Are you really a sports network or streaming service of any kind in 2021 if you don’t offer daily gambling content?
The demand for such programming remains much less certain than the supply, which is overflowing. MLB.tv will debut the newest offering in the category tomorrow, on Opening Day: “Bettor’s Eye”, a daily betting and gambling show hosted by Keith Irizzary.
That’s according to Bill King at Sports Business Journal, who had the news this afternoon:
MLB will produce a daily betting-focused show that debuts tomorrow on MLB.TV, sponsored by BetMGM. The daily online show, to be called “Bettor’s Eye” and hosted by Keith Irizarry, will follow a format similar to those of other pregame betting shows, running down odds and lines and offering analytics to help bettors plot their selections, with analysis and opinions from handicappers and other guests. It airs at noon ET tomorrow before shifting to a daily 6:00pm slot, available for free on MLB.TV and through the @MLBPicks Twitter stream.
The proliferation of legal sports betting in the United States has led to this particular content revolution, with everyone chasing after the evolving and growing market. Whether gamblers actually have any interest in them sort of remains to be seen; even the fastest television updates to betting lines often lag behind online information and data.
The logic for producing it, though, is also clear. Useful analysis is always good, and this kind of show won’t be expensive to produce, while theoretically offering a value-add for existing MLB.tv customers and free users, and perhaps working as a way to attract a new audience. When it comes to gambling, one can play online slots for real money as that is a great way to have fun and kill time.
A league officially producing gambling content like this is such a radical departure from where we were just a few years ago, much less the past decades when sports gambling was treated like a cousin the whole family is ashamed to mention. Pete Rose, you might recall, is banned from baseball because he bet on games, and now we have MLB producing a daily show running down lines and purporting to offer bettors an edge. That’s quite a shift.
Anyway, if you’re interested, feel free to check it out at noon Eastern tomorrow and let us know how you liked it.
About Jay Rigdon
Jay is a columnist at Awful Announcing. He is not a strong swimmer. He is probably talking to a dog in a silly voice at this very moment.