Judd Sirott with a Bruins' logo. Judd Sirott with a Bruins’ logo. (Edit by Liam McGuire, Comeback Media.)

While gambling odds have been referenced on sports broadcasts for a long time, the recent expansion of legalized sports betting has seen many more open and more specific references. We’re a long way from the days where the likes of Brent Musburger and Al Michaels would sneak in references to particular point spreads. And sometimes, that comes up with broadcasters doing in-game promotional reads for various live betting odds, then quickly calling a play resulting in those odds, as Judd Sirott did Tuesday night.

Sirott was calling the Boston Bruins’ game against the Minnesota Wild on NESN. During a stoppage in play, he did an ad read for FanDuel’s live odds of specific Boston players scoring a goal. Then, about a minute later after the resumption of play, one of those players, Trent Frederic, scored. And Sirott referenced the odds he’d just talked about, saying “He scores! That’s +900 if you made the wager fast enough.”

This sparked a lot of X discussion from people annoyed about the specific odds reference. But much of that came around a particular clip from ALLCITY hockey podcaster Pete Blackburn that didn’t include the earlier odds discussion, which was key to Sirott’s reference here. Here’s some of that debate:

Still, some were quite upset to hear odds in a goal call:

There are definitely people against odds being specifically mentioned in a goal call like this under any circumstances, and that’s an understandable perspective. And, beyond that, particular highlights also have an existence outside of the full context of a broadcast. That can be with the way they’re shared on social media, or in team or league game highlights packages, or on outside highlights shows like SportsCenter or NHL Tonight. So the connection to the previous promo read certainly isn’t going to be made by the entire audience that sees this goal.

But, at the same time, the context here does have an impact. This wasn’t Sirott (who’d called the Bruins on radio for the last seven seasons before replacing famed TV announcer Jack Edwards following Edwards’ retirement ahead of this season) just referencing odds out of the blue in the wake of Frederic’s goal. It’s also not him doing this for every single goal. This was almost immediately after a live odds promo read where the biggest listed longshot scored. And there’s some logic to the broadcast acknowledging that.

Of course, this might have angered less people if Sirott had brought up these odds a little after the call of the goal itself. And that certainly would have led to less drama from those highlights being seen out of the full broadcast’s context. And there’s definitely also a wider debate to be had about the place of gambling references on sports broadcasts, and the overall merits of player prop bets (which have caused all sorts of problems) and on-air references to them. But the context here shows why Sirott did this, and how this seems more like a unique moment than an established pattern from him.

About Andrew Bucholtz

Andrew Bucholtz has been covering sports media for Awful Announcing since 2012. He is also a staff writer for The Comeback. His previous work includes time at Yahoo! Sports Canada and Black Press.