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00:00Well, let's get started with this crazy story that broke yesterday, courtesy, by the way,
00:05of Sports Illustrated.
00:06Great reporting here.
00:07As a reporter, I got to tell you, this is a story that takes a long time to uncover.
00:12Notre Dame, their swim team, why are we leading with the swim team on the show?
00:15I'm going to tell you why.
00:17Their men's swim team were running this pseudo gambling operation.
00:20Yes, this is true.
00:22The team essentially was investigated and it was revealed that they had a gambling issue
00:28that violated NCAA rules.
00:31According to this report, allegedly, the staff were not aware that the students and student
00:35athletes had their own swimming sports book for the purpose of wagering on their own swimming
00:42performances.
00:43I mean, as crazy as it sounds, this is according to sources.
00:46Now remember, now a majority of the returning team is believed to have placed bets over
00:51underlines that were established for a swimmer's times in different races they participated
00:56in with wagers being placed on the outcomes.
01:00Now of course, there are no gambling companies in the United States that take wagers or produce
01:04betting lines on college swimming.
01:07So needless to say, a story that has just broken yesterday that will have to follow
01:12the Notre Dame swim team in very serious jeopardy of not having a team at this point.
01:17All right, on the PGA Tour, let's get to the very latest on the St. Jude leaderboard, a
01:22tournament we'll be following through the weekend.
01:24Right now, limited players playing in this, by the way, this week, a different kind of
01:27tournament but some stars, as you see Hideki Masayama's playing, he's six under par.
01:31Danny McCarthy is eight under as it stands right now as they're well underway with day
01:35two.
01:36Sam Burns is eight under.
01:37Chris Kirk, who had a great day, great start to his day yesterday, I believe Chris Kirk
01:40had a hole in one.
01:41Six under par has not teed off yet today, Victor Hovland also in the mix at five under.
01:46All right, college football playoff making an important announcement going into the season.
01:50It's going to be very hard to unpack all these new rules.
01:53We'll try to explain them to you as the season goes along because you're going to think that
01:56maybe your favorite college football team is out of the playoff and they have a chance
02:00and you'll think they're in and they're really out.
02:02But here's another rule that has been incorporated so you can understand it.
02:05The college football committee has decided that the conference champions as one of its
02:11tiebreakers because of the new 12 team format is out.
02:15So conference championship doesn't mean anything like it used to.
02:20It's just the guaranteed bids for the five highest ranked conference winners.
02:25That is what's going into this new protocol.
02:26It was approved by the FBS and Notre Dame.
02:29Of course, they are independent.
02:30They decided for the 12 team format this fall, but they wanted to place the emphasis more
02:35on winning than a conference title.
02:37So naturally, this changes the landscape of college football.
02:39Just another footnote in the upcoming crazy college football season, which will preview
02:44the games with Bill Bender of Sporting News coming up in less than 10 minutes from now.
02:48Last night in NFL preseason action, did you catch any of it?
02:52Probably not.
02:53It's okay.
02:54The Eagles beat the Patriots 14 to 13 yesterday.
02:56Gerard Mayo, who won his first preseason game as the head coach of the Patriots against
03:00the Carolina Panthers.
03:01Boy, the Patriots did sort of fall flat.
03:03That 13 point outcome sort of what we expected, although they didn't go crazy in the first
03:07game either.
03:08Strangely enough, head coach of the Patriots, Gerard Mayo, felt like he took this one on
03:12the chin a little bit for a regular season game.
03:14Post game sounded pretty depressed.
03:17Look, obviously that one kind of stings.
03:20First loss as the head coach and just like last week, we talked about this game being
03:24very important, especially after we practiced against this team and I felt like the guys
03:30were ready to go.
03:31I just got to do a better job making sure that we focus on the details across the board.
03:36And I always believe in good fundamentals really outweighs the X's and O's if you look
03:40at the game.
03:41The first half we tackled a lot better than we did the second half.
03:46It's just about, it's those three or four plays that always bite you.
03:49That's what I told the team.
03:50The problem is you just never know when those plays are going to show up.
03:53So back to the drawing board.
03:55Yeah, as I would say, Gerard, it's okay.
03:58It's just the preseason in the NFL.
04:00I mean, you have a long way to go in the season.
04:03Anyway, the Atlanta Falcons, they just keep piling on players.
04:05They got Judon the other day.
04:07They now have had Justin Simmons to the mix.
04:09They signed him to a new contract.
04:11So he joins a very talented defense for Atlanta, both offense and defense, by the way.
04:15Matt Milano, linebacker of the Buffalo Bills.
04:17He tore his bicep.
04:18He's going to be out indefinitely, one of the better linebackers in the NFL.
04:22And also an announcement made yesterday that Jim Harbaugh, who is trying to assist Colin
04:26Kaepernick somehow for getting back in the NFL, maybe not as a player, but as a coach,
04:31he announces yesterday that Kaepernick will not join the Chargers coaching staff going
04:35into the season.
04:36You may have seen clips recently from Kaepernick.
04:38It sounds like he still wants to play in the NFL, although it's been, it feels like a decade
04:42or more.
04:43The National Football League is going to debut on a Thursday night, but then the second game
04:46of the season, yes, is on a Friday night and they're going to play in Brazil.
04:50So the NFL makes the announcement yesterday that these pop-up shops are in.
04:55You've heard about these, I'm sure, all over the country, but outside of the country as
04:59well.
05:00Brazil is going to have six stores put together by the NFL and Fanatics ahead of that.
05:05So if any of you are watching overseas and you're looking to buy some gear, you will
05:08have your opportunity there.
05:10Ohio State is named their starting quarterback.
05:12It is transfer Will Howard from Kansas State.
05:15Started 28 games for K-State and the Wildcats won the 2022 Big 12 title, 48 touchdowns with
05:21Kansas State.
05:22Pretty good quarterback.
05:23We'll get an opportunity to play again this year.
05:25By the way, high school football also getting underway.
05:27A lot of kids making their high school football debuts tonight and next week as well as school
05:33is back underway, but unfortunately a very difficult story to tell in Rome, Georgia.
05:38A high school team had a car accident and 11 kids were injured in the team and had to
05:44cancel their first game tonight.
05:46So I want to wish the very best for those kids and hopefully they can get back on the
05:49football field soon.
05:51All across the country, high school football returning this evening at the very least for
05:55scrimmages and then, you know, everyone is playing next week and then Labor Day weekend
05:59as well.
06:00All right, Christian Yelich, he will not be playing for the Milwaukee Brewers anytime
06:03soon.
06:04He's had this back injury that's plagued him throughout his career and he's finally decided
06:08to do something serious about it, although it's going to cost him the rest of the season.
06:11He's having back surgery, the dreaded back surgery, which sometimes could keep you out
06:16for a few months and sometimes you miss a full year.
06:18We've seen this before.
06:19Who knows with Yelich what will happen, but it sounded like in a video that he posted
06:23yesterday, just sick and tired of missing time with it.
06:25So we wish him the best too.
06:26The Brewers beat the Dodgers six to four.
06:28The Dodgers lead the NLS by just two games right now.
06:33What happened to the Dodgers winning 110 games and winning the division by 20?
06:36That's not happening.
06:37The Phillies beat the Nationals 13 to three.
06:39Weston Wilson is the first Phillies rookie to hit for a cycle 13 to three.
06:44The final Wilson hit a ball into the gap.
06:46It was almost caught, wouldn't have been a cycle, but ended up getting a double to complete
06:49it.
06:50The athletics have approved their Las Vegas stadium, or at least it's getting close as
06:55they said at a board meeting yesterday, they're rounding third, heading for home.
07:00So hopefully there is no block at the plate as Las Vegas and the A's are a match.
07:05Indianapolis is the next destination of the 2025 all-star game in the WNBA.
07:12So they go from the NBA to the WNBA and with Kaitlin Clark playing for the Indiana Fever,
07:17that does make some sense.
07:19The Liberty yesterday beat the Sparks.
07:21Get this folks.
07:22They were, I believe, 11 point favorites.
07:24They win the game.
07:26First game out of the break, 103 to 68 in Los Angeles.
07:31Breonna Stewart, 27 points there yesterday.
07:35The Mercury, also a big favorite.
07:36They end up winning 85 to 65 in Chicago.
07:40And then the Minnesota Lynx defeated the very dismal Washington Mystics, 79 to 68.
07:47Those were the three WNBA games that debuted back yesterday after the all-star break ended.
07:52But coming up next, our college football slumber is almost officially over.
07:57The first games of the season, week zero, are one week from tomorrow.
08:04Bill Bender will be with us to preview the games next.
08:07Don't go away.
08:08Welcome back to Newswire here on Sports Grid.
08:11We've got another crazy sports betting story.
08:14This one really is, by the way, I should say, great job investigating by Sports Illustrated
08:20to have this kind of detail revealed, albeit again, allegations at this point before truth.
08:26Want to mention that, but let's bring in Matthew Waters to talk about this Notre Dame sportsbook
08:33for swimming stories.
08:35Now, Matt, I did this in the open and discussed it a little bit, just how crazy it seems that
08:42the swimming team at Notre Dame could concoct this idea to open up a sportsbook for their
08:48own swimmers, I'm guessing, for their own team, I'm guessing.
08:52And it also remains to be seen if anybody on the outside was really betting on this
08:56stuff too.
08:57I mean, the layers of this story, I think we've only scratched the surface on.
09:00Yeah, Craig, like you said, great reporting.
09:03It was such an interesting read because we have had, obviously, gambling issues at the
09:09amateur professional level, but this one is different, right?
09:13I mean, this is just, you could frame it a couple of different ways.
09:17You could frame it the way that it's being framed, that it's a gambling violation and
09:21you can't be doing this.
09:22You can also frame it as, hey, there's a bunch of guys in the locker room having some fun
09:26and maybe you could even say that we're trying to motivate each other with the lines they
09:29were trying to set with the races, right?
09:32But yeah, still goes against those rules, doesn't it, Craig?
09:36And that's what the release from Notre Dame said.
09:39It said, you know, we looked into this and it was deeper than we even thought it could
09:43be and yeah, it goes against the rules and they're going to suspend them for at least
09:47a year.
09:48And, you know, it is good to see that teams are taking this kind of thing seriously.
09:54Obviously, we have seen what can happen when they don't.
09:58We've had in a couple of states some pretty big issues opening up where it seems like
10:02maybe if somebody was paying attention, it would have stopped a little earlier.
10:07But this is a really interesting one and you wonder, you know, well, if the Notre Dame
10:13men's swimming team had an internal pool, let's call it that way, an internal pool going
10:19with bets, who else might have that, right?
10:22Is this something that happens in every locker room?
10:25I mean, obviously, there's a difference between, you know, two buddies sitting in the dugout,
10:31comes up for him to hit the on-deck circle and looking at him saying, you know, 10 bucks,
10:34you won't smack it out, compared to actually setting betting lines and taking over-unders
10:40and all that kind of stuff.
10:43Really wild story.
10:45Interested to see what more can come out of it.
10:47And like you said, the different way that the details fall on this, Craig, can lead
10:51us in a couple different directions.
10:53But what we do know right now is that the team will be suspended at least a year.
10:58And you have to figure that Notre Dame is going to be taking things a little more seriously
11:05on campus when it comes to watching out for gambling.
11:07Yeah.
11:08I mean, you could bet on a lot of different things with swimming, too.
11:10The amount of strokes you take, how long you're under the water for.
11:13I mean, I have a feeling we've, again, we're going to get a lot more revealed in this story
11:18in the future.
11:19We just found out about it yesterday.
11:21OK.
11:22So a story that was out last week, we didn't talk about it a ton here on Newswire, is this
11:27company called Intralot.
11:29Now, Matt, I think we should catch people up with who this company is.
11:32They're being investigated right now.
11:35I know that they're based out of Washington, D.C., and they were prominent in the sports
11:39betting market there.
11:40So before I go any further, I'm going to turn this one over to you.
11:42Who is Intralot and what are they under investigation for?
11:46Yeah, well, Intralot, Craig, actually, they're a Greek company that is a lottery provider
11:53and they also offer sports betting as well.
11:56So Intralot works with a lot of the U.S. lotteries, providing their draw-based games and their
12:02lottery systems and all that kind of stuff.
12:05Intralot was also the provider of sports betting in Washington, D.C., and that happened
12:11because a certain congressman, council member, excuse me, pushed for there to be a no-bid
12:17contract in D.C. and he basically just said, look, let's give the deal to Intralot.
12:23They're already our lottery provider.
12:26If we don't, if we don't get this up and running as fast as we can, we could lose, I believe
12:31he said something like $60 million over a little over two years, as council member Jack
12:37Evans did.
12:38And you know what, Craig?
12:40It turned out that Jack Evans was a little dirty and he was in bed with people that were
12:44getting kickbacks from Intralot and he was removed from the council.
12:49Now Intralot just did a terrible job with D.C. sports betting and was kicked out.
12:55They now have a different way to do sports betting in D.C. with the market being open
13:00to the Draft Kings, the Fandules, the Caesars, the MGMs.
13:04And now the attorney general of the District of Columbia wants to look into these Intralot
13:10compacts and wants to look into what exactly was promised, what happened, and why it didn't
13:16work out the way it was supposed to.
13:19And basically the way that this is going down is the Washington City paper says that they
13:26talk about false claim violations, which is basically what happens when contractors
13:31or companies say that they are owed money by the district for work that was not fully
13:37or completely or correctly performed.
13:40So the attorney general, it seems like, is coming out and saying, look, you guys promised
13:45a whole heck of a lot for sports betting and it didn't even come close to what it should
13:50have.
13:51So basically Intralot and their Gambit D.C. platform missed their expected earnings year
13:58after year after year and it was cut and cut and cut.
14:03So it's going to be really fun to see what happens with that.
14:05You know, Intralot is still in the U.S. sports betting business.
14:09They're up in Montana.
14:11They have a book in Maryland.
14:15And you know, their odds all across the country from what we've seen, they've all been really
14:20highly juiced.
14:21And that was Intralot's plan, basically.
14:25They wanted to get the people that maybe weren't, you know, great sports bettors or learned
14:31sports bettors.
14:33They just wanted people that wanted to get down.
14:35And so they weren't necessarily line shopping.
14:37And it didn't work out for Intralot.
14:39It got them kicked out of D.C. and now it could be getting them sued.
14:43Yeah, no, they want to see if Intralot can get through this or what kind of legal ramifications
14:49it has.
14:50All right.
14:51Everyone familiar with FanDuel Sportsbook?
14:52Some people familiar with the fact that they're owned by a company.
14:55The parent company is Flutter.
14:57And Flutter, it looks like right now, Matthew, looking to expand to other companies, which
15:02they've already done already, by the way.
15:04But this latest one is Italy.
15:06What is the deal here?
15:07Yeah, Flutter is the parent brand that owns FanDuel.
15:11And it's how FanDuel is different from DraftKings, right, Craig?
15:14DraftKings is DraftKings.
15:16They have what they do.
15:18They have their online casino, their sportsbook.
15:22Flutter has all kinds of international business that has given them a backstop to push FanDuel
15:28further and not have to worry about making a profit as quickly, even though they have.
15:34Now they're looking at dropping up to $2 billion on buying Snytech, the leader of Italian sports
15:40betting.
15:41And it's just, it's kind of crazy, Craig, because, you know, we had the conversations
15:46come up where maybe Flutter would be buying the interactive business of Penn if Penn wanted
15:53to sell after that shareholder letter came out and there was all those, the rumors about
15:59maybe Penn selling to Boyd, and then maybe Flutter jumps in and buys that.
16:04Now they're looking at maybe spending $2 billion in Italy, and look, they didn't even say no
16:10that they weren't looking into buying the interactive business of Penn Entertainment.
16:15They basically just said, you know, some of the best deals are the ones we haven't done.
16:19But they didn't say yes or no.
16:21So Flutter is busy.
16:23We know that Flutter just wants to keep building and keep growing.
16:28And you know, on the other side of things, DraftKings has to be a little careful with
16:32what it does.
16:33It doesn't have the cash flow coming in.
16:35So Flutter is able to do things a little bit differently.
16:38And right now we're seeing just exactly what they can do.
16:42Adding Snytec would be huge for their bottom line and would make them an even more attractive
16:48company for investors.
16:50Yep.
16:51All right.
16:52Well, Matt, great stuff as always.
16:53Enjoy your weekend.
16:54We'll catch up again next week.
16:55Thanks for coming on Newswire.
16:57Appreciate it.