This is not a new topic or question being asked, but as news came down this week that a national sports radio host is taking on an additional job as a Division I head basketball coach, it is time to bring it up again. Are we treating sports talk radio like a job or like a side hustle?

As it relates to Doug Gottlieb, who was hired by UW-Green Bay as their new head men’s basketball coach with the understanding he would continue his FOX Sports Radio show, my personal opinion is that it is a slap in the face to radio. To me, this is Gottlieb saying, ‘I can do this radio show by showing up and turning on the mic, everything will be fine.” Either that, or he is not going to be a basketball coach very long.

Think of this from the other end for a minute. Do you think head coaches of Division I basketball teams think they could add a 2-hour national radio show into their schedule without it affecting their basketball team? I would venture to guess most of them would say, “No way.” Now, if you figure at the very minimum, you will need to prep two hours a day for a two-hour show and you asked these head coaches if they could spare four hours a day to do another job, I believe their response would be something like, “Get the f–k out of here, absolutely not.”

Mind you, this has nothing to do with Gottlieb’s abilities to be a national sports talk radio host or a basketball coach. Doing both at a high level is nearly impossible. And something tells me Gottlieb wants to be a successful basketball coach more than he wants to be a great talk show host.

Good for Gottlieb though. He has openly talked about this being a dream of his and I am glad he is getting that opportunity. For Green Bay, this might already be the most the program has been talked about on a national level in its history, so it is already working for them.

My belief is that FOX Sports Radio will be the loser here. I was just listening to Mully & Haugh in Chicago talk about how they think Gottlieb will have to give 90% of his time to the basketball side. Is that what sports radio is now, a 10% effort job?

This topic used to come up all the time when sports radio was dominated by TV sports anchors and newspaper writers. I once ran a station where almost all of our top talent had a full-time job doing something else. We were the side hustle; I was the side chick and it led to exactly what you would think it would – the only thing most of those hosts cared about was the paycheck. As far as promoting the station, showing up to events or meetings and anything else I needed that wasn’t during their air shift, forget it, they had their ‘other job’ to worry about. I even had a guy who would routinely promote his main television job on our radio station, but when it came to promoting our station on his other outlet, we got nothing.

While I still think there is room for those that have other gigs on sports radio, it needs to be done in a manner that respects both sides. It can’t be, as David Haugh mentioned, a 10% job. Today’s sports radio host needs to be working to engage with their audience 24/7 and has to have a part in promoting the brand that pays them. Most of the hosts have to be a station’s full-time employee and those hosts need to be thinking well beyond just the two- or three-hour show.

Using a television station employee or a newspaper writer can be good content, they are after all usually very involved in covering the local teams, talking to athletes and coaches and they are doing that part on someone else’s dime. However, if the station is limited in how many people it can pay, it needs to look for people who can give it the proper time and effort.

Right now, all parties in the Gottlieb situation are saying the right things. If I were FOX Sports Radio management, I would be out looking for someone who can dedicate a little bit more time to helping my brand and less time looking for a point guard in Oshkosh.

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The Best Thing I Heard Recently

If you missed it last weekend John Sterling, who retired as the voice of the New York Yankees on April 15, hosted a 90-minute call-in show on WFAN. Talk about goose bumps. I am not a New Yorker and certainly not a Yankees fan, but hearing the love the city and the fans have for John Sterling was a tremendous listen.

In explaining what he was doing on the air less than a month after retiring, Sterling said, “So, what am I doing here? The General Manager Chris Oliviero…he thought I should come in because some people didn’t have a chance to say goodbye and I’m all for it. But I’m also for, you know I watch every game. Being retired is fabulous. I see every Yankee game every Met game, I listen to every Yankee game and Met game, and then the Knicks and the Rangers and the rest of the basketball and hockey playoffs. Anyway, I don’t miss a game.”

It was a great listen. You can hear the full show by clicking here.

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In Case You Missed It

Last week, John Molori featured MLB Network’s ‘Quick Pitch’ show and its host, Abby Labar, in his feature. I didn’t know much about either one, so it was good to hear about a rising star in our industry.

Labar has an interesting background and brings a lot of energy to the show. Morolri wrote, “Labar is making the most of her on-camera minutes and, I believe, garnering more on-screen time because of her sterling performance. As a viewer tuning in, it seems to me that Labar is having a grand old time hosting Quick Pitch.”

You can read John’s piece on the show and host by clicking here.

I first got to know Ariel Epstein at the BSM Summit in New York in 2022. She was part of a panel, along with Kazeem Famuyide and John Jastremski about the value of legacy media to young content creators.

She struck me as the right kind of smart – an expert in her specialty with an obvious drive to become an expert in the best practices of the media business. It’s the right kind of profile for someone to get featured in our Meet the Bettors series presented by Point to Point Marketing.

I spoke to Ariel at the end of April. That’s only important to contextualize some of the references she makes to events and games on the horizon. Bettors may know her best as “The Prop Queen,” but our conversation touched on everything from spreadsheets to reuniting America with the power of gambling!

Demetri Ravanos: What do you make of all of the buzz around limiting or eliminating prop bets from some sports? The NCAA has talked about it. The NBA has talked about it in the wake of the Johntay Porter scandal. What has been your thought there? 

Ariel Epstein: Yeah, eliminating props would be absolutely silly. I look at props as the gateway of people from fantasy sports into sports betting. There’s just too much money to be made by these sportsbooks for them to actually decide to get rid of props. People who I speak to, especially people here in New York and New Jersey, understand betting props more than they understand betting a side or a total, especially the amateurs. So, I don’t foresee that actually happening.           

I know that they have been limiting people on props for forever because there’s such a large menu. There are so many ways to find edges in the market. That’s why I decided to zone in on it. New Jersey was the first state to come out and really focus on props. Vegas didn’t. Even today, the menu in Vegas for props is not as big as the props in New Jersey.          

I looked at that and said, “Oh my God! There’s so many options here,” down to the NBA rebounds plus assists like the combining market, right? There’s no way that the sportsbooks can keep track of all of this. You can get those edges. This is why people like to live bet tennis. Yeah, I just don’t foresee the market going anywhere. 

DR: So, because props are such an easy bridge from fantasy into sports betting, how do you see your audience divided between educated versus novice bettors? Focusing on props, I would imagine that there are plenty of novices or first-time bettors paying close attention to what you have to say.

AE: I would say a majority of people that are betting props are people that are more public bettors. The sharps that I know, a lot of them are betting the day-to-day. They will bet some markets, but they don’t make those as public. The people that I know out in Vegas who sell picks, a lot of the times those people are selling sides and total.          

The “Prop Queen” nickname happened because I started betting strikeout props in baseball. This started back in 2019 or 2020. I got really good at it. I have a whole spreadsheet that I do with my friend Matt. It’s not a computer algorithm or anything. We manually insert everything we want into our spreadsheet, which helps us differentiate all the paid props and the strikeout props. I still get people on social media asking me every day, “What’s the strikeout prop of the day?” So, people are looking for these props.           

People are looking to parlay props, which is crazy to me, but they do. Everyone I know, who doesn’t do this for a living, they do it recreationally. They love to throw a ten-leg parlay together of different props. My friends are even throwing sides and totals into their parlays. They’re throwing props in. I have friends betting ten like parlays of NBA players, and they’re taking the alternate markets, which I also think is crazy because they’re so heavily juiced. They’ll take these alternate markets of like LeBron James 20 or more points for -300 and throw it into a ten-leg parlay. That’s public betting at your service. That’s what you’re seeing. That’s why sportsbooks aren’t getting rid of it anytime soon, because they’re getting all this action that’s almost guaranteed to hit when you’re throwing out ten-leg parlays all the time.           

So yeah, I would say that it’s definitely more recreational bettors that are enjoying the prop. I do think there are some sharps out there that, of course, are finding the edges. And that’s why you’re seeing people get limited, especially betting unders.           

I could go through a whole day. I start my strikeout props in the morning I could say, for example, I like Yusei Kikuchi under six and a half strikeouts. It could be -140 when I saw it this morning but be -165 by 3:00. So, you’re seeing this action come in on a lot of these sides. There are markets out there that are sharper than others, and based on the vig you’ll see which ones those are. 

DR: When people in my generation talk about people in your generation taking advantage of the media, we usually mean that we are seeing you all over social media, and that is true for you, but I also see you all over traditional media. What value do you see in appearing on MLB Network, SiriusXM and other more traditional outlets?

AE: Every avenue is important for spreading knowledge in sports betting. The way I look at sports betting and how it really should be infiltrating, is by putting it into the mainstream media. This has been my goal since I worked at SportsGrid as my first sports betting job in 2019. My goal has been to insert betting into the conversation, not just get out picks on social media.           

I’m on MLB network. I just got off the show Off Base that I do every weekday at 4 pm. What I do is talk about the betting world from a mainstream perspective. For example, today, Jared Jones. He’s a pitcher for the Pirates. The strikeout prop is six and a half. You know why? Not only is he averaging eight strikeouts a game so far, but he needs seven strikeouts to become the fourth pitcher in baseball history to have seven or more strikeouts in each of his first five starts. That’s what I said on MLB Network today. So, it’s not that I said to go take his over. I’m telling you that his prop is six and a half because he needs seven to do something only three other pitchers have done in baseball history.           

That’s how you’re going to get more than just the young sports fans on social media in. You’re going to drive in the people who are maybe in their 60s and still watching network television. They’re going to say, “Okay, look, she’s not giving me a bet. But that’s really interesting to know that six and a half strikeout prop,” and that’s what you need.

DR: I know that you and I both are friends with Katie Mox. When I talked to Kelly Stewart, she was excited to hear that I was talking to you next. How do women in this space go about giving each other support? I mean, for so long, it seemed like this space was kind of off-limits to women, at least from the media side. Now, there are a lot of you, and it seems like you all know each other.

AE: We all do! The sports betting world is so small, especially amongst the women. There aren’t many women that do this role in sports betting and do it well and put the effort in. It’s especially when you talk about the women that see each other, who know sports, put the effort in. I know that sometimes women and men can give women this negative connotation that they’re just a talking head who’s, you know, “the sports books, trying to get a pretty girl on there”.           

The women that I speak with in the business, we all work really hard. Sports betting’s not something you could just put half an effort into and get a good result. When someone, male or female, is talking about something in the sports betting world, you know when they know their stuff and when they don’t. The women in this business are exactly the same. They know exactly who knows what they’re talking about and when you find those women, you understand where each other is coming from. It’s so nice to finally have other females in this business who understand.           

The first time Kelly and I met in real life in Vegas, we were talking and watching games, it was just so nice because, it’s fun to be with the guys, but it’s nice to finally have a girl to like, you know, be a girl with. And at the same time, we can do both. We could talk about guys the way all girls do, and we can hang with the guys and be one of them and talk sports.           

Between Katie and Kelly and some other friends of mine, we just have like a crew of us that whenever we’re on the road together, wherever we’re sitting, we can always just get together and know that we all understand where each other is coming from and how difficult this business can be, and not just from being a female in the male-dominated world. That’s not what I’m talking about. It’s just a hard business.          

There are times I go to MLB Network, and I see my coworkers who go and do a great job of what they do, but they’re not getting heat for giving out a losing bet each day.  So not only are you a female in a male-dominated business, but now you’re a female giving out bets that especially men are putting their money on. If you lose, it’s not always the nicest thing to hear about on social media. You’re mad you lost your own money, now you’re hearing it from other people! So at least the women in the sports betting world all kind of understand where we’re all coming from and how much work goes into giving out these bets each day. 

DR: That’s one of the things that I wanted to ask you about. As sports betting becomes legal in more states and it becomes more of a mainstream thing, do you find that the amount of heat or abuse on social media increases when you give out a pick that doesn’t come through, or do you find that we’ve increased the pool of more reasonable people that are doing this, and thus the amount of people that are going to take the time to send you a tweet calling you an idiot, or whatever are actually diluted by overall the amount of interaction you’re having?

AE: I think it’s the latter. At first, I would have said it could make it worse. A lot of sports leagues think that it’s going to get worse, but I don’t. I actually think that by making it more mainstream, it makes it better, because more people relate.           

I’ve said this since I started in this business. Every video I post with a bet comes with good information. The least I could do is give people good information. I’m not sitting there telling you like, “Go take this bet. It’s a lock!” That’s not my style. I’m telling you, “Here’s what I like today based on X, Y, and Z.” Even if you don’t take my bet, at least I hope I gave you good information that taught you something. I’ve had people tell me that because of the information I gave, they made a different bet that ended up hitting. But they’re thankful for the information I gave them and that’s all I could ask for.          

I’ve had a lot of support on social media when I’ve had these cold streaks. This has been probably the worst start to a baseball season in my life, but everyone on social media is so nice and says, “Hey, it’s not your fault I took your play. I trust you. It was my decision to take that action, not yours.”           

So, I think that yeah, you’ll get a few people that are looking to put blame on anyone for losing and they’ll choose to be you. Ultimately, I think that’s the regulation of betting is working. You mentioned the sports leagues that want to get rid of props. I actually think the government overseeing what’s happening in the mainstream is doing the job correctly, because we have more reliable eyes looking at where issues may lie. I actually think it’s helping that we have the government looking into everything and everyone because it’s actually making it harder for people to do that kind of shady stuff they used to, since it isn’t so much of a shady business anymore the way it once was. 

DR: So speaking of restrictions, in Europe they can bet on elections. If that restriction was lifted in the United States, is that something you think that the public would take to? 

AE: Oh my God! Absolutely!           

I know people who absolutely love election betting and monitoring it. I mean, not that I was placing any action on it, but I have a ton of friends who love doing it and we watched it. I watched those lines in Europe. I watched them for our presidential election. And I remember in 2020 watching the line completely flip overnight between Trump and Biden. The lines were flipping before the polls were flipping. That makes it so intriguing.           

I would think that people would absolutely love it. It’s just going to be very state-by-state basis the way that prop betting is, for example, or even award betting. In New Jersey, you could bet on any kind of award for any athlete to win, whether it’s MVP, Cy Young, or whatnot. You can’t bet on that in New York because subjective betting in New York is illegal. So, I could also see that certain states that are a little more lenient on rules like New Jersey or Arizona, saying, “Yeah, we’ll do election betting,” but maybe New York will be like, “no, we don’t want to do it.”           

It’s a good way of hedging your bet. Let’s say you want one candidate to win, but you have a feeling you’re on the wrong side. It’s America, and you’re going to vote for who you want to win, right? But then on the other side, you could hedge your happiness and say, but I think I’m on the losing side, so let me put money on the other side. 

DR: See, this is where I think the books would love for this to be legal. Because given where we are, I feel like we’re so divided. I don’t think people would be smart enough to hedge if they think they’re on the losing side. 

AE: Well, those people are dumb! You know what? I think you could actually make our country come together a little bit because we’re so polarized right now that everyone is so upset if one side wins and the other loses, maybe if they hedge their bets, we would have things a little more neutral and we wouldn’t have as many problems because we have people happy regardless. 

To learn more about Point-To-Point Marketing’s Podcast and Broadcast Audience Development Marketing strategies, contact Tim Bronsil at [email protected] or 513-702-5072.

The NBA’s broadcast landscape could be changing and very soon. The league’s rights deal with ESPN and TNT Sports will end following the 2024-25 season. The latter could be left out in the cold with NBC and Amazon in the mix as a new home for the NBA. The price to stay in the game is upwards of $2.5-billion-dollars. That’s the number NBC is reportedly offering per year to the NBA. If WBD doesn’t match or go a bit over that figure, it could be lights out.

According to those in the know, it’s not a done deal by any stretch, but it’s late in the 4^th quarter and TNT may be out of timeouts. The loss would be big, because since the 1988-1989 season, NBA fans have been able to watch games on the network. They’ve grown accustomed to the games being there. The biggest issue could be the disbanding of the award winning Inside the NBA pre and postgame show. Now that would be a big-time shame.

Ernie Johnson, Kenny Smith, Shaquille O’Neal and Charles Barkley star on the show, which is pretty much universally loved. The crew’s future would certainly be in doubt, if TNT loses the NBA. Separation seems a certainty in that case. Johnson has already stated he is going to stick around even if there are no NBA broadcasts to be a part of.

Barkley told 850 ESPN Cleveland earlier this month that he has an opt-out clause in his contract, which allows him to become a free agent should TNT lose the NBA. “I said, ‘If you guys lose the NBA, I want to make sure that I can get out of here.’ So I am actually in a really great position,” Barkley said. “Listen, I love TNT, they’ve been great to me … I wanted to make sure that if we lost the NBA in two years, I could be a free agent.” There’s a report that says O’Neal would leave television if Inside the NBA is no more. Smith hasn’t made his intentions known, but it may not matter. It’s almost a foregone conclusion that the show would cease to exist.

Barkley had more to say, even before last season started about what might happen if the show disbanded. “I wouldn’t go by myself,” Barkley told Sports Illustrated. “And I would find it hard to go without Ernie, to be honest with you. Obviously, me, Kenny, and Shaq are close, but Ernie is the guy. So, I would have to look at if they were gonna bring those guys, but also if they had other guys in mind who to partner with.”

The chemistry between the panelists is really unparalleled in the industry. It’s also quite palpable. They work so well together. Each has his own strengths. Johnson is the glue that holds the entire show together. He is the guy that keeps the show on the tracks and still has the personality to allow himself to be immersed in the fun and laughter.

Barkley is the strong personality that dominates but doesn’t completely take over the show. He is able to laugh at himself and be the butt of a joke. Barkley comes up with outlandish opinions that really get everyone going. O’Neal and Smith are the perfect combination to be paired with Johnson and Barkley. O’Neal is the playful kid, with pretty good comedic timing. Smith can be a curmudgeon, but in a funny way. He also has some pretty strong opinions.

This show is the envy of all other studio shows. Other networks have tried to copy the formula but have failed. It’s really hard to duplicate what this show brings to the viewer. Wit, personality, fun and mayhem all wrapped into a neat little package. But it really comes down to the personalities who make the show what it is. Heck, even TNT tried to play off the formula when they gained the rights to the NHL. It’s a good show, but it doesn’t compare to the NBA broadcast.

Provided the hosts still want to work in the industry, the new rightsholders would likely pursue the show, to give it a landing spot post-TNT. I think it would be a longshot that the established team can or will stay together. That would be a shame.

Among the many scenarios that may come to pass over the next year or so, I see three main one’s materializing.

Scenario #1, TNT loses the rights, Johnson stays put and the panelists go to Amazon.

Barkley mentioned it earlier in this column that he wouldn’t find it easy to go somewhere else without Johnson. It might soften the blow if he would be heading to Amazon with his other teammates, Smith and O’Neal. But the show would need a host that the panelists are familiar with and could be that “Johnson type” where he is in control without appearing to be in control. Not an easy task. Who could step in? I’ve got a few ideas, and one is extremely outside the box.

Adam Lefkoe: Already a host at TBS/TNT and appears on the set of the NCAA Tournament coverage. As I wrote a few months ago, “Lefkoe finds a way to interject some humor into his hosting, without trying to hijack the spotlight from his analysts.” That is an important factor here.

Laura Rutledge: She shows the ability to adapt to pretty much any situation. Hosting, reporting or anchoring, Rutledge can handle it. It would be interesting to me to see what she could do on that particular set. To me, she’d be just fine.

Samuel L Jackson: Yeah, this is outside the box. Could it or would it work? Yeah, probably not. Wouldn’t it be fun though? Jackson has a relationship with Barkley from the credit card commercials, which are pretty funny. Label this one a ‘pipe dream.’

Scenario #2, TNT loses the rights and everyone goes their separate ways.

This is likely to happen if TNT is left on the outside looking in. There wouldn’t be a show on TNT. We’d find out if the current panelists have any desire to continue in the business in this scenario. Surely, calls to their agents would be made, since the individuals would be highly sought after. Especially if Amazon wanted to get into this realm, they’d need some credible and popular analysts, to make their shows relevant and legit. This is the worst of the three scenarios, as it would be difficult to see the main players separated as a result of TNT losing the NBA.

Scenario #3, TNT regains the rights and the show remains the same.

This would be the top scenario among pretty much every NBA fan that watches Inside the NBA. It would require the bosses at WBD to pony up and get into the mix to retain the rights to the league. TNT wouldn’t have to worry about how to use Johnson, who, as mentioned, says he’ll stay no matter what. This one falls under the ‘if it ain’t broke, why try to fix it’ category. It seems the simplest of the scenarios, but maybe the costliest.

I’m convinced that this show only works on TNT. It’s not just the forward-facing people on the set, but the production team. These are the folks that allow the talent to be themselves within the framework of the vision for the program. The chemistry works on the set and it certainly seems to work behind the scenes, and is a big reason why this show, Inside the NBA needs to stay where it is to continue to work.