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00:00Everybody is buzzing about the hockey game last night.
00:03The Four Nations final was last night,
00:05and wouldn't you know, Team Canada comes out on top
00:09and in glorious fashion, three to two in overtime.
00:14Connor McDavid, the all-world player,
00:16arguably one of the very best in the NHL,
00:18if not the best, ended up scoring the game-winning goal,
00:22and it lived up to the billing,
00:24one of the most exciting tournaments we've ever seen,
00:27probably in the history of hockey as well,
00:29fair to say.
00:30So Canada ends up winning.
00:31They raise the trophy, as you see there.
00:33John Cooper, Connor McDavid,
00:35talked about taking the trophy home
00:37for their country afterward.
00:39Well, it was, you know,
00:42when you come into these short tournaments,
00:44you're trying to put players in position to succeed.
00:48You know, the first move was,
00:50Braden Point's been a center all his life,
00:52and I thought putting Point with McDavid
00:58was gonna help the speed factor,
01:02and it was just where Point was gonna be comfortable
01:04playing the wing, and he surely was,
01:07and he proved that.
01:08And so, you know, Stoney was,
01:12I thought that line had great chemistry,
01:14but, you know, ultimately in the end,
01:16as that game went on, Mitch had legs tonight,
01:20and that kid can make plays,
01:23and as we saw tonight,
01:26he just needed one chance to make a play, and he did,
01:28and just, you know, it comes down to a gut feel
01:33on how the guys are going,
01:34and I felt that those three guys could do it,
01:39and they did.
01:41Yeah, really exciting.
01:44Just found a way.
01:45You know, I thought that was, you know,
01:48I thought everyone played tolerant.
01:52I wasn't great all night,
01:53but, you know, we just found a way tonight.
01:56Can you describe your feeling, Connor?
01:59Yeah, obviously it means a lot to our group.
02:02You know, I think a lot of people were wondering if,
02:04you know, what this tournament would mean to guys,
02:06and obviously you can see what it means to everyone
02:08on our side.
02:09You know, it was, yeah, really exciting.
02:13As far as Team USA, they come up one game short,
02:16one overtime short.
02:17Here's Mike Sullivan, the coach,
02:18on being honored to coach them all the way through.
02:21Yeah, they were a great group to coach.
02:24It was an incredible honor to coach these guys.
02:27There's a lot of familiarity and relationships
02:31that these guys have,
02:32from whether it's playing
02:34at the National Development Program,
02:35or a lot of these guys have played together
02:37in international play,
02:39even though they might play on separate teams in the NHL.
02:43We could tell early on as a coach and staff
02:45that these guys really enjoyed being around one another,
02:49and I think those,
02:51I think that chemistry carried on to the ice.
02:55So, you know, we talked to them from day one.
02:58I shared this with you guys,
02:59that we felt one of the biggest challenges
03:01in tournaments like this is to become a team.
03:04And I, you know, I thought they did an incredible job.
03:09You know, you have to accept roles
03:12that maybe you're not accustomed to playing
03:14when you put a group of players like this together.
03:16To a man, every guy brought so much professionalism,
03:20was willing to play any sort of role
03:23to try to help the team win.
03:25Couldn't be more proud of this group.
03:29And I thought, you know, just to be around them,
03:32you could feel how much they cared,
03:37not only about performance, but also about one another.
03:40As far as the MVP of the Four Nations Series,
03:44it ended up being Nathan McKinnon.
03:46He takes home the trophy.
03:47He was the most valuable player,
03:50as we now get back to the rest of the NHL season
03:52coming up next week.
03:53All right, ESPN and Major League Baseball
03:55make a joint announcement,
03:57which probably surprises a lot of people,
04:00because you're not gonna see baseball on ESPN anymore
04:02after this season.
04:03Once the contract comes to a close,
04:05they have mutually agreed to opt out
04:07of the final three years of their deal,
04:09according to The Athletic.
04:11ESPN also released a statement saying
04:12that in making the decision,
04:14they applied the same discipline, fiscal responsibility
04:16that has built ESPN to their industry-leading
04:18live event portfolio.
04:21As they continue to grow the audience,
04:22linear digital and social platforms
04:24been through the process,
04:25remain open to explore new ways to serve
04:28Major League Baseball.
04:29Major League Baseball actually released a statement
04:31before ESPN.
04:32They said that they don't believe that paid TV
04:35and ESPN's primary distribution platform
04:37is the future of video distribution
04:40or the best platform for content.
04:41Furthermore, we have not been pleased
04:43with the minimal coverage that Major League Baseball
04:45has received from ESPN.
04:47Essentially, Major League Baseball is opting out.
04:50Meanwhile, how about not playing?
04:52That's the story with Victor Wembayama.
04:54Can you believe it?
04:55Gonna miss the remainder of the season
04:57for the San Antonio Spurs with reported blood clots.
05:01Very scary situation for Wemby.
05:03We've seen this happen in sports before.
05:05Hopefully he can return healthy next season.
05:07Meanwhile, the Spurs beat the Suns without him.
05:10120 to 109, De'Aaron Fox had 11 straight points
05:13in the final three minutes.
05:14He had 26 points, nine rebounds, and seven assists.
05:18LeBron James is 40 years old and he had 40 points again.
05:21The Lakers beat the Trail Blazers 110 to 102.
05:24He had eight straight points in the fourth quarter.
05:25Luka sat this game out.
05:27Also, Jamal Murray had 34 points.
05:29Denver has been red hot over the last month.
05:32They beat the Hornets 129 to 115.
05:34They have now won nine straight games.
05:36Joker had 29 points, 17 rebounds, and nine assists.
05:40And Giannis is back for the Bucs.
05:41He had 23 points.
05:42And Milwaukee completed a 13 point fourth quarter
05:45comeback to when they beat the Clippers
05:46in a game that was more or less even
05:48in terms of point spread, 116 to 110.
05:51One of the best teams in the East keeps winning.
05:52The Cleveland Cavaliers beat the Brooklyn Nets 110 to 97.
05:56I believe this landed right on the number of 13.
05:59The Cavs 45 and 10 and 40 and 0 this season.
06:02When they lead after three quarters, that's incredible.
06:04Jason Tatum, Peyton Pritchard.
06:06The Celtics beat the 76ers at seven point favorites.
06:09They won by 20.
06:10So you know they covered there.
06:12The Knicks did not cover against the Bulls 113 to 111.
06:15In overtime, Carl Anthony Towns had 32 points and 18 rebounds.
06:18Brunson had 22.
06:19And the Pacers had a 50 point second quarter
06:22and they beat the Grizzlies by a final score of 127 to 113.
06:26Top 25 action in college basketball
06:29included Maryland's game last night
06:31as they beat USC by 17 points, 88 to 71.
06:35The Terrapins are now 21 and 6 on the season
06:37and 11 and 5 in the Big 10.
06:39Northwestern beat Ohio State and Columbus 70 to 49.
06:43And LaSalle's head coach, Fran Dunphy,
06:45has decided to retire at the end of the season.
06:48The legendary coach who has spent 30 years
06:50coaching in Philadelphia, Penn Temple and LaSalle,
06:5217 NCAA tournament appearances.
06:55He'll call it quits at the end of the game.
06:57All right, the first time ever we saw a challenge
06:59of balls and strikes in a major league baseball game
07:01in a spring training game,
07:03the pitcher was Cubs pitcher Cody Poteet,
07:05who challenged a ball strike call and he tested the ABS.
07:08And we're gonna see a lot more of this
07:10now that the games begin today.
07:11The Cubs won the game 12 to four.
07:13That was the final score.
07:14Five games across baseball today.
07:16His opening day is coming up.
07:17Yankees raise, Dodgers Cubs, Rangers Royals,
07:20Rockies against Corbin Burns with his debut
07:23in the Diamondbacks and then the Mariners
07:25take on the Padres later.
07:26Meanwhile, no more jokes about Don Mattingly
07:29on the Simpsons and no sideburns.
07:31The days of having to shave as a New York Yankee
07:35have come to an end, or at least have been relaxed.
07:38Hal Steinbrenner, the owner of the Yankees,
07:40said that they have decided to allow well-groomed beards
07:44effective immediately.
07:46How about that?
07:47After 50 years of Yankee baseball,
07:49100 years of Yankee baseball.
07:51Andrew Heaney has signed with the Pittsburgh Pirates.
07:53Pitcher signs a one-year $5.25 million deal
07:58as the remaining free agents are trying
08:00to get themselves ready and get into camp
08:02with opening day now less than just about one month away.
08:07We are so fortunate to have Pat Evans back with us
08:10for a three-peat here on Newswire this week.
08:13I don't even have to pay for that, by the way.
08:16Pat Riley's not gonna come calling for me.
08:18I didn't make a T-shirt or anything like that.
08:20But Pat is back with us from Legal Sports Report
08:22and Pat, more topics to go over today, I guess.
08:25I mean, it's unbelievable how many topics
08:27I can bring in during a week.
08:29And thankfully, you get a relief from me on Monday
08:31when Sam comes back.
08:32So you're lucky.
08:34And tonight, hopefully I get a good weekend
08:35with a Michigan State win over Michigan.
08:37But we'll see how that goes today.
08:39A big Friday college basketball game.
08:41I kinda like that.
08:42Usually Saturday is reserved for that, but all right.
08:44All right, so I wish we had better news
08:46to start off with here,
08:47but we are just telling you how it is.
08:49Texas sports betting bill.
08:51We're gonna find out pretty soon
08:52if this is gonna go one way or the other.
08:53And unfortunately, it doesn't seem like
08:55we're making much progress here.
08:57No, and it's not totally surprising.
08:59I mean, I know I've been coming on here a lot this year
09:02talking about all the momentum that's been building,
09:04but all that's been with that caveat of,
09:07you know, in the Senate,
09:08you have Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick saying
09:10it's very unlikely that he'll bring sports betting
09:13to a vote.
09:13And that's because in general,
09:15it's not a majority Republican supported bill.
09:18It needs the bipartisanship.
09:20It is Republican sponsored,
09:22but you know, he is the stopgap there.
09:27Even though Governor Greg Abbott has come out
09:29and said he won't be in the way of it.
09:32So that's kinda there.
09:34What did happen though is kind of the House makeup changed.
09:38And if you remember in 2023,
09:41a online sports betting bill did pass the House
09:43with its 100 votes that was needed
09:46for two thirds majority in the House,
09:50which it needs in both chambers
09:51because it's a constitutional amendment,
09:53which then goes to a public vote.
09:56And this year you've got two bills,
09:58including one for online sports betting,
10:00one for casino destination resorts and sports betting,
10:03both introduced by Republican representatives.
10:07So that's, you know, a good sign for starters.
10:10It'll get started moving.
10:11But for those who think it can kind of take the same path
10:14and pass as it did in the House in 2023,
10:17a little bit of a problem.
10:19There's 26 new representatives that are Republicans,
10:22many of which are against sports betting
10:24and gambling expansion,
10:26which puts that 100 vote milestone kind of in limbo.
10:30And of course you'd have to pass the House
10:32to get to that Senate
10:33because there isn't a Republican Senate sponsor
10:36for sports betting yet.
10:37So Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick still is saying,
10:40you know what, we don't have the Republican support
10:42in the Senate, it's a no-go.
10:44And the biggest quote in a Dallas Morning News story
10:47recently kind of outlining this
10:49was from a representative, Matt Shaheen,
10:52and he said, I have a whole coalition of organizations
10:55and we're going to make sure it's dead,
10:56it's six feet under, it's not going to pass the House.
11:00So if you've got to rub that dug in against it,
11:02it doesn't look great.
11:04I mean, even though you've got lots of organizations
11:06in the state fighting for it,
11:07lots of money from the sports teams and owners
11:10and casino magnate, Miriam Adelson,
11:13you know, again, lots of momentum going,
11:15but because of that one big problem in the Senate
11:18and the majority of the Texas GOP
11:20being against gambling expansion,
11:22Texas looks like another year of long shots
11:25and it will likely be waiting until 2027.
11:28But again, you never know, anything can happen.
11:30That's why these sessions are in progress.
11:33Yeah, you never know until the vote comes in.
11:35All right, so, you know, what I find fascinating
11:38is some of the new responsible gaming ads, Pat,
11:41are really focused more around accepting the fact
11:46that people and younger people are going to bet on sports,
11:51which I don't know that we would have guessed
11:52these kinds of ads would have been around five years ago,
11:54but I think we've come to the foregone conclusion
11:57that it's going to happen.
11:58And so over at this website, knowyourplay.org,
12:01that's the new responsible gambling website
12:05that they have up, it seems to just simply focus
12:07on younger people who are betting
12:10and making sure they just understand
12:11what their limits should be.
12:13And that's, you know, a pivot
12:15from where we were several years ago,
12:16where people just said, don't bet if you can.
12:18Now it's like, all right, if you are, just be careful, right?
12:22Yeah, I mean, when this started, you know, in 2018,
12:25the big wave of legalization,
12:26it was important to note the importance of regulation.
12:29We talk about that all the time,
12:30about bringing it into the light,
12:31making sure consumer protections are there.
12:33And I think this is the next step.
12:36And it is because we are seeing lots of headwinds.
12:38We've talked about the US congressional hearings,
12:40the US bills that are being considered
12:43to put nationwide frameworks in this.
12:46We've seen a lot of action at the state level
12:49talking about responsible gambling being more important,
12:51more advertising restrictions and the like.
12:54Well, the Responsible Online Gaming Association,
12:57which is made up of nine of the operators
13:00in the sports betting industry,
13:01including FanDuel, DraftKings, BetMGM,
13:04you know, they've put out this Know Your Play campaign.
13:10It's, to your point, focused at college age demographics,
13:14not necessarily college students,
13:16it's just that age of demographics,
13:18which people often say is the riskiest demographic
13:21when you're getting into sports betting and gambling.
13:24And it is all about kind of teaching them
13:27just the things you laid out.
13:28You know, know your limits,
13:29know the mental health aspects of this
13:32and how it can become a problem, things like that.
13:35And it is a lot of online resources,
13:37but they are going to do in-person seminars
13:40and workshops on college campuses.
13:43They said they're also gonna have pilot programs
13:45at a few special, you know, certain colleges to do this.
13:50And I think this is just another step
13:51from all these operators who, you know,
13:53at times it might've felt sometimes,
13:56you know, I'm not saying it is,
13:57I know a lot of the people at these organizations
13:59and they do care about responsible gambling
14:01and worrying about addiction and the like,
14:04but a lot of times it could have felt,
14:05and for people who are against the industry might feel,
14:09it's a lot of lip service about responsible gambling.
14:11But I think this is another big step
14:13in the right direction of saying,
14:14hey, no, we really wanna take proactive steps
14:16in helping make sure this doesn't become
14:19a big societal problem because we know the importance
14:22of having a regulated industry
14:23and we don't want it to become a bad problem in the country.
14:27Yeah, yeah, no doubt, makes sense.
14:29All right, you know, March Madness is coming here
14:32and it looks like two teams from Alabama here, Pat,
14:34are maybe gonna be one seeds in the NCAA tournament.
14:37My gosh, the state of Alabama is missing
14:39a nice opportunity here to bet on sports
14:42and it doesn't look like that's coming anytime soon.
14:44No, it doesn't, and you know, I think to your point,
14:47that could be something that the lawmakers in Alabama
14:50might say, hey, wait a second, look at this,
14:52this is incredible, we've got our football teams
14:54that are great, we've got, you know,
14:56these basketball teams that are great this year,
14:58what can we do?
14:59But coming into this session,
15:00we knew last year a bill got through the House
15:03to legalize sports betting, casino gaming, and a lottery,
15:06it's one of five states without a lottery,
15:09and it fell on deaf ears in the Senate,
15:12completely stripped and then fell apart
15:14in a conference committee.
15:16And that's kind of an interesting note
15:17because the House, you know, built their bill
15:21on a bill that had passed in previous years in the Senate.
15:24And so this year coming in,
15:25the House kind of threw their hands up in the air
15:27and said, you know, it needs to start in the Senate.
15:30And well, this week, Senator Gregg Albritton,
15:33who's kind of been the champion of this issue
15:35of late in the Senate, the last couple of years said,
15:38I can't even introduce or won't introduce legislation
15:42because I know I'm at least a voter too short
15:45of potential passage in Alabama.
15:48And that's just kind of been how it's been in Alabama.
15:51You know, you've got these chambers
15:52that are just kind of a tug of war situation,
15:54not sure what they wanna do.
15:56We've talked, you know, over the last couple of years
15:58about kind of just the block of conservative voters
16:01in the Southeast that are very anti-gambling.
16:04And I think that's very true in Alabama,
16:06but I do think to your point,
16:08maybe having both college football
16:10and college basketball being a big thing in that state now,
16:13maybe they do say, hey,
16:14this is something our Alabamians want.
16:17And that is something we've seen in polls.
16:19Why don't we go ahead and do that?
16:23So we'll see.
16:24And then, you know, I just wanna throw this in
16:27because before coming on,
16:28I saw a bill pop up in our bill tracker
16:31that, you know, earlier this week,
16:32we talked about Vermont lawmakers
16:35introducing a bill to repeal sports betting.
16:38We just saw a bill of similar vein pop up in Maryland.
16:41So, you know, we talked about it
16:43potentially becoming a, you know, trend
16:46and there you have it.
16:47We've got a second state already
16:48with introduction of repealing sports betting.
16:52Wow, I mean, Maryland, I mean, that's a significant state.
16:55I mean, I don't wanna go dig in on Vermont again.
16:57I was already getting mad there.
17:00Maryland, that's a big state for all sports
17:02and, you know, certainly some of the biggest teams,
17:06the Orioles, the Ravens, and, you know, right next to DC.
17:08Boy, we'll keep an eye on that.
17:09Maybe we'll talk about that next week, Pat.
17:11Have a great weekend.
17:12Enjoy the basketball tonight
17:14and we will wish your Spartans good luck.
17:16Thanks for coming on.
17:17Awesome, thanks, Craig.
17:17Talk to you soon.