanization of players. I mean a
Speaker 2: lot of it is like the illusion of it, because
Speaker 2: you have no say in these players' lives. They are
Speaker 2: not working for you. But it gives the illusion of control.
Speaker 2: And that's one of the reasons people like fantasy sports
Speaker 2: compared to betting, is like it gives you the illusion
Speaker 2: of managing a team. It gives you the illusion of
Speaker 2: fairness and like if you do well enough, then you,
Speaker 2: as a good manager, will succeed, and that can give
Speaker 2: people confidence or maybe it can give people arrogance. But
Speaker 2: certainly I think in folks minds, they are managing a team,
Speaker 2: they have control. That's what inspires them in some ways
Speaker 2: or keeps them playing.
Speaker 3: I think in.
Speaker 2: Sports, across sports and all arenas, we have all of
Speaker 2: these issues of control and workforce when you look at ownerships,
Speaker 2: racial demographics, players, racial demographics, et cetera, and thinking about
Speaker 2: how the owners and managers make decisions the rules that
Speaker 2: they have to follow versus the rules that players have
Speaker 2: to follow. Even in betting, the leagues obviously make a
Speaker 2: lot of money off of betting, a lot of money
Speaker 2: off of betting, and yet are penalized for betting players
Speaker 2: who have less money than those corporations. And of course
Speaker 2: you have to keep legitimacy in the game, and you
Speaker 2: have to keep your game legitimate, and so there have
Speaker 2: to be repercussions I suppose for betting. But it is
Speaker 2: a sort of this idea of like, we can profit
Speaker 2: from it, but you can't.
Speaker 1: How do they make that money?
Speaker 2: Advertisements? You know, a lot of it's advertisement sponsorships. That
Speaker 2: the betting houses do have money, a lot of it,
Speaker 2: and they do inject it into the sports space because
Speaker 2: that's where you know, primary betting happens or on happens.
Speaker 1: Okay, we've talked fantasy and we've talked to sports betting
Speaker 1: fantasy is basically being relatively better than the other people
Speaker 1: you're competing against, and betting is being absolutely right against
Speaker 1: a well researched organization. Betting and fantasy are different, but
Speaker 1: the legislation has them tied together. When I was looking
Speaker 1: at the connection between fantasy and basically sports betting, particularly
Speaker 1: like on your phone, I was looking in two thousand
Speaker 1: and six the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act, which was
Speaker 1: targeting unlawful Internet gambling, but that explicitly carved out a
Speaker 1: space for fantasy sports, and that said that you have
Speaker 1: to be using skills. You've already defined what skills are
Speaker 1: required for fantasy sports. I don't have them. I do
Speaker 1: have them, but I don't know that I've used them.
Speaker 1: I've used them to predict experimental results.
Speaker 2: Not I'm just about to say you have them, and
Speaker 2: I'm sure, actually you could create an amazing model, you know,
Speaker 2: and I'd love to see that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but I but I'm curious. You know, it feels
Speaker 1: like sports betting was kind of dampered down there, but
Speaker 1: then we had fan duel and DraftKings, and now it
Speaker 1: just feels like sports betting has gotten so much bigger,
Speaker 1: And I'm like how did that happen?
Speaker 2: Yeah, so, states historically have regulated sports betting and the
Speaker 2: control of like sports betting, legislation is in the state's
Speaker 2: hands until recent so we're at California and Texas, it's
Speaker 2: illegal to beout on sports as an example.
Speaker 3: But prediction markets, which.
Speaker 2: Are new to sports, I mean, they've existed for a
Speaker 2: very long time, over a century, but lately there have
Speaker 2: been startups. I don't know if you've heard of Calshi
Speaker 2: or poly market. Yes, so Polymarket and Calsha are two
Speaker 2: new prediction market apps that have launched and they're doing
Speaker 2: incredibly well. And in December mid and late December, fan
Speaker 2: Duel and DraftKings ended up also creating a prediction markets
Speaker 2: app that is separate from the typical app, and really
Speaker 2: they're trying to target Texas and California. Those are two
Speaker 2: big markets that don't allow sports betting. Whereas sports betting
Speaker 2: is monitored by the statewide legislation, these prediction markets, which
Speaker 2: are different because like fantasy, you're actually only competing against
Speaker 2: other individuals, but you could be competing against super users
Speaker 2: you know which there are, but you're still competing against
Speaker 2: other individuals, and the companies make their money off of
Speaker 2: transaction fees and commissions versus the actual cash that's invested,
Speaker 2: and those are run by the federal government. Donald Trump
Speaker 2: Junior is an advisor on the board of both Calshi
Speaker 2: and poly Market, And like I said, the prediction markets
Speaker 2: are controlled by the federal government versus the state government.
Speaker 1: Is that even legal? Well, first aside out to the
Speaker 1: one degree removed from power with you know Trump Junior
Speaker 1: being on the board of both of those companies. But
Speaker 1: are these sites legal and does prediction market betting have regulations?
Speaker 2: So these are legal and there's some regulation, but not much.
Speaker 2: You can pretty much bet live on anything from you know,
Speaker 2: which team will win a game, or whether a certain
Speaker 2: player will have a certain amount of receiving yards, or
Speaker 2: will the Seahawks win the Super Bowl too? Will Hamnet
Speaker 2: win Best picture?
Speaker 1: Right? I feel like one day prediction markets were just everywhere,
Speaker 1: though where did they come I'm from.
Speaker 2: They became popular or more known during the twenty twenty
Speaker 2: four election because you were able to bet on the
Speaker 2: result of the election.
Speaker 1: So these prediction markets have come up quite a bit
Speaker 1: for us, and just in some things we've been working on.
Speaker 1: We just interviewed a music critic and cultural writer Sidney Madden,
Speaker 1: and she was talking to us about the Grammys, and
Speaker 1: she kept saying, don't bet based on what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: And I was like, are people really betting on the Grammys?
Speaker 1: Like I might say to teach, you know, like I
Speaker 1: bet this person's not gonna win. But she was like, no,
Speaker 1: people are betting on these things. And so it seems
Speaker 1: like the prediction market is the place where you can
Speaker 1: bet on these types of outcomes. I remember even recently,
Speaker 1: like people were betting on whether or not your president
Speaker 1: was going to say certain phrases in his speeches and
Speaker 1: how many times. Pew Research in the past couple of
Speaker 1: months just released this survey data asking people like, what
Speaker 1: do they think about sports betting? How many people are
Speaker 1: betting on sports? Twenty two percent of people they surveyed
Speaker 1: are betting on sports. That's at least one in five.
Speaker 1: But interestingly, forty three percent of people that they surveyed
Speaker 1: said they think sports betting is not a good thing
Speaker 1: for sports. And I was like, so are those mutually
Speaker 1: exclusively I don't know right, or are you like saying
Speaker 1: I don't realize I can make a little bit of
Speaker 1: money so I'm here, I'm here. Yeah, what's been the
Speaker 1: sentiment among you and your colleagues in the sports world.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so a couple of my colleagues spoke to Calshit
Speaker 2: and they said that ninety percent of future is betting predicting.
Speaker 2: The production markets are on sporting events ninety percent or
Speaker 2: on sporting events. So obviously that's relevant to us. And
Speaker 2: then in terms of twenty three percent of betting and
Speaker 2: forty two percent of people being against them, it actually
Speaker 2: makes sense just based on what we see as responses
Speaker 2: to some of our content. But also there is this
Speaker 2: getting back to the legislation. There is the Safe Bet Act,
Speaker 2: which was reintroduced this year twenty five twenty six, that
Speaker 2: is trying to propose to limit betting advertisement during games
Speaker 2: and prohibit AI driven micro betting, so betting on if
Speaker 2: somebody's going to throw a fast pitch or a curve ball.
Speaker 2: But there's this other thing that they kind of called
Speaker 2: a nuclear option, which is if you are an individual
Speaker 2: better and you think you have a problem, you can
Speaker 2: file a formal request with the government. And obviously we're
Speaker 2: in a time of different people trusting our government in
Speaker 2: different ways, but theoretically In this bill, you can submit
Speaker 2: a request to the government, a formal request that says,
Speaker 2: I would like to stop betting. Please take my name
Speaker 2: off of like every list. Please make sure that if
Speaker 2: I bet, you arrest me. If I bet, you will
Speaker 2: take away any winnings I get. And it's a contract
Speaker 2: almost that says that the person is submitting saying I
Speaker 2: feel like I have a gambling problem, and so to
Speaker 2: cut myself off. I know if I send this formal request,
Speaker 2: I won't bet. Now we know how addiction works.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we spoke to an expert about addiction a few
Speaker 1: labs ago, and across the board, no matter the level
Speaker 1: or substance that you're addicted to, relapse rates are high,
Speaker 1: especially in the first few years.
Speaker 2: And so I feel like this is a very potentially
Speaker 2: dangerous rule and doesn't work on harm reduction. I think
Speaker 2: there's a lot of work to be done there. And
Speaker 2: I also don't think with this administration and how much
Speaker 2: they support prediction markets and betting generally, that we're going
Speaker 2: to be seeing much regulation in that way, or that
Speaker 2: that bill would get through. But yeah, so I think
Speaker 2: that there are people who probably think betting is bad
Speaker 2: who also participate in this, and I think a self
Speaker 2: exclusion list, you can put yourself on the self exclusion list.
Speaker 1: I think multiple things can be true, like I would
Speaker 1: want to be excluded, but I also feel like saying
Speaker 1: arrest me is a step too far. Not me. No, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry. But I wonder if these private organizations do
Speaker 1: they have the ability to keep up with what's going on.
Speaker 1: I've been seeing players popping up with some betting activity,
Speaker 1: and it's not I think people think it's just basketball.
Speaker 1: It's not just basketball. I've seen this in a lot
Speaker 1: of other sports.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there have been a couple things that have been done.
Speaker 2: It is across the board, but starting just with the NBA,
Speaker 2: because they actually did make some changes based on what
Speaker 2: was happening two way players and people on ten day contracts,
Speaker 2: so folks coming up from the G League.
Speaker 3: They've worked with betting.
Speaker 2: Partners like these apps that we're talking about. They've partnered
Speaker 2: and taken away player propositions, so bets on a player's
Speaker 2: perform over under. Does Lebron James score over under twenty
Speaker 2: three point five points per game? You know? Okay, just
Speaker 2: Tray Young score over nineteen points per game? For you
Speaker 2: Atlanta folks, you know he's gone now, but but those
Speaker 2: are prop bets. How many is he going to score
Speaker 2: over under this amount assists? Will so and so have
Speaker 2: over under five assists. So what they've done is they
Speaker 2: partnered with the sites and apps, the law betting and said,
Speaker 2: we need to figure out something together where props for
Speaker 2: players who are on ten day contracts or two way
Speaker 2: contracts with a G league cannot be better on. And
Speaker 2: that's because those players are making far less money than
Speaker 2: the players who are in the league, and they are
Speaker 2: higher risk of being tempted to make additional money. And
Speaker 2: actually the restriction is only on the under So the
Speaker 2: thing you can control more is the under verse. You know,
Speaker 2: they're not going to try as hard exactly, so it
Speaker 2: limits that. So that's one thing that's been But they
Speaker 2: have to work in partnership with the betting organizations and
Speaker 2: that's hard. So this year many states have banned prop
Speaker 2: bets on individual college athletes, but for a different reason,
Speaker 2: and that's to prevent harassment.
Speaker 1: Gosh.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So earlier I talked about fantasy sports and players
Speaker 2: being injured and not feeling humanized. Well, it gets worse
Speaker 2: than betting because people are losing money on a player's
Speaker 2: poor performance, sometimes a lot of money.
Speaker 3: And what will happen is they will.
Speaker 2: And obviously this is not every better, but you know
Speaker 2: a few will, and more than a few because it's
Speaker 2: a movement, but people will harass the athletes. Death threats
Speaker 2: have been sent to athletes who have not scored up
Speaker 2: to the level that somebody thought they should. So they've
Speaker 2: encountered death threats, constant social media bullying dms, etc. And
Speaker 2: even in person interaction at games, people will yell at them.
Speaker 2: And it's gotten so out of control that in college
Speaker 2: sports some states have banned player propts on college athletes
Speaker 2: many states, so the harassment has gotten out of control lately,
Speaker 2: especially in the last maybe two years three years.
Speaker 1: It really makes me sad for the players, especially when
Speaker 1: they're in college and they're really well. Now they can
Speaker 1: make some money, but most of them aren't making life
Speaker 1: changing money like you know, like an Angel Reese or
Speaker 1: Chadoor Sanders and things like that, and having to put
Speaker 1: up with all of that. It's not like they say, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm going to go home and you know, everything's great.
Speaker 1: They're going back to their dorms and grinding and making
Speaker 1: sure that they're getting their homework done and stuff like
Speaker 1: that while also reviewing tape. And it's just mentally, I
Speaker 1: think that it's a good move. And when I think
Speaker 1: about the people who are making a ton of money
Speaker 1: on this off the backs of folks mental health, physical health,
Speaker 1: it's really like disgusting, you know. And so with all
Speaker 1: of that in mind, who do you think bears the
Speaker 1: most responsibility for setting and maintaining boundaries within you know,
Speaker 1: the league platforms, media companies? Like, who do you feel
Speaker 1: like should be responsible?
Speaker 2: I think you have to say the state and federal
Speaker 2: governments are the most responsible, just because that's really the
Speaker 2: only way that any kind of like sweeping changes can
Speaker 2: be made. Leagues might try to protect a portion of
Speaker 2: their players, like the NBA did with not being able
Speaker 2: to bet on player propits for players making under a
Speaker 2: certain amount of money. Leagues benefit too much from betting.
Speaker 2: Media benefits a lot from betting, you know. I think
Speaker 2: Ballei Sports was bought by FanDuel Sports Network, So FanDuel
Speaker 2: has a sports network that they end so obviously that
Speaker 2: that means they can run like tickers and betting lines
Speaker 2: and things on the bottom of the screens as they
Speaker 2: go by. And really, if you watch any broadcast now,
Speaker 2: there's a lot more talk about betting in the pregame
Speaker 2: show and even during the game.
Speaker 1: Yeah they're talking about the lines or whatever. Yeah, they're
Speaker 1: talking about it. And it's really shocking when you're watching
Speaker 1: and you start hearing the betting because and I know
Speaker 1: it's a recent thing, and we can remember when that
Speaker 1: wasn't a thing. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, when I was young, I watched Sports Center and
Speaker 2: there was no talk of betting. It was all narrative, right,
Speaker 2: it was all the narrative of the team, the narrative
Speaker 2: of the player. And so now you'll have that, but
Speaker 2: you'll also have betting lines, like you said, and it's
Speaker 2: not uncommon to see just as much talking about betting
Speaker 2: lines as stats. The thing about betting is like the
Speaker 2: research behind it that you know, puts out the lines
Speaker 2: and makes the spreads and determines the player props. That
Speaker 2: research is probably the best in sports or up there,
Speaker 2: because they're making sure they win, you know, and they
Speaker 2: don't want to lose money, so their algorithms are really
Speaker 2: informative to you, even if you're not a better to
Speaker 2: understand what might happen in that game or work at
Speaker 2: least what's most likely to.
Speaker 3: Happen in that game. And really you.
Speaker 2: Have to to win in betting, you have to beat
Speaker 2: their algorithm and their statistical model. And for most people
Speaker 2: that's just not going to happen. You know, people who
Speaker 2: make their careers out of it can start to do that.
Speaker 2: But it has changed the media landscape obviously.
Speaker 1: Okay, now I'm curious. You know, we're approaching the super Bowl,
Speaker 1: and I feel like everybody becomes the fantasy player at
Speaker 1: the super Bowl. And also people just get beside themselves.
Speaker 1: And I don't know if it's because it's so late.
Speaker 1: I don't know if it's because they've had too much
Speaker 1: Buffalo chickens.
Speaker 2: We just did a fantasy food draft actually, so.
Speaker 1: Oh tell me about that.
Speaker 2: My coworkers and I we have a list that are
Speaker 2: fantasy rinker. Jake Seely he makes it. He's known for
Speaker 2: his lists. I love his personality. I think in his
Speaker 2: writing he'll have his rankings and then he'll be like
Speaker 2: ten best Ductails movies or shows. He really loves the
Speaker 2: duct Tails, so it'll be like ten best and worst Deserts.
Speaker 2: And he has really hot takes like he does not
Speaker 2: care what you think about his opinion on desserts. That's
Speaker 2: where he doesn't care. He will just he had best
Speaker 2: and worst Christmas songs. So he's very known for these things,
Speaker 2: and so he puts together this food draft. In Buffalo,
Speaker 2: chicken dip was the number one food taken. Well, you
Speaker 2: say last year was the number one food taken. This year,
Speaker 2: it was like proclaimed that it should have been the
Speaker 2: number one food taken because the dips category is small.
Speaker 2: So on fantasy, there's only eight dips to draft from.
Speaker 2: You better grab a good dip quickly, right, yeah, okay,
Speaker 2: we do find it in the dips snacks on trays,
Speaker 2: and then we have qualifications. You have to draft to
Speaker 2: local fairs, so local to the Super Bowl teams and
Speaker 2: different rules like this is fantasy. We did. That's a
Speaker 2: fantasy draft of sorts, you know. And the article will
Speaker 2: be coming out later with all of our draft pick
Speaker 2: So we just did that. Oh, super Bowl, super Bowl's coming.
Speaker 2: It's big, and it's the most bad on sports event
Speaker 2: of the year.
Speaker 1: I'm ashamed to say I don't think I even know
Speaker 1: who's in the Super Bowl. Now. I know Russell Wilson
Speaker 1: isn't because I saw him cooking at home with Sierra.
Speaker 1: I think, okay, but I did see something that said
Speaker 1: when there's a new pope, the Seahawks make it. So
Speaker 1: maybe the Seahawks are.
Speaker 3: Playing Yeah, yeah, that's true.
Speaker 1: That's right now. I don't know who the other team is.
Speaker 1: It is the uh Cardi B's boyfriend Stefan Diggs is
Speaker 1: on the Patriot. It's him them. There you go. This
Speaker 1: is I love that these are different in roads to
Speaker 1: the information.
Speaker 2: That's right, and that is what my right up in
Speaker 2: the fantasy food draft was about. I was basically like,
Speaker 2: my friends don't care about sports, so I have to
Speaker 2: give them good food.
Speaker 3: I can't be drafting pizza.
Speaker 2: No, you know, no, just to get them to watch
Speaker 2: it with me, I have to do so much work.
Speaker 3: I tell people narratives like Seattle is playing the Patriots.
Speaker 2: It's a rematch from twenty fifteen where Seattle lost on
Speaker 2: the one yard line when Russell Wilson threw an interception
Speaker 2: instead of Lynch running the football, and this is this
Speaker 2: is a rematch. So I talked about the Seahawks revenge narrative.
Speaker 2: I was at college when Cooper Cup was at Eastern Washington.
Speaker 2: I was doing my mfaan poetry when he was there,
Speaker 2: and then I'm like, build this narrative around Sam Donald
Speaker 2: and his comeback.
Speaker 3: So Sam Donald's the quarterback for the Seahawks. He was
Speaker 3: dismissed by the Jets.
Speaker 2: As terrible, he played terribly for them, thrown off to
Speaker 2: the side, goes to the Panthers, I think for a
Speaker 2: little bit of time, and then goes to Minnesota. Last year,
Speaker 2: does really well, but they caught him in favor of
Speaker 2: Jaj McCarthy, the rookie who had some of the worst
Speaker 2: underlying metrics this year. But now it's on Seattle new
Speaker 2: coach Mike McDonald, who has a chance to probably win
Speaker 2: Coach of the Year. And now they're projected winners of
Speaker 2: the Super Bowl. They did start with very low long
Speaker 2: shot odds ahead of this season, but now they're the
Speaker 2: projected winners of the Super Bowl. So there's some like
Speaker 2: narrative to get behind in it, you.
Speaker 1: Know, And that's what I like, bring back the stories
Speaker 1: to sports.
Speaker 3: I agree.
Speaker 1: I want to hear, you know, what their traditions are
Speaker 1: before the game, like what kind of music they're listening to.
Speaker 1: I want to see their grandma's like all that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's how my wife is, like, we watch Hard Knocks,
Speaker 2: which is a football show about training camp, and that's
Speaker 2: like how that's her entry into getting to know the
Speaker 2: team and the players. She wants the narrative, she wants
Speaker 2: the emotional touch point, yes, and to be invested. And
Speaker 2: I think that's important and it's all there. All of
Speaker 2: those narratives are there and more that have have been told.
Speaker 1: So yes, what does that make you feel like for
Speaker 1: where we are in sports culture? Like, what do you
Speaker 1: see for the future and where it's headed.
Speaker 2: I mean, you saw with Taylor Swift dating Travis Kelce, right,
Speaker 2: Like what that could do for sports culture, television media?
Speaker 3: How often that narrative.
Speaker 2: Was spoken about last season when the Chiefs were in
Speaker 2: the Super Bowl and we're playing bad bunnies doing a halftime.
Speaker 2: This year, you have Cardi b talking about Stefan Diggs
Speaker 2: another superstar there, and then you have Simone Biles, Jonathan Owens.
Speaker 3: There's a lot of this happening.
Speaker 2: And I think because we're living in the social media era,
Speaker 2: the media is changed in that way, for better and
Speaker 2: for worse. Better, we get more opinions and more people
Speaker 2: caring about different elements of the game and bringing more
Speaker 2: fans to the game through social media. You know, you
Speaker 2: have ideally we bring in folks who aren't just invested
Speaker 2: in sports. One to wide an all audience and create
Speaker 2: more community, but two, I think to influence change within
Speaker 2: the sport. You know, if we do have more people
Speaker 2: who are less concerned about their team winning, we might
Speaker 2: have people who are more concerned about players who are
Speaker 2: more concerned about some of what we've talked about occasionally here,
Speaker 2: and we'll just get different viewpoints coming in in different
Speaker 2: ways that the league has to be accountable to different
Speaker 2: types of people.
Speaker 3: I really hope that.
Speaker 2: We bring in tons of women, hopefully queer people, hopefully
Speaker 2: folks of color, you know, in different spaces to continue
Speaker 2: to broaden the audience and therefore influence conversation. Let's have
Speaker 2: like better conversation, or at least just different conversation.
Speaker 1: I have one last question. If somebody is listening to
Speaker 1: this and they're like, Wow, Jess's job is so cool,
Speaker 1: what type of skills do they need to have to
Speaker 1: work with you, work for you? Like, how do you
Speaker 1: get into something like this? Because I know that there
Speaker 1: are a lot of sports fans who don't really feel
Speaker 1: like there is any science related.
Speaker 2: Data analysis across the board for all of our teams
Speaker 2: is a need. I think data visualization, data journalism is
Speaker 2: another route people can go to get in the sports space.
Speaker 2: App development, program development. We need tons of that. We
Speaker 2: need those product developers to be it. Please come and
Speaker 2: work at BAUT And then we need a lot of
Speaker 2: data analysts, and then we need data visualization folks, and
Speaker 2: we need people at SEO. So it's not just people
Speaker 2: who are beat writers, you know, or fantasy nerds or.
Speaker 3: Folks who know about betting.
Speaker 2: One of my favorite product developers does not have a
Speaker 2: ton of sports knowledge and develops these amazing products for us.
Speaker 2: So I think there are just so many ways to
Speaker 2: get into sports, and advanced analytics is just creeping.
Speaker 3: Up and up.
Speaker 2: But yeah, I think there are tons of ways.
Speaker 1: Awesome. This has been great, very eye opening, and it
Speaker 1: really has made me look at all of this differently
Speaker 1: in the sense that now I feel like I know
Speaker 1: more and so when I hear these things and it'll
Speaker 1: trigger something in my mind to think about kind of
Speaker 1: like the bigger picture. And also now I'm thinking about
Speaker 1: myself as part of the sports enterprise, like you know,
Speaker 1: knowing that little bit about Sierra and Russell Wilson, I
Speaker 1: will maybe I'll be the NIXT sports writer on subs Day. Subscribe.
Speaker 1: You can find us on X and Instagram at Dope
Speaker 1: Labs podcast. You can find me ct on X, threads
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Speaker 1: find Zakiya at z said So. Dope Labs is a
Speaker 1: production of Lemonada Media. Our supervising producer is Keegan Zemma.
Speaker 1: Dope Labs is sound designed, edited and mixed by James Sparber.
Speaker 1: Lemonada's Senior Vice President of Content and Production is Jackie Danziger.
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