00:00 (upbeat music)
00:02 - Okay, so the big story for all of you
00:05 at Legal Sports Report tomorrow,
00:06 maybe for us too, just depending on the way things go,
00:09 is the launch of ESPN Bet.
00:10 Now, what perked my interest up over the weekend
00:13 was to see some of the commentary coming out
00:16 that new guidelines have been set
00:18 from the employees of the company on ESPN,
00:21 very specifically forbidden from betting
00:25 on the games that they cover.
00:27 And Mike, I would say this,
00:30 finally, finally, some company is saying something
00:34 about the idea that there could potentially be information
00:38 on games from reporters.
00:40 Now, I think this is just the beginning,
00:42 as we would say the tip of the iceberg
00:44 for people who cover sports,
00:46 but I wonder if this is going to set the bar
00:50 or if this is just gonna be one company
00:53 that decides this is the way they want to operate.
00:55 So I'm curious what your thoughts are
00:57 if this is something that ends up moving the ball forward.
01:00 >> Yeah, Craig, I think at this point,
01:03 if you're a major media company,
01:05 you have to have some sort of guidelines.
01:06 I mean, we know ESPN obviously now
01:07 has financial interest in this,
01:09 so there's gonna be potential for conflicts,
01:11 potentially slippery slopes.
01:13 And if you're a Wode, Schefter, Pastin,
01:15 the major insiders in our industry,
01:16 the most successful guys at reporting news,
01:19 you have to take this stuff seriously
01:21 and you have to make sure, hey, maybe like you said,
01:23 you want to have that app on your phone.
01:25 But it's me and I used to work at ESPN
01:28 and I've done this insider job.
01:29 You don't want, I don't know if you want
01:31 any money deposited in there.
01:33 Just leave that alone.
01:34 You don't want to bet.
01:35 You're making your money in this industry.
01:36 You probably have a phenomenal job.
01:37 You probably have a dream job.
01:38 It's highly stressful enough as it is,
01:41 dealing with agents and trying to compete for news every day
01:44 and GMs, executives, trying to compete for news every day,
01:47 let alone getting yourself involved
01:49 in potentially letting this information
01:51 fall into the wrong hands or doing so purposefully.
01:53 So yeah, I agree with you.
01:54 I think every company needs to have a policy like this.
01:57 It's going to be a slippery slope, right?
01:58 I mean, Adam Schefter put up that tweet
02:00 about Hard Rock with the $500,000 bet.
02:03 And I just read one comment, and it was isolated,
02:06 but it was one parent who said, hey,
02:07 my kid gets your notifications, trades or signings
02:11 to his phone, probably not of legal betting age.
02:13 And here you are.
02:14 And I'm not saying he was promoting betting,
02:16 but by tweeting it out, kind of looks like, hey, come,
02:18 see what's going on here.
02:20 And to young kids that aren't supposed to be getting that.
02:22 So yeah, I mean, a lot of kids now
02:24 have been inundated with certainly all ads
02:25 when you're watching these sporting events.
02:27 So not just ESPN, not just Schefter.
02:29 But yeah, going to be interesting
02:30 how much those guys tweet, right?
02:31 There's kind of some separation.
02:33 You know, Woj probably is going to tweet the odds
02:35 after he puts out a story.
02:36 But they're also going to talk about it on ESPN.
02:39 So even if he's not doing it, they're talking about it.
02:41 So yeah, there's a lot of--
02:42 it's a slippery slope.
02:43 There's definitely a lot of gray areas here.
02:45 But like you said, at least an important sense
02:46 to set the policy.
02:47 Now we'll see if they actually follow it
02:49 and kind of what comes, what kind of questions and concerns
02:51 they face.
02:52 Because certainly something's going to come up.
02:53 We don't know what.
02:54 But given the Shams incident with the draft last year,
02:56 you know there's going to be something.
02:58 So we'll see how they follow it.
02:59 And then we don't know what the penalties are
03:01 if you break this stuff as well.
03:02 So that certainly has to be probably pretty harsh
03:04 so others don't do it.
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