| It’s been 15 months since the Supreme Court struck down the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act, which cleared the way for states to legalize sports betting. In that time, the number of states with some form of legal sports betting has grown to 13 and the NFL is slowly warming up to it. This season the league has a full-fledged casino partner (Caesars) and an official data distributor (Sportradar) for the first time. The big picture: The NFL’s current broadcast rights deals with CBS, NBC, Fox and ESPN all expire in 2022, which could make sports betting a key part of any future negotiations. “The value of television, of presenting our games, I dare say it will go up 50% because of sports betting,” said Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, referencing the fact that people are more likely to watch a game if they bet on it. For more on this insightful article for Axios Sports click here. Surprising Stat Of the Day The Oakland Athletics are 17-5 on Tuesdays this season. Grinding Out The Profits Oklahoma QB Jalen Hurts, the Alabama transfer, dazzled in his Sooners debut joining Johnny Manziel as the only other player in the past 15 seasons to throw for 300 yards and 3 scores and run for 150 yards and 3 scores in a game. His 493 yards of total offense through 3 quarters topped Kyler Murray’s best game last season (478 yards). Hurts then passed for 259 yards and three touchdowns in just over two quarters in Oklahoma’s 70-14 trouncing of South Dakota on Saturday. Safe to say he is Heisman-worthy. |
