The Dust Settles On ESPN Bet Bombshell | Sports Betting News | LSR Podcast 203
With the announcement of ESPN Bet now a week old, what has the crew heard from the rest of the industry about its chances? Plus, an update on Florida sports betting, the disappearance of No House Advantage, and an ode to the death of William Hill Nevada.
Full transcript
Matt Brown (00:11):
Hello and welcome to episode number 203 of the LSR Podcast, the podcast so universally loved, people listen to it while pretending to listen to the Joe Rogan podcast. I am Matt Brown, joined each and every week by Adam Candee and Dustin Gouker. You can follow them on the Twitter machine for free over there @DustinGouker, @AdamCandee. Two E’s, no Y. And if you hate yourself, you can follow me @MattBrownM2. We will talk about what’s going on in Florida. We’ll talk about a couple of … Well, one definite closure and one kind of almost-ish closure type of deal.
(00:43):
And then we have one of the big boys that we think is out there in Fanatics that is no longer in beta. But, Dustin, let’s kick things off here. ESPN, the big news obviously of the last two weeks. Everybody’s got an opinion. Everybody’s written an article. Everybody’s used the Twitter or X or whatever you want to call it to put their opinion out there with all this. So now that we have let this settle just a little bit, how do we think? How do you feel about it? Where does your opinion lie or is it the same as it was whenever we did this podcast a week ago?
Dustin Gouker (01:16):
It’s changed slightly, I think. I mean, we’re still viscerally reacting to what was going on last week. It happened almost in real time for us. So I mean, I think here’s what’s clear. Penn has aspirations beyond what Barstool was providing. Just sticking with Barstool, it was pretty obvious they had run up against their ceiling. Nothing was going to change that. Maybe you could have spent money to try to change that. It wasn’t. ESPN is clearly a chance to improve its fate in online gambling in the United States. I think there’s no question about that. It’s just a matter of how much more it’s improving its fate. If we’re going to get into this, but a colleague, Eric Ramsey wrote a good piece analyzing the upside for ESPN Bet and Penn Entertainment moving forward, but I think that’s the same.
(02:07):
The goal is podium position. Top three, right? If it’s not top three, then I think that’s where this becomes a failure because at that point they probably should have gotten out, stuck with Barstool, something else. Who knows? But that’s where I come out of it. I think top three is realistic. I mean, obviously the dynamics are changing. We’re going to get into Fanatics coming into the market in a serious way as well. Everything is changing in real time, but that 10% of market top three, those are things that are possible for ESPN that I don’t think were possible under Barstool Sportsbook.
Matt Brown (02:41):
Adam, I’m sure you have been asked a ton over the last week. I’ve actually been asked a couple of different times what I feel about everything, how I feel about everything. I think I was a little more bullish on the upside of this than you guys were a week ago. Where do you sit a week later here?
Adam Candee (03:00):
Well, I really would point everyone to that piece that Eric Ramsey wrote at legalsportsreport.com where he goes through both what he sees as a bull case for ESPN Bet and then a bear case as well. He discusses the podium position expectations that Dustin mentions. He discusses whether it’s reality for the 15 to 20% that Penn wants to be able to achieve with ESPN. Newsflash, that’s going to be pretty difficult. But podium position could mean a lot of different things, and it’s going to come down to how fragmented the market really becomes whether or not Fanatics and ESPN are drawing in people who have not bet before or if they are in some way taking away from the bigger boys like DraftKings, FanDuel, and the legacy casino companies.
(03:45):
So I’m not sure a lot has changed for me in terms of what my expectations are. I think what we’ve just had is an opportunity to hear more from Jay Snowden, the CEO of Penn, to hear more from those who are just, let’s say ESPN naysayers in general, who are more concerned about the overall business for ESPN, who see this as a Hail Mary by Disney to try to keep ESPN in the place that we’ve all talked about on this podcast as the dominant global sports media brand.
Matt Brown (04:14):
Yeah. I went to a wedding this past week. My former co-host Stormy Buonantony got married, and so I did some little recon work of my own. I’m in a room full of people who … Not everybody, but there’s a lot of people who are tangentially involved in either the industry or sports or whatever it might be given the connections to her and all the things that she’s done in the industry. And so I started talking to people a little bit about this. I was more curious as to whether my thought was a little bit more elevated of the ESPN brand in general than what is actually out there in the public sentiment right now.
(04:47):
So I got a pretty mixed bag, and it was what we thought. I think we assumed this, but the older the person that I talked to, the more the bull case for ESPN being a reality was realistic. And then the younger the person I talked to, the less bullish of the bull case for ESPN than it was. Look, we’ve been very honest about that. ESPN to us, to our age group, is synonymous with all things sports, right? I mean, we grew up. The only way we saw sports highlights was turn on ESPN every single night. ESPN is ingrained in me. It is like a thing of my childhood and whatever, but that’s obviously not necessarily the case for maybe even the generation below us, but certainly the two generations below us.
(05:32):
So their view of ESPN is more basically where you go to find the SEC or where you go to find whatever it might be, and so Monday Night Football. But not necessarily the end all be all when it comes to sports. And so it’s pretty interesting. That being said, we do know that older people have more money, have more disposable income, have more to possibly give this a try when it comes down to it from ESPN Bet, and Adam, I do want to pose this question to you.
(06:01):
There has to be at least some percentage of the population. I’m curious as to what you think, just how small that percentage of the population is, that is of the mindset, “Hey, I get it, but I don’t trust this whole FanDuel. I don’t trust this whole DraftKings. I don’t know though, whatever. They just live out there in the internets, and all.” Like what percentage of people might actually try a betting app now because the ESPN branding, again, a legacy company, something they’ve known since they were children, they’ve grown up with all of that. There has to be some percentage of the population, and I’m just wondering how much or how small you think that might actually be.
Adam Candee (06:39):
Well, I think to me it’s less a question of brand awareness and trust in the end. I ultimately think when you look at brand awareness for ESPN, it’s huge everywhere. There’s nothing that you need to learn about with that. You talk about trust. Yeah, you trust it as much as anybody in the media is trusted these days. I again go back to the question that I think it really is about here, which is about in the end, who is it that has not been activated at this point? And to me that’s not someone who’s in ESPN’s database. If anybody has that play to be able to make, I think it’s more on the Fanatics side than it is on the ESPN side because of the fact that people who buy retail might not necessarily be sports fans. It might be mom, uncle, grandma who went to buy a hat for someone for Christmas who happens to be in the database and maybe you’re getting a nontraditional customer in there.
(07:39):
So I really do think it’s less a question of that person who didn’t trust FanDuel, DraftKings, or whoever because their ubiquity is enormous at this point. FanDuel and DraftKings have spent billions of dollars getting their awareness in front of people, and I think the only ones who don’t trust them necessarily are those who are deeper into the sports betting space who maybe haven’t had great experiences thinking that they’re sharper bettors, people who’ve been limited, people who have bad feelings that go back to the DFS days, whatever it might be. I still think it is more about who is the person who has not been touched yet.
Matt Brown (08:16):
Yeah, Dustin, I guess the thing that I still am pretty bullish on from a week ago is just I think that this goes just how far the ESPN personalities are involved. I think that that’s kind of the ceiling case for me in all of this. I mean, there is something that … Again, love him or hate him, there is something to Stephen A. Smith who has one of the most popular morning shows out there talking about this regularly. Obviously Scott Van Pelt is one of the most beloved broadcasters there is in all of the business. You brought up, which I totally forgot, Pat McAfee has a massive, massive following and people love that dude.
(08:57):
I mean, could this even branch into a Kirk Herbstreit or whatever? Again, another guy that is universally beloved and all this. Now, if those guys get involved in all of this, I do see a ceiling. I do see the bull case getting there, because again, these are guys that, Adam, you were talking about trust. Not only trusted and whatever, but they’ve been around. You know them. They’re familiar and maybe you listen to them a little bit more than you do just a random commercial or an ad or something. But, Dustin, again, we won’t find out until November and maybe not even in November. Who knows? Maybe that’s a gradual roll in or it never happens in the first place.
Dustin Gouker (09:30):
Yeah. This is the part that even a week later we don’t really know is what does the integration look like? It totally does depend on, and I agree with Adam, who is the ESPN user that hasn’t been exposed to sports betting and tried to sign up for a sportsbook that wanted to sign up for a sportsbook? That seems like a tough, tough get. It’s not impossible, but ESPN getting to those bull cases, you need to convert people who weren’t betting on sports before. I don’t see them just taking market share away from people. Yes, maybe some, but they have to grow the pie, I think. That’s the value add of ESPN, and that’s, again, a big question mark if they can even do that.
(10:10):
I do agree. McAfee was anecdotally one of was a place that getting a lot of FanDuel conversions, right? He was opening up to an audience who maybe like, oh, they trust Pat to say go bet at FanDuel or Scott Van Pelt is another one. He already does gambling content. He’s in that space. People would trust him, say, “Hey, let’s go be at ESPN Bet.” I think those are interesting. I mean, is it needle moving? Depends on the scenario, but this whole thing is where it comes down is how does it all work when it actually rubber meets the road in November and moving on?
(10:49):
Is that going to move the needle? Is there this flywheel of content and sports betting that really works with ESPN that hasn’t worked anywhere else? Again, it hasn’t worked with Barstool. That was the idea is Barstool like, “Oh, these people want to gamble. We’re going to do content about gambling.” It’s all just going to be a self-perpetuating wheel that continues to make itself run and that never happened at Barstool. Can ESPN do that? I think that’s the big question.
Adam Candee (11:12):
And Matt, to build on the point that you’re talking about right now and to get a little bit into the sports talk radio idea of this Van Pelt and McAfee are not the kind of personalities that ESPN is pushing right now. ESPN is pushing Stephen A. Smith. ESPN is pushing Mad Dog. I can’t open the ESPN app without finding out what Stephen A. or Chris Russo think about something. And frankly, I couldn’t possibly care less what either of them think about anything. So if that’s the type of personality that they continue to lean into with sports betting, they’re not going to be successful.
(11:45):
Nobody is going to listen to Stephen A. Smith telling them to download a sportsbook app. They will probably listen if Scott Van Pelt comes out there and says, “Hey, this is the one that I really trust. This is the one that I believe that this is a good product,” then I do think that there’s something in that.
Matt Brown (12:01):
And we do know they want to get into New York. We’ve talked about Texas is the next very big one that at least has a chance of happening. We know that won’t happen next year. It would be two years from now. So we do at least have an idea of where could Penn get some market share? Where could this start to go? I mean, obviously, New York, biggest market that we’re dealing with right now. Texas hopefully to come here soon. That could obviously be a place where they would… If they’re already established, could be going in neck and neck with all the other guys as they go in there as well. So there is that, right Dustin?
Dustin Gouker (12:38):
Yeah. I want to talk to Adam too more about this. Why do we want to be in New York? Everyone is saying they’re having a hard time making money. I guess maybe they think they’re going to just, again, turn on a spigot of customers in the ESPN users in New York. I don’t know. But we already had Penn and Barstool saying, “You know what? We didn’t get in New York. We’re going to lose money anyway,” so why has that story changed as well? That’s a wild retrospect, right, Adam?
Adam Candee (13:06):
Oh, it’s absolutely wild. And frankly it’s disingenuous. It involves people covering up for Dave Portnoy because that’s, in the end, what we found out through Jay Snowden and the earnings call and the conversations that he’s had after that about what happened with the Fanatics, I should say with the bid for Barstool getting into New York. Well, that ultimately failed because of Dave Portnoy is the implication that we’re getting from not only Portnoy, who said, “We were denied licenses because of me,” but from Snowden, who talked about Barstool going back to create content in an environment that does not involve regulation.
(13:42):
So the comments that Jay Snowden gave this week talking about being involved in New York didn’t change the tune entirely to say, “Oh God, it’s a great market. We love the 51% tax rate.” But he essentially made it sound like, “Yeah, you can’t afford not to be there.” Now there’s no clear path for them to get in. It’s going to take either the sale of somebody else’s license or I don’t know say Bally Bet finally flopping at some point, even though they’ve flopped spectacularly to this point. Would they flop to the point where they give the license up or does New York choose to expand the market?
(14:14):
That could be another question as well. But right now you look at it and say, “OK, what you weren’t saying at the time that you are saying now is that Barstool brand was the reason you didn’t get into New York.”
Matt Brown (14:26):
And finally here, I do wonder as we move into version 3.0 of all of these sportsbooks and stuff, we’ve mentioned this multiple times on the podcast, but what is your retention strategy, and what is really going to resonate with the vast majority of customers out there? Again, we’re talking about the 99%, not the 1%. And the deposit bonus model and the things like that and all that, “I don’t know if that’s it, man.” Like I said, I’ve got some buddies who are sports fans who are more casual bettors for sure. They tend to lean into the places that give them reward stuff so they get reward points or whatever.
(15:06):
We know Fanatics is going to be doing this Fanatics Cash thing where you can basically, every time you make a bet, you’re going to be getting points that you can use in the store to buy memorabilia or sports cards or whatever and stuff like that. I mean, ESPN has a lot of sports rights, and they have a lot of things they can do. Is their reward program … Does Penn lean into them for experiences like going the Sports Center set, going to Monday Night Football? Doing whatever. Whatever it might be? I think those are the type of things that long-term are going to resonate with the casual bettor far more than like a, “Hey, here’s another $100 match thing” and whatever and all that. I mean, eventually, I think that’s just going to fall on deaf ears.
Dustin Gouker (15:46):
And on the retention piece, I think the other part is just you just want an app that works that you enjoy using, right? That’s the baseline. And I think it’s pretty clear that DraftKings and FanDuel have been very good at that to this point. And Barstool, we’ve talked about this in the past about Barstool Penn, they just redid the app. The reactions are mixed. It’s slightly better is what the consensus seems to be, but you really just need to have … Once you get on there, you just want to have fun, right? And everything you talked about dovetails with that, just being able to enjoy your experience while in the app or again having a second screen experience with ESPN. I just want to say, Matt, I really enjoyed your anecdotes today. They’re really good.
An update on Florida sports betting
Matt Brown (16:28):
Yeah, listen, I’m trying, man. Listen, I’m out here doing market research for free. You don’t have to pay me. I’m not Eilers & Krejcik or whatever and all. You don’t have to pay me. I’ll do all the market research for free. Adam, we got Florida out there, and of course Florida was a state that had it for a hot minute, no longer, and we’re trying to figure out what’s going on down there.
Adam Candee (16:50):
Yeah. If you ask Calvin Ridley, probably a hot minute too long. So Florida right now is in a waiting state, and we were waiting 45 days past the district court ruling, I should say the DC Circuit Court of Appeals ruling, that essentially seemed to clear the path again for Florida to relaunch its sports betting app with Hard Rock. But it will have to probably wait just a little bit longer because West Flagler Associates — who was the one involved in bringing this case in the first place against the compact, signed by the Seminole Tribe and governor Ron DeSantis — has filed for a rehearing en banc.
(17:30):
And for those of you who don’t want to get into junior law school stuff, essentially what they’ve done is mom and dad told you you can’t go on the field trip. It’s their final decision. But you go back one more time. You’re like, “Are you sure?” And that’s kind of where we are right now because getting that rehearing en banc is a long of long shots for West Flagler Associates for the district — I should say the Circuit Court of Appeals — to reevaluate its own decision because what essentially happens is it’s a panel of that larger Circuit Court of Appeals that makes the initial decision. You ask for a rehearing with the entire court. It’s rare.
(18:11):
There usually would have to be something that would be wrong with the decision according to what we know from John Holden, our legal expert who will have a piece up today further explaining what he sees as the next steps here. But still possible that we see Florida with Hard Rock this NFL season because technically they could choose to relaunch during this time, but they would be risking having to launch and shut down.
Matt Brown (18:35):
Dustin, I do want to ask you this because obviously Florida — a massive state and all that tons of sports, tons of college sports, tons of pro sports, et cetera, et cetera. But I mean, as far as the market itself, I don’t think we’re really jumping up and down about its prospects because it’s going to be so restrictive. Am I out of line in saying that?
Dustin Gouker (18:55):
Yeah. I mean, it looks like it’s going to be a monopoly. There are paths to where other brands could partner with the Seminole Tribe and also be able to do that. That would come at great expense potentially. So it’s feasible, but right now as we sit here, what’s the impetus? We’ve even heard Hard Rock say in the past, “We would welcome other brands and some competition in the market.” Is that true today as it was then? Who knows? The bottom line is I don’t think they want to launch without some pretty good certainty that they’re not going to have to close it down again because that would be pretty bad. You got your false start right, open once had to shut it down. If you did it again, man, then you’re really confusing people. If you like, “Oh, we’re open. Guess what? We’re closed again.”
(19:45):
If you did it a third time, I’m not sure people would believe you. So I think I would imagine we’re going to not see this actually launch until they’re very certain that there’s not any chance of them going back into shutdown mode again, anytime in the near future, because that would be such a bad customer experience and could really make Florida sports betting just bad moving forward. It’d be so confusing for the user if they had to shut it down again.
(20:14):
While it’s possible, I think they’re going to make sure that they’re sure before they do anything about relaunching that app.
Matt Brown (20:21):
And Adam, unlike a lot of these states that were holding out and we were like, “You’re costing yourself money because these people can just cross the border and go to X, Y, Z, and this major city is here, here and here.” That’s just not the case in Florida, right? I mean, it’s basically like you are definitely pushing everybody offshore. I mean, there is no way for … If you live in Miami, you are not going anywhere. You’re going offshore, right? I mean, there’s just no way for you to … Even if you had in your heart the truest of intentions in your heart of heart, you wanted to bet legally, you just can’t do it. So you’re going to Bobby the Bookie down the street, or you’re betting offshore.
Adam Candee (21:00):
I know Bobby. Be nice to Bobby. We want ultimately for the Florida market to have the same choices that other markets do. But right now, the choice is essentially going to be, if they get it back, Hard Rock, Hard Rock, or Hard Rock. And we have no idea if the product is going to be any good, right? We know there are people who have had success in online gaming behind the products. That’s great. It gives you at least a start to believe in. We’ve seen the product in a couple of other states, so we know that it at least functions.
(21:29):
It has not been a contender anywhere else. It has not made any sort of impact. And so if it’s going to make an impact, it’s going to make an impact because it’s the only game in town when it comes to Florida. But as you said, Matt, if people are savvy, if there are people who’ve done this before, then you’re going to have to come up with something that’s better than what they have already for them to become regular customers.
Dustin Gouker (21:48):
I’d be remiss if we didn’t also mention that you could place parlays at daily fantasy sports sites in Florida right now if you wanted to.
Adam Candee (21:57):
Dustin, I’ve never heard of this before.
The disappearance of No House Advantage
Matt Brown (21:59):
Dustin, lobbing the grenade right there at the end. Good stuff. All right. So, No House Advantage. If you go to nohouseadvantage.com, Dustin, you are met with an interesting statement and No House Advantage is no longer-
Dustin Gouker (22:16):
Yeah. This is one of those daily fantasy sports 2.0 fantasy versus the house. You do parlays with player performances based on their statistics. They do other stuff. They did other stuff too, I guess I should say. But this is a smaller player in that market that is now shut down. They’re telling customers to fill out a PDF form to get the money back. I got news for you. Nothing good is coming of that. This is not a serious way to handle transactions. It probably means they’re out of money. It probably means they’re trying to slow roll this as best they can because what you should be doing is just processing withdrawals.
(22:53):
They clearly don’t have player funds to do so because of whatever is happening in the background. Again, this is my pet project right now, but this is what’s going on in DFS 2.0 right now. This company is operating using this vague umbrella of, “Oh, Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act says it’s OK. Game of skill laws say it’s OK. DFS law and a bunch of states say it’s OK.” This is not under any kind of real regulation. These companies are generally avoiding the places with actual DFs regulation, so they can do whatever they want, and this is the outcome.
(23:27):
Now, I’m not saying this is going to happen with any of the bigger players in this space like PrizePicks and Underdog, but this is what happens in tier two. And again, we lived through this in DFS 1.0. There were companies that used player funds to fund operations, and they ran out of money and they had declared bankruptcy. Right now we have no poker.
Matt Brown (23:47):
We saw it in poker, then we saw it in DFS. We’ve seen this. This is the thing.
Dustin Gouker (23:53):
I’ve watched the movie several times, and it doesn’t turn out well. Again, this is why this whole industry needs to be actually regulated. It’s continually wild that we’re just saying, “Oh, this is OK.” Again, there’s this … I don’t know. I don’t know what the right word is, guise of integrity. They’re not really regulated anywhere. There’s no recourse for these people to go because any place with any kind of real teeth for regulation for DFS, they’re not serving that market. Right?
(24:22):
Maybe you can go make a complaint, but nobody is auditing what they’re doing. This is not a serious organization that’s offering daily fantasy sports. They’re obviously just offering sports betting as DFS. Anyway, this whole story is not ending well, and it is a cautionary tale. Who’s to say this is the only one this is going to happen to? This is the only one we know about.
Matt Brown (24:47):
“No House Advantage has ceased operations effective immediately. Approximately a month ago, NHA was made aware of what may have been a coordinated attempt to defraud the company via a payment chargeback scheme, which has impacted our ability to process withdrawals. As a safeguard” — for you, this is for you, not for us, this is for you — “we have implemented a formal withdrawal request process. Please download the formal withdrawal request PDF form and email it with all of the requested information. Once completed” — not, “you’re going to promptly get your funds” — “a team member will review the request and reply with next steps.” So that is where we’re at with all this. Good luck and Godspeed. I hope you do get your monies, though.
Adam Candee (25:30):
It seems that the only advantage is for the house, for No House Advantage in this particular process. And just to add one little extra to what Dustin said about the guise of whether or not these things are real. We did have one of the founders of Underdog out here this week touting the fact that, “Hey, Colorado says it’s OK. We can have our pick’em game in Colorado.” What they didn’t tell you is that Colorado said you can have a pick’em game that has a minimum of four outcomes that are based on fantasy points. Not you can have a pick’em game that is props on this weekend’s NFL preseason.
(26:10):
So let’s make sure that we’re at least giving people the whole story when we’re going out there and saying that, “Oh yeah, this state says it’s OK.” Yeah, they said a very redacted version is OK.
An ode to the death of William Hill Nevada
Matt Brown (26:22):
Adam, we say goodbye to No House Advantage, and we basically say goodbye to William Hill in Nevada. There was an update that happened overnight, and whenever we pop the app open, it is just a clone. It is a skin of the new Caesars app as well. Caesars CEO Tom Reig said, “We were operating on the equivalent of a Commodore 64 with the old technology. We now have the state-of-the-art Liberty app, which we operate in all of our jurisdictions.” So the question might remain out there to some of the people. Well, then why does William Hill even exist if you have Caesars?
(26:58):
But I guess, Adam, one of the things that people don’t really know is William Hill was a vendor for a whole lot of people, and then even when Caesars bought them, they continue to be a vendor for a whole lot of people in Nevada. So like Golden Gaming, which owns several casinos and pubs in town. Valleys in Lake Tahoe, which they also own; the Tropicana uses them. Binion’s, Downtown Grand, Hard Rock in Tahoe. The M at the south end of the Strip. The Palms, the Sahara, the Tropicana, I mean the Silverton and the Venetian all use William Hill, which is owned by a competitor of theirs now. It’s wild, but that’s why William Hill still even exists, even though it’s just a clone of what we get with the new Caesars app.
Adam Candee (27:42):
I do love Matty’s ‘Only in Nevada’ corner here on the LSR Podcast. The one thing that got me with this is that I’m not going to tell you the William Hill in-play betting experience was great. It wasn’t. But it was about the only usable one regularly in the state of Nevada. So I hope Caesars is at least going to offer something similar to that because there were only a couple of other places that even offer live betting and no, guess what? It’s not Circa who’s out there talking about how they’re the greatest thing that’s ever happened to bettors. No, it’s not South Point where there’s another home, in theory, of betting in Las Vegas.
(28:22):
And so I could go through the list of this and tell you that there aren’t a lot of great in-play betting experiences. So please, anyone listening at Caesars, if I can at least plug that part of the Atari back in, I would like to be able to use just maybe that one game.
Matt Brown (28:43):
The main reason, Dustin, I did want to bring this up is just for a real quick, it’s more of an aside of anything else, which is the fact that William Hill still did have the bulk of the handle in Nevada, which we know still has a decent amount of handle out there. And with this upgrade, there are going to be same-game parlays available with this new app, which has never been available in Nevada before, which we know is a huge revenue driver for rest of country.
(29:10):
Now, will it be in Nevada? We shall see, but this does have William Hill, which again is the market leader as far as handle goes, offering a new product that literally, this is not like, “Oh, we do it better than our competitors.” We are the only ones that have it. We literally are the only ones offering it.
Dustin Gouker (29:28):
Yeah. I mean, the hold has been traditionally low in Nevada. That’s what a lot of estimates were going off of because we’re like, “Oh, this is going to be a carbon copy when other states start legalizing.” Nevada is going to continue to grow because of innovation and allowing new technology into the state. Nevada was once the gold standard. It could be that again, if they decided they wanted to be, and this is … At least now we have an app that’s not … I love the Commodore 64. I definitely played a lot of Commodore 64 when I was a kid. It’s obviously good. Nevada has always continued to stick out like a sore thumb. And now getting into the 21st century with the betting apps now.
Matt Brown (30:12):
Adam, so let’s put a bow on this episode with the Fanatics news here. We know we have been at least operating under the beta in Tennessee and Ohio, a couple other states, but that is no longer.
Adam Candee (30:26):
No. Four states have had the beta launch, and the beta launch essentially meant that you had to be a previous Fanatics customer, and they were going to let you in the door to get a look at that app. And it served for them as a good bug-hunting period as well to make sure that the product was going to be up to speed here in mid-August. As they get ready for NFL Week 1, it is now open to everyone in their initial states. So we will see what Fanatics can do.
(30:51):
I, again, probably remain a little bit higher on Fanatics than some people just because I think they are the ones who have the ability to grow the pie, and they also have that … What should we call it? An X factor of a billionaire who don’t care, who will just throw money at the whole thing. So maybe.
Matt Brown (31:11):
Yeah. I mean, look, again, I have brought this up a couple of other times, but having gone with our very own Eric Ramsey and Brett Collson out to the National Collectors Convention in Chicago this past year, Fanatics is about to almost have a monopoly on that as well, right? I mean, they’re going to have the official rights to everything except for baseball, which Topps has. And so that’s even another way to reach potential customers is even through that type of stuff. And so there’s a lot of different avenues, Dustin, when it comes down to it, that Fanatics can at least reach out.
(31:47):
Now, we have no idea whether it’s going to convert or not. I mean, all we’re ever doing with any of this stuff is like, “Hey, these are at least hot leads.” Now, whether that actually leads to conversions or not, we don’t really know, but these are at least pretty, pretty hot leads considering these people are willing to spend money on sports in some way, shape, or fashion.
Dustin Gouker (32:05):
Yeah. And this is different, right? We haven’t seen something wholly different into the market in a while, right? ESPN really isn’t even different. This is going to be … Fanatics’ whole value proposition is different. Whether that translates? Yeah, who knows. But right now, different is good and trying … Again, tapping into customers and into fans in a different way, hey, it could work. It might also flop spectacularly, but I’d rather bet on different than same old, same old.
Matt Brown (32:34):
Tell you what, sports cards are expensive these days. If you could start using your Fanatics cash or your Fanatics bucks or whatever it is to get some of them sports cards, man, I’ll tell you, that would save me some money for sure. Certainly save Eric Ramsey some money and Brett as well. So we’ll see how that all pans out. Guys, everything we do, absolutely free, so we do appreciate your support by … Go ahead and hit the pause button, give us a little five-star review for listening on the audio side and hit that subscribe button. That would be awesome. And if you’re watching us over on the video side of things, hello, I know we are so incredibly handsome.
(33:02):
You could go ahead and hit that subscribe button down there as well and give us a thumbs up. It’ll help more people find the page as we continue to grow everything over there. As always, legalsportsreport.com for everything we talk about here, all of the great words Adam and team are putting together. Please go in and get the full, full in-detail, in-depth reporting on all of this stuff. For Dustin, for Adam, I’m Matt. Talk to you guys next week.