Great promo....big impact for a relatively "mini" budget.

Ed, given the broader adoption and the prop betting on individual, atomistic events in games, I suspect that this is for sure only the tip of the iceberg.

Ooops ... losing.

Ray, the news trust is not loosing just in the USA, and on one particulkat source.

Dave, I bet that it will (or already) cause lots of people and families crumble into bankruptcy and lose their abode.

Interesting point about the value of data. I have seen countless online projects try (and fail) to make a business out of sharing the value of consumer data with the consumer.

FYI this Frank McCourt is different from the author of Angela's Ashes, who passed away in 2009. This Frank McCourt is mostly known as the former of the Dodgers, current owner of European iconic soccer team Olympique de Marseille and promoter of a controversial gondola that would link Downtown LA to Dodgers Stadium. According to Wikipedia, This Frank McCourt made his fortune in real estate in Boston.

Robert, thanks so much for your comments. I think that you nailed some of the key issues, moving gambling from margin to mainstream, and the celebration of the payout, not the play. I truly hope that we can find ways to dial the sports gambling back, as hard as it might be to accomplish.

Not much into gambling as I don't like to lose money, plus I suck at spreads of games college football in those college pick'em games just for fun. I wasn't surprised by the NBA gambling scandal, I was shocked that Mr. Big Shot Billups had ties to the mafia to rig poker games. 

I was big fan of Mr. Big Shot Billups when he was on the Pistons and led them to the NBA Championship in 2003-04 season, which Billups is done as NBA head coach and isn't ever going to coach again as well kinda surprised that the Blazers didn't fire Billups after last season in my opinion.   

Great column, Dave! Here’re my two cents, before I lose them betting on the Knicks. Sports gambling has always lived on the margins, but now that it’s mainstream, things have changed. What used to celebrate athletic talent, discipline and teamwork now glorifies the payout instead of the play. That’s a shame, when you consider the shared joys and heartbreaks that make sports one of the few things we still experience together.

The NBA "scandal" is only the beginning, Dave. It's only a matter of time before something much better organized and worse happens--not only to basketball but to the others as well. Dancing  with the devil in pursuit of the all mighty dollar is a dangerous game--as the leagues should know---but do they? Maybe they think that whatever happens can be covered up--LOL on that.

I'm not a Puritan either.  Don't think the moves to integrate fandom so tightly with gambling is healthy in any way, shape or form.   AND...working on an alternative course.

June's dad, Gene, was a well know character actor you see in many movies of the 1930s and 1940s--he played Bob  Cratchit in a late 1930s version of The Christmas Carol and June played one of his children in the same movie. 

Both these Senators are despicable frauds. I would be against this bill strictly cuz neither of these clowns can be trusted in the slightest. Blumenthal is the lowest form of life: A 'stolen valor' liar. Hawley is a kneepads actor for Silicon Valley with a ton of skeletons and D.C. ladyfriends who talks tough but is intentionally impotent politically when push comes to shove.

Both men are controlled, but I guess 'who isn't?' in The Bottomless Swamp That Never Ends. Nearly every member of Congress should be jailed for sedition at best, treason at worst, both parties, full stop. This manufactured ideological split over the most minor stuff imaginable needs to end.

NBC only airing one game ET/CT get Knicks VS Bucks & PT/MT get Clippers VS Warriors east coast & centeral only can watch on Peacock if they signed up for it. Just like those on the west coast and in the rockies can only watch the early game on Peacock NBC calls it NBA Coast To Coast. Game 3 of the World Series was a thriller going 18 inngs last night. I'll watch a little bit of both along with the Redwings VS Blues.

I guess this rancid ad technique might generate some awareness. But, seriously... who gives a f**k about some NBA players? Would you seriously buy a car today without reading online review? Or seeing what Doug de Muro and similar reviewers have to say about it? It seems such an old-fashioned way of doing things. As someone who has considered an EV (all of my neighbors have at least one) that some mercenary player poses with it is like the least of my checkboxes.

Paul, one of the best sources re TV ad attentiv3ness omes from TVision's ongoing panel of about 5,000 homes with 15,000 residents using camcorders and ACR sets to track visual ad attentiveness. They find that on average viewers have their eyes on-screen only 20-25% ofthe time when TV commercials on while the figure fror program content is about ten points higher. The rest of the time the viewer is either not in the room or is looking elsewhere--though the latter does not automatically mean zero communication--we can "watch" passively as  well as at full visual attention. 

I should add that the attentiveness measurements show much worse findings--espeially re dwell time ---for digital video ads, especially on social media--all of which we report on to our Media Dynamics Inc subscribers.

Thanks for the comment Ed. I hadn't seen your research. It sounds like it deserves a wider audience. Your eyes-on-screen stat is quite an eyebrow raiser itself. I'm sure you have more accurate data but my admittedly fuzzy math suggests that on that basis, we might be wasting $40 Billion a year on TV ad spend too. (That's the GDP of Cyprus...)

From the company that shares its acronym and logo with a far-left extremist cable channel

Yeahhhhhh.....good luck with that.

Remember CNN's much-mocked "This is a banana" campaign? How about the New York Times award-winning/self-owning "The Truth Is Hard"? 

You can't market your way out of a reputation as a liar, NBC. You can only start telling the Truth. Take it from me! 

Those major corporations were always on Trump's side from the beginning.Intimidated is what they want you to think, but that's not reality. 

A classic and beautiful ad.

I thought that the mafia was no more I thought those mafia famlies went into being in honest work than being in a gambling ring surprised their is even illeagal gambling as I thought that would've ended when most states got into sports betting. Mr. Big Shot Billups is done and isn't going to ever be a head coach again in the NBA or college in my opinion, I was surprised about Billups was a big fan of him when he played for the Pistons and a core member when the Pistons won the NBA Championship in 2003-04 season.

The NBA will be fine for the most part sure it's a black eye for the NBA but their 80 Years old and have had many scandals and they all have passed and this will to as well in my opinion. I was surprised by Mr. Big Shot Billups as he was one of the Pistons core in 2003-04 season to win the NBA Championship for the Pistons that year I was a big fan of Billups.

Billups is done as NBA coach in my opinion was surprised that he didn't get fired from the Blazers after last season he isn't a very good coach. No way he is going to coach again anywhere sure not the NBA or college. And I thought the Mofia was no more I thought the famlies were doing an honest living I guess not.