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00:00But, you know what, sometimes things happen in sports that steal the headlines.
00:05And we're going to let hockey steal our headlines today for the first time probably in a really
00:09long time.
00:10Maybe ever here on Newswater.
00:11It's possible.
00:12Maybe since the Stanley Cup with Florida and Edmonton.
00:15That could have been it.
00:16But Team USA beats Canada in the Four Nations Tournament.
00:19This has been great to watch and a lot of fun, a lot of intensity, and in case you missed
00:24it over the weekend, fight after fight after fight in the first 10 seconds of this one,
00:28the victory does give Team USA six points.
00:30They clinch a spot in the championship game, which is coming up on Thursday.
00:33So naturally, we'll have that covered for you.
00:35Each of the other games and the teams have two points.
00:38So today's matchups will determine who the Americans face for the title.
00:42Possibility of Canada, possibility of Finland, Sweden still involved in this as well.
00:46But naturally, the buzz is about the intensity between Team USA and Canada over the weekend.
00:53And what gives with all the fisticuffs?
00:55Mike, I'm just curious what you thought the three fights off the opening couple of faceoffs
01:00did in terms of setting the tone and message for your team.
01:07I just think it's very indicative of what this means to the players.
01:14You know, there's two teams out there that are very competitive, that have a ton of pride
01:19for their respective teams and their countries.
01:25And for me, when you have an investment in trying to win like the way that it occurred,
01:32I think that's an indication of it.
01:35But you know, what an incredible hockey game.
01:40Well, a couple nights ago when I sat up here and if you were going to tell me something
01:50was going to top that, I would not have believed you.
01:54But that topped it.
01:55And you know why it topped it?
01:58Because it wasn't planned.
02:03That wasn't two coaches throwing guys over saying this is happening.
02:08None of that happened.
02:09That was as organic as it gets.
02:13And it was probably, you know, I guess 10 years of no international hockey exhaled in
02:21a minute and a half.
02:23Great hockey being played over the weekend.
02:25And of course, we have it covered for you here on SportsGrid coming up again in the
02:28championship game on Thursday.
02:31Meanwhile, more allegations against kicker Justin Tucker of the Baltimore Ravens.
02:36Seven more women have accused Baltimore Ravens kicker Tucker of engaging in sexually inappropriate
02:41misconduct at high-end spas.
02:44This is being reported by the Baltimore Banner.
02:47Now the accusations are up to 16 therapists from Tucker.
02:52This is between 2012 and 2016.
02:55Tucker, of course, about a month ago went on Instagram and denied all of the allegations.
03:01Stay tuned.
03:02All right, our buddy Brady Cannon was on with us on Friday, gave us a couple of names for
03:06potential winners of the Genesis Open.
03:08And boy, was he right.
03:09I mean, Brady mentioned Ludwig Oberg, one of the great young golfers right now that
03:14is playing.
03:15And he won this thing 22 to 1.
03:17Also Maverick McNeely finished second.
03:18He was 55 to 1.
03:20But look out, folks, Oberg, I know spelled with an A, but pronounced with an O, looks
03:25to be one of the best up-and-coming players on the tour.
03:28Look out, Rory.
03:29Look out, Scotty.
03:31And here comes Oberg, who had his whole family on hand for the championship.
03:36A lot.
03:37It was a really cool finish to a great week.
03:42I've had my girlfriend here all week.
03:44My coach came in on Friday night.
03:45I've had some other guys on my team being with me all week.
03:50So it was really cool, and it felt like we did it together.
03:53I had tremendous help with Joe, Mike Hattie today, and yeah, it feels really cool.
03:58It's the Genesis Invitational.
03:59We're at a different venue than we typically are, but you were here three weeks ago, on
04:06the weekend.
04:07We're right in the mix at the start.
04:08Does it feel like a little bit of redemption after what happened?
04:11Yeah, I'd say so.
04:12I mean, I felt like I had a good chance of winning that tournament, but I wasn't really
04:17feeling like myself the last couple of days.
04:20And then sort of I don't like pulling out of tournaments, but I felt like I had to at
04:24Pebble just to give myself some time to recover and be ready for this one.
04:29And sort of knowing how last week was at home, basically, you know, a little bit of survival
04:36mode, but to come here and to win this event is really special.
04:41Meanwhile, in Daytona yesterday, a lot of stopping and starting, a very long day for
04:47those people who attended at Daytona International Speedway, and a rarity at the Daytona 500
04:53because William Byron won again.
04:54He's back-to-back champions at the Daytona.
04:57This doesn't happen all that often.
05:00A lot of starting and stopping, a lot of accidents, some weather involved as well, but they finally
05:05got this done under the lights.
05:08Byron talked about getting the big win, this audio and video, courtesy of ESPN.
05:13I told some people during the week it'd be a nice footnote after the fact, but this is
05:16incredible.
05:18Just really proud of this group.
05:19They worked super hard during the off-season.
05:21We had an amazing car, but we just got trapped in the back, you know, late in the race and
05:25just had to kind of navigate our way through those restarts, and obviously had some good
05:28breaks there at the end, and just was in disbelief, honestly, the way that unfolded down the backstretch.
05:33But I was committed to go to the third lane into three, and it just, that's unfortunately,
05:39or fortunately for me, that's where the wreck didn't happen, so that was awesome.
05:43What is old is new again.
05:45Once upon a time, there was a WNBA team in Cleveland, and they're bringing it back.
05:48It was the Cleveland Rockers, and they folded in 2003.
05:52It looks like the WNBA is going to expand back to Cleveland again, announcement made
05:57yesterday as the WNBA continues to be a huge moneymaker, by the way, around the league.
06:02All right, in college basketball yesterday, St. John's survived a very close game with
06:07Creighton.
06:08In fact, they didn't cover the spread.
06:09I believe it was six and a half, 79-73, the final score there.
06:13St. John's now leads the Big East by two games, we're closing in on the end of the season.
06:16They got a shot to win the regular season title.
06:18Kedari Richmond had 19 points, 10 rebounds for the Red Storm, who has just been playing
06:25some great basketball.
06:26And again, they went one and one last week, so not sure what the ranking will be when
06:29it comes out later today, perhaps still inside the top 10, depending on some things.
06:34The key in this game, lack of turnovers, says Rick Pitino.
06:37They just held on to the ball well.
06:40You know, I think when you have, even though you're not shooting a high percentage, but
06:43any time you have 21 assists and five turnovers, that's an amazing performance.
06:50Because they did a lot of really good things on offense.
06:56The free throws, I think Zuby, it just gets into his head, he's a good free throw shooter.
07:01It's just when he starts thinking about it instead of just shooting normally.
07:05But we played a really good game, they have a very good basketball team, they're tough
07:09to play against.
07:10But look, when you play a whole basketball game with this much pressure on it and only
07:16turn it over five times, it's an amazing feat.
07:21So St. John's picks up a win, so does number one Auburn, they beat Alabama, final 94-85.
07:27And Duke ends up losing, number three Duke beats Stanford, excuse me, 106-70.
07:33A little confusion there, but Cooper Flagg did have a nice game, he had 19.6 assists.
07:37All right, now over to Major League Baseball as we get ready to close it out.
07:41Couple of signings over the weekend, Paul DeJong is back in the big leagues again, third
07:45team in three years.
07:46This time he's with the Nationals, it's a one-year, $1 million deal.
07:49Nolan Arenado did not get traded, he's back in Jupiter with the Cardinals, still a possibility
07:53he could get moved.
07:54Shohei Ohtani back on the mound for the Los Angeles Dodgers.
07:57It looks like Ohtani could be ready come the first turnaround in the Dodgers rotation at
08:03the start of the season.
08:04The bizarre story coming out of Tampa today is Giancarlo Stanton has elbow issues, both
08:10elbows, left and right tendonitis, uncertain for opening day.
08:15Pat Evans is with us from Legal Sports Report here on this Monday, tackling some of the
08:18big issues surrounding the world of sports wagering.
08:21We'll get an update in Indiana and also the latest on online casino gaming.
08:25Pat, great to have you back here on Newswire.
08:28Well unfortunately, boy, very, very close vote here in the state of Minnesota.
08:33My gosh, like they just cannot get sports betting even close to the finish line here
08:39to get it to the next stage, and now I think it looks like, Pat, a lot of disappointment
08:44there, at least from what I'm reading, and especially over at Legal Sports Report.
08:47A lot of people do want sports betting there, but it seems like there's just this very even
08:52battle in the legislature as to who wants it and who doesn't.
08:56Yeah, it's been obviously a really interesting journey that we've talked about for multiple
09:01years now on this show with you in Minnesota, and to your point, yeah, a lot of parties
09:06want it.
09:07You know, you've got the Democrat Farmer Labor Party on one side who want the tribes to have
09:11exclusivity.
09:12You've got the Republicans who want the horse racing tracks and charitable gaming involved,
09:17and that's what we've always thought kind of was the separation point with the two parties
09:21kind of disagreeing and needing to compromise to come into a middle agreement and say, hey,
09:26let's get this done and do it.
09:28Well, at the end of last session, we thought that was happening.
09:31You know, we had reports of a deal on the ground in the Capitol saying, hey, we've got
09:35a deal all finished up between all the stakeholders.
09:38We're just running out of time, and the session ran out of time before they could vote on
09:42it.
09:43Well, this year, I mean, you figure, okay, well, we had a deal on the table.
09:46Let's go ahead and get it over this year.
09:48Well, it started again kind of normally.
09:51You had a Republican bill filed.
09:53You had a Democrat bill filed.
09:57Okay, we're kind of in the same boat.
10:00Then we had our first hearing late last week, and Senator Matt Kline, a Democrat, led his
10:07bill into this committee, the first of five or six stops, committee stops, so it is a
10:12huge journey in Minnesota, the way they put together their bills, and he started off kind
10:18of promising.
10:19He said, you know, I'm adding an amendment, which was then agreed upon by everybody on
10:24the committee that would bring the Republican desires into it.
10:29We had a ton of testimonies from various stakeholders, including the tribes and the track and, you
10:34know, all that, saying, this is great.
10:36This is great.
10:37Well, then all of a sudden, multiple lawmakers stood up, particularly Senator May Quaid.
10:45She kind of really took a fine-tooth comb to this and asked a lot of questions regarding
10:50responsible gambling and questioning kind of the way that the technology companies or
10:55the way the sports book companies kind of operate, like technology companies and social
11:00media and the algorithms to keep you in tune, kind of putting out stipulations of, hey,
11:06if we do this, I'll be okay with it, but as it is now, it's not.
11:11And so then, yeah, we had a six-to-six vote on the committee, which stalemates it.
11:17It's not dead, but by any means, it can come back to that committee and then advance forward
11:23again if they work on it.
11:25But this is something that May Quaid told me in the fall was, listen, even if the stakeholders
11:30come together, there's enough negative votes in both chambers that this isn't going to
11:35get done without major responsible gambling caveats.
11:39And that's what we've seen.
11:40And immediately following that hearing, Senator John Marty, who is in opposition to sports
11:45betting but has a bill loaded with responsible gambling measures, came up and said, hey,
11:50I don't want to do this, but if we do legalize it, I want all these things in it.
11:54And then he just said, you know what, since the other bill didn't advance, let's table this.
11:59So yeah, it's not done yet, but certainly not a good step, not a promising step for
12:04sports betting in Minnesota this year, which to your point, a lot of people in Minnesota
12:09do want it.
12:10And so that's got to be gut-wrenching to see this news early in the session.
12:15Yeah, definitely so.
12:16And, you know, unfortunate for us to not have a new state legalized sports betting this
12:19year. You know, a lot of backlash coming too, Pat, from online casino gaming.
12:24Like this seems to be gaining a lot of steam everywhere here.
12:27I thought this would be the year of that.
12:29Seems like it's going the other direction.
12:31Yeah. And I think that is kind of just how things are shaping up this year in online
12:35gaming in general. You know, in December we had that U.S.
12:37Senate hearing to kind of look into it.
12:39And that certainly was a first step in not going away at the national level.
12:44And so there is just lots of headwinds.
12:45You've got a lot of major media outlets kind of writing about the negatives of the
12:50industry. And certainly there are plenty.
12:53But, you know, that kind of negates the importance of regulating it.
12:56And so it's all out in the open and everything.
12:58You know, you talk about all these scandals that get caught.
13:00It's because it's in a regulated market, not because it's legal.
13:05But, you know, in Indiana, it probably was our best chance this year for a state to go
13:11ahead and pass an online casino, which is tough because that is a tough state because
13:17they took a moratorium last year because of a legal conviction related to gambling
13:24legislation. So they were like, we're not even touching the issue.
13:27But previous years before that, online casino had been talked about and industry
13:32stakeholders said, hey, this could be a state that could be next.
13:36And this year it started off strong.
13:37It passed a committee and then it just kind of died.
13:41You know, you had two weeks ago you had legislative leadership saying on both sides in the
13:48House and the Senate saying, hey, this is something that we certainly need to look at.
13:52We want to look at, but we need to get it right.
13:54And, you know, it didn't get a hearing in the Ways and Means Committee in the House.
13:59Basically, the House leader came out and said, you know what, we got it a step.
14:04We've got a lot of things to look at.
14:06We need to make sure we get this right.
14:07This isn't the year. So online casino in Indiana is dead.
14:10There's a few other states that it's kind of bouncing around.
14:13Illinois, it was mentioned in a budget by Governor Pritzker.
14:16Maryland's got some big discussions going on.
14:18So it's certainly still alive some spots, but it's quickly been killed in other areas
14:24just because it is a very big issue.
14:26You know, just the idea of a slot machine in a pocket is a lot and it is a big deal for a lot of
14:31people. And lawmakers certainly are not taking that lightly.
14:34Yeah. And, you know, on top of it, it's the I would guess it's that a battle over tax rate,
14:40like really in the end, it's all about money.
14:42And they'll push this through if the tax rate is high enough.
14:44They said, hey, we'll tax you 80 percent.
14:46I think that this would pass everywhere.
14:48But now there's this new group that's against online casino gaming just everywhere.
14:53So, I mean, maybe I'm wrong.
14:54Maybe it's just they just don't feel safe passing this thing.
14:58Yeah. And this is this is something we've known.
15:01But, you know, because we've watched the hearings in Maryland, we've heard the hearings in
15:05Louisiana where Cordish companies specifically has been very vocal in their opposition to
15:12expanding online.
15:13Of course, they own regional casino companies or regional casinos in each of these states.
15:19And they say, you know what, we like what we have.
15:21We don't need to expand it.
15:22We don't need to be detrimental to the public societal health.
15:28We don't need to lose brick and mortar revenue.
15:32There's several other arguments that they put out, but they are definitely out and against
15:38it at all these hearings.
15:39And now they've put together a group of similar sized regional casino companies, including
15:46Churchill Downs.
15:47There's a few other ones that are escaping me at the moment, but they've all come together
15:52and they've put put together a group.
15:54They just released a study, which you can find on LegalSportsReport.com, we link to that
15:59in the story that kind of outlines why they are against it and the arguments they make.
16:04Again, a lot of it is the brick and mortar cannibalization of the revenue, which they argue
16:10can also cost plenty of jobs from the casino workers.
16:15And so, yeah, this is to kind of our point of big headwinds, you know, having a significant
16:24chunk of regional operators who have longstanding relationships in these legislators going against
16:31this issue certainly does have some weight.
16:33I mean, we just look at Mississippi, which you and I talk about pretty regularly, trying
16:37to go online with sports betting.
16:39And a lot of the opposition there are the locally owned casinos who say, no, we don't
16:44want to lose our sports books and our revenue from that to major operators that come into
16:50the state.
16:51You know, it is a it's a kind of a big deal that this group is emerging and is fully against
16:56the expansion of online gambling.
16:58Yeah. And I would think that maybe as we go on, we'll find out whether or not it really
17:02is money or people genuinely don't like the background as to what this could potentially
17:07create. We've seen a lot of groups step in on sports betting.
17:11This obviously opens up a much bigger door for people to bet online.
17:15Thanks again, Pat, for coming on the show.
17:16We'll keep it updated.
17:17Yeah, thanks as always, Craig.