Brent Musburger's VSIN Brings The Point Spread Out Of The Cold

When I first made a sports bet it was on a tattered notebook with a guy named Harry, who operated out of a battered Cadillac. His trunk was full of hot appliances. His son was in prison. We operated on trust. There was virtually no betting advice in established media. Tout sheets were hidden in the back of Lichtmans, behind the men’s magazines. 

Now, with the arrival Sunday of Super Bowl LIV, the biggest gambling day in the North American calendar, comes news that Daniel Snider, the owner of the NFL Washington Redskins, has announced that if he’s not allowed to have live in-game betting in his team’s stadium he will take his team from Maryland to Virginia. 

This as the Oakland Raiders have officially become the Las Vegas Raiders. Yes, we are no longer in Kansas— because the state has yet to legalize sports gambling (currently only five states are not planning legalization or have legalized sports gambling. Even that won’t last as cash-strapped governments see the billions from gambling as a heaven-sent revenue stream.) 

Canada will need to adjust its attitude on in-house/ in-game wagering now if it wants its NHL, NBA and MLB pro sports teams to not be wiped out by their American partners. Canada has a very limited government sports wagering scheme but it does allow offshore online betting sites.

With the onslaught of betting outlets for sports fans has come new media outlets for sports wagering. Currently the Americans and Canadian TV networks— which benefit hugely from gamblers and fantasy players— might mention a point spread in passing, the way one might whisper of a relative with a drinking problem. Heaven forbid that Hockey Night In Canada— your grandfather’s TV show— even hint at betting.

But none of the traditional outlets features segments devoted to that huge part of their audience that is putting money on the outcome. 

Enter VSIN (the Vegas Sports and Information Network) the brainchild of the family of legendary sportscaster Brent Musburger, he of “You’re looking live at the L.A. Coliseum” fame. Available as a streaming network, it’s also carried by SiriusXM satellite radio. In Canada, VSiN programming also appears on the cable network Game+. 

Musburger, now the radio voice of the Vegas Raiders, never shied from hinting at his betting interests on-air. (Hell, his on-air partner at CBS Sports was Jimmy the Greek!) So he’s a natural for the afternoon-show anchor for VSIN which operates 24/ 7 from studios based in the Southpoint Casino in Las Vegas. 

VSIN looks to service the untapped market for gambling advice and information. So while the pregame shows on TV networks are reliant on former pros yukking it up and gauzy interviews with players, VSIN programming on game day is focussed solely on the movement for betting lines as well as options for in-game wagering . Namely, point spreads, point totals, props, first-half numbers and so on. 

While it has the occasional host with a background in sports— former NFL GM Mike Lombardi hosts a weekend show The Lombardi Line— most of the on-air personal look and sound like what you’d expect from a den of handicappers. No trend, no edge is too arcane to be ignored as the hosts strive to find a winner— as Musburger says, “Cashing tickets is what it’s all about”.

Some of the guests on the shows are also like a casting call from the film Casino, guys with names like Jimmy Vaccaro, Vinny Magliulo and Bill Krakomberger who date back to the days when gambling in Vegas was the purview of the Mob, not publicly traded corporations. But today’s atmosphere is anything but a Martin Scorsese film. 

Lately they have also become raging hockey fans, hot blooded for the hometown Vegas Golden Knights. Guys who a few years past were largely indifferent to the NHL were last week outraged partisans over the firing of coach Gerard Gallant. It’s touching, really.  

On the subject of hockey, one of my favourite memes from last season on VSIN was the over on first-period NHL scoring by five or six particular teams. The hosts of Follow The Money— who (gasp) get up for a 4 A.M. PT show— identified that the 1.5 goals mark was being crushed at rates upward of 70 percent by teams like Tampa, Colorado and Chicago. It wasn’t long before linesmakers were boosting the juice— the handicap on those numbers— to hobble the run of Pauly Howard and Mitch Moss. (Remember that a 55 percent winning percentage is considered an accomplishment versus the books.)

While traditional linemaking gets a workout, so too does insight from the analytics crowd. It’s A Numbers Game is the morning show hosted by Gill Alexander, a D.C. product via the Bay Area. A self-deprecating mashup of Bill James Pythagorean theorem and Wall Street algorithms, the show is a guilty mid-morning pleasure starting at 10 AM ET. Alexander mixes his own analysis— he’s currently pounding Australian Open tennis— with some of his colourful in-studio pals such as Todd Wishvev, Mike Palm and Krakomberger.

For bettors tired of their local hosts faking it on the moneyline, Alexander offers in-show tutorials on betting that identify the pitfalls of listening to the old sweats on network shows. Because the best bets are often the ones you don’t make. Plus you can learn a lot about achilles tendon surgery and aneurysms after Gill tore his Achilles and nearly died from an aneurysm late last year.

Again, not for the Fan Boy crowd that wants to be cool. But for those who want to integrate their sports passion with a personal investment in the game it’s a slice of the future. A far cry from my clandestine connection with Harry the Bookie. 

Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the publisher of  Not The Public Broadcaster. He’s also a regular contributor to Sirius XM Canada Talks Ch. 167. A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada's top television sports broadcaster, he is also a best-selling author whose new book Cap In Hand: How Salary Caps Are Killing Pro Sports And Why The Free Market Could Save Them is now available on brucedowbigginbooks.ca.