Joe Buck On The Future of Gambling in Sports Broadcasting

Today’s Pardon My Take featured an awesome recurring guest: one you love to hate, and one who hates your team. The great Joe Buck joined Mr. Cat and Mr. Commenter in the midst of his busy October schedule that is filled with broadcasting the MLB Playoffs and NFL regular season games. The trio discussed twitter, hair, Hollywood, and more.

But something that caught my attention, being the broadcasting geek that I am, was Buck’s thoughts on gambling as it relates to the industry. With sports betting seemingly becoming legal in more states over the past year at a rapid pace, the topic is only going to get more popular. What are Buck’s thoughts on it? How does he integrate it into his broadcasts? You can find those answers below:

Mr. Commenter: What about gambling? Have you had to learn more about gambling as it’s become more mainstream?

Joe Buck: I mean, I knew plenty about gambling because of my degenerate father [legendary broadcaster Jack Buck], who was a big horse guy. At the end of his life, my dad, what I think kept him breathing sometimes was figuring out what the line was on the NFL game and putting money down on it.

Mr. Commenter: I mean, I can believe that.

Mr. Cat: That’s what I want.

Joe Buck: That’s how it went. So, it’s always kind of been back there. But thankfully, I didn’t get the bug, I don’t go down that path. But I talked about it in our seminar this year. You know, now that laws have changed and FOX is kind of getting into that business, are the bosses good with me referencing the line? And I don’t think it has to be the cutesy all the time.

“Hey, there are, wink, wink, a lot of people wondering if this field goal is going through.”

Mr. Cat: (Sarcastically) And this game is overrrrr.

Joe Buck: Yeah, exactly. And I did [reference the line] in the Patriots game. You know, the Giants came in as a 16.5-point underdog and they were hanging in, hanging in, and then eventually the Patriots, you know, pulled them off.

Mr. Cat: That’s going to be, I mean, you would imagine that in a few years that will be a very open dialogue on the broadcast. You know, half the time when there’s a blowout, people are just watching for that.

Joe Buck: They’re watching for that, and they’re watching for fantasy football. And it’s all kind of in the same category. But you’re right. They’re not really worried about, back when I was young, certainly way before you guys, if the game was a blowout, it was like, mmm… next.

Mr. Cat: Right.

Joe Buck: I think there’s so many individual reasons to watch now that people still watch. And I could see, and I’m not versed on all this stuff, but I could see where they would have, I don’t know, in golf. What are the odds of Rory McIlroy hitting the green at, you know, Sawgrass on 17? It’s ten to one here. And you can just, on your phone, get down on that bet. And I think TV networks eventually are going to pop that stuff up or it’ll be a separate feed or whatever it’ll be. I don’t know where it’s going, but I mean, literally, the surface is not even being scratched.

Since there are no universal laws yet in place regarding to sports gambling, it still seems like a grey area in terms of broadcasters referencing it while calling a game. The gambling-specific shows is a different story, as every major network now pretty much has content that only talks betting (but none of them top Barstool Sports Advisors, the Pick’em Pod, or Walk the Line, of course).

Will we eventually start to see the lines incorporated into live game broadcasts? How about graphics coming back from commercial letting us know the probability of each team covering the spread, or the over hitting? This is all something worth keeping an eye on. But if I had to bet (no pun intended), it won’t be long before play-by-play broadcasters are incorporating notes about prop bets into their “charts” in addition to a player’s height, weight, and favorite TV show. Only time will tell.