The Herd with Colin Cowherd - The Favorites - New Mailbag Edition

Episode Date: July 1, 2022

Our intrepid Action Network hosts Chad Millman and pro gambler Simon Hunter receive tons of questions during the NFL season and beyond. Today we continue our effort to answer as many of them as possible with an all-new mailbag episode of the show. But before the fellas dive into listener queries, first they welcome on Action's predictive analytics experts Sean Koerner and Nick Giffen for another round of America's most beloved math-based podcast segment: What Are The Odds? This time they tackle the most unlikely hole-in-one in recorded human history. #HerdSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Another podcast from some SNL late-night comedy guy, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and Friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer Streeter Seidel, help an a cappella band with their between songs banter. Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter.

Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and Friends on the I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. The Favorites podcast is presented by Fandual Sportsbook. There's no better place to make every moment more than with Fandual. I bet with Fandual because they're safe and secure. They offer great odds and markets across the NBA, NHL, and more. And because it's fun to combine multiple bets into same game parlays. So if you're new, just download the Fandwell Sportsbook app to get started now.

Sign up with promo code favorites so they know I sent you. You must be. 21 and over in present in Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Indiana, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, or Louisiana. Gambling problem. Call 1-800-next-step or text. Next step to 533342 in Arizona. 1-800-G or visit Fanduel.com slash RG in Arizona. 1-800-200,000.com slash RG in Colorado, Indiana, New Jersey, and Virginia, 1-88-7-8-8-8-7-1-1-7 for confidential help in Michigan. 777-7-7-70 S-T-O-P in Louisiana. Call the Tennessee Red Line 1-800-9-9-9-7-89 or visit 1-800-Gambler.net in West Virginia. Welcome to the favorites, the podcast from the Volume Podcast Network.

I am Chad Millman, Chief Content Officer of the Action Network. We are bringing back the most revolutionary, creative, novel concept that has been introduced into the podcasting world, this quarter since May, we're calling it, what are the odds? Everyone knows it. Everyone loves it. We are getting listeners to send in their random events in their life. And our math geniuses, our predictive analytics team, Sean Curner and Nick Giffin are putting the odds on something like this

actually happening before we bring them in. Simon Hunter, my co-host, man BFF. my companion, my compadre, professional better. This has turned into one of my favorite things in podcasting. No, you love you and you love your own ideas. So this is right up your alley, chat. Something you came up with on your own show. Oh my gosh.

It's too good to be true. So I'm shocked. I enjoy it because usually I just say, yeah, this is great, Chad, just to be nice to you. But I love it. I love hearing the odds of things because it's so interesting knowing there's always math behind everything in life. That was something I learned very early on that every little thing you can think of

in this entire world, everything around you, it's math. And like, that freaks people out, but that's the truth. So hearing these guys come on to give us a math equation to a random moment in life, it's the best. Simon, as usual, you've cut to the quick and both hurt my feelings and identified things about me that I swear to God. Like, I thought only my wife really understand. And I thought I was fooling everybody else.

And then you come out with that. And while what you said is 100% accurate about me, again, full credit for the idea to Jennifer Schiffman of West Hartford, Connecticut, who came up with the segment when we were having drinks, me, her husband, Mike, close friends of ours, my wife, Stacey, I told him a story. She said, you should do that on the podcast, call it what are the odds, ask viewers, ask listeners, all credit to Jen Schiffman content creator. Kerner and Nick, are you ready? I feel like Turner and Nick, that's like a great show.

it could be a great restaurant. Anyways, I'll get to it. Here we go. What are the odds? Listener, Evan Paluso sent us a golf story covered recently by the Minneapolis Star Tribune. It is tailor-made for this segment. It began Thursday, June 2nd at the Minneapolis Golf Club

when 13-year-old Preston Miller carded his first career hole in one. But young Preston, who plays varsity golf at local St. Louis Park High School, didn't save the ball as a keepsake. Instead, he kept playing with the baseball. same ball and he lost it three holes later after it struck a treat. He finished his round and head to the clubhouse. And by the same time, a golfer named Ricardo was searching deep in the rough for his own ball when he came across Preston's titleist, which had a St. Louis Park logo on it. With no one in sight, Ricardo correctly assumed the ball was lost and put it into

his own bag. Near the end of Ricardo's round on hole 16, he needed a new ball. So he grabbed Preston's lost ball from his bag at random and proceeded to card his fourth career hole in one with it. After Ricardo showed off his ball at the end of the round, the connection was made in the clubhouse. And Preston was called over to confirm it was indeed his ball. And it became official the same golf ball had been used by two separate golfers on the same course, on the same day to sink two separate holes in one. They asked the club's head pro about it, and he doubted such a feat had ever been accomplished before in golf's long history. We ask you, Kruner and Giffin, what are the odds? First off, this is by far the craziest story we have done so far. So let's go through each event,

one by one. So there's really four things that needed to happen here. The first was 13-year-old Preston, had to hit a hole in one on hole four. So we gave him the average golfers odds, which is about 12,500 to 1 to do that. But let me pause right there, though. The fact that Preston did not stash his ball away after hitting the whole of one is one of the crazier things about the story. Like that, that's insane to me. So just for that to happen alone is already pretty crazy. But we gave him 12,500 to 1 to do that. Funny thing is Sean and I, we try to throw cold water in a lot of these. But everything we're doing here is like underestimating the craziness of this. First of all, the kids shouldn't be playing with this ball. We're essentially,

saying this is like the floor for these odds. The fact that he did keep playing with his ball, Preston here, you know, now he has to play with it on holes, four, five, six. And then in hole seven, he shanks it ends up like in the brushy area on hole 12. So not like where we setting the odds and was shanking it, but then also Ricardo had to come across Preston's ball. And this was definitely the toughest part to calculate.

We're giving that about a five to one chance of happening. This is an area we're probably underestimating the odds. But let's jump to step number three. So now that Ricardo has this ball, we need to calculate the probability they actually uses this ball. And when we did some research on this, and we read that Ricardo put the ball in his bag and continue to play with the ball that he had been using, so we had the rest of the 12th, 13, 14, and 15 to potentially lose this ball that he had been playing with to have

to grab another ball. So let's say there's a 95% chance he doesn't lose the ball per hole on holes 13, 14, and 15. So there's about a 15% chance he would need to turn to a new ball. So 85% chance he keeps that ball. So again, let's say one and six that he actually needs to turn to a new ball. And we said, if he turns to a new ball, we gave it a 100% chance he'd use this ball. He did put it right on top in the bag and he pulled the one right off top. So we figure it's a very good chance that, you know, he did grab this ball. So one in six chance again of actually using this ball on whole 16. Yeah, so then the last step in this crazy story is Ricardo needed to hit a hole in one on hole 16 because that was the only part three the rest of the way.

So it had to be this hole. And considering Ricardo has already made three hole in one's in his career, he's an above average golfer. So we didn't give him the 12,500 to one odds that we gave Preston. We gave him closer to 8,000 to 1. We thought that was pretty fair. So after all that, after it's all said and done, that gives us a probability of about 3.5 billion to 1. that this would happen. And again, the chances of Preston continuing to use that ball as crazy, in my opinion.

We didn't factor that in. The fact that Preston probably hit his worst shot of the entire round on whole seven, that needed to happen for Ricardo to find the ball. We couldn't really factor that in. So, again, we're kind of underestimating it. So in theory, this could be closer to $10 billion to one, if we're being honest. 10 billion to one. What I love about this is Simon's right.

like you boil down the math and the fact that you guys are thinking so creatively about what you have to ascribe the odds to the odds need to be that not that he shanks it but that ricardo finds the shank right at moments in this story it feels like you're taking all the joy out of it and then other times when we get to the end i'm just so glad we got to a big number yeah this was way less likely than your band-aid story by the way uh a listener tweeted me and said that that the odds I had quoted on a recent podcast where I said it was about 450,000 to one, didn't make sense. And he hadn't heard, Nick, your explanation of it.

I do need to make a correction because the real odds, I think we decided were like 10,0001, which made more sense. And of course, I love that this listener had done the math. Like, you have to assume this number of flights. He had actually looked at like there were 51 flights in this window at this time. This number of passengers on this train. I'm like, dude, you are. and you are right. I'm giving the correction. I apologize. Nick and Sean, great job, fellas.

That was the best one yet. Definitely. And there's no underlying chop here. These are all just straight things that just had to happen. So there's just a totally crazy story. I also agree that how cocky is this Preston kid that he's like, eh, I don't need to save that ball. I'll probably hit another one. Yeah, he's only 13. This is probably first of many whole and ones, but still, I am a memorabilia kind of guy. I would just keep it and not even risk it. He risked it because he said, you know, it's really hard to lose a ball on this course.

And he didn't even think he would lose it. He says he almost never loses the ball here. And I guess he just kept playing with it. But yeah, I would have I would have pocketed that thing right away. As I've said a thousand times, fucking kids. Sean Curner, Nick Giffin, the predictive analytics team here at the Action Network, bringing us the math on your,

what are the odds, questions. Thanks, fellas. Thank you. Thank you. This baseball season turned K's into cash and big hits into big wins with Fanduil Sportsbook. Right now, new customers can step up to the plate with a no sweat first bet up to $1,000. So just sign up, place your first bet, and Fanduil will give you up to $1,000 back in free bets if you don't win. I love betting with Fandual because they've got great promos every single day.

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It's the enhanced games. Some call it grotesque. Others say it's unleashing human potential. Either way, the podcast's Superhuman documented it all, embedded in the games and with the athletes for a full year. Within probably 10 days, I'd put on 10 pounds. I was having trouble stopping the muscle growth. Listen to Superhuman on the I-Hard Radio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. It is time for another favorite podcast mailbag. We did one earlier this summer. It was wildly popular. You guys had a lot of questions. Simon, listen, you and I, when we first started doing this podcast, we came in 24th and in the money in the Draft King season long pickum contest. And we love doing these. And we came really close this past year too, if not for some sort of bad decision making. in our opinions, what this is from Stevie, in our opinions, what would the perfect season long NFL betting contest look like? That's hard because it is pretty good to what they have now, the five. I like the draft kings where we had the year we had the two buys. Like that was kind of like cool with the figuring out what weeks to skip and what weeks to play was kind of interesting. wrinkle. But to me, a perfect one would be just picking three games a week. Like no, no normal pro bets,

you know, big money on five different games. But any given week, three games, that sounds about right. Like that three games I'll be locked in on and think I'll find really good value. So the five game thing I like because it helps the Joe Schmo, like the guys, like just a public better that wants to do these contests. I feel like that gives them an advantage over a pro because, you know, every, every game you add, just like in parlay, your odds go down of getting it right. I mean, it's really hard to go five and up. So, you know, the pro in me, yeah, I wish it was just three games a week. But I honestly think, I mean, we could talk about the DK, the DK one or the Circa, but, you know,

DK has got it down pretty well now. They have one week that's a buy and they have, you know, pretty good payouts. But Circa, they have better payouts. So it's all about what you're looking for. You're looking for bigger money. That's probably the contest for you other than DK, you know. Well, what I agree with you is what I also like about DK is you don't have to lock until Sunday. And so you can-

Which actually hurt us though. What's that? That actually hurt us. Well, it hurt us because we're stupid, not because of the situation. It hurt, it hurt us because we like let lines influence us and we started to play- Just so much noise. Yeah, we just, you know, we didn't block out the noise. That's our fault.

That's not the contest fault. So I like that there's a late lock. I think that's great. A lot of contests do a Thursday lock. I agree with you on the three. I'd much rather do that. If I were building a perfect contest, I'd make it even a little more sharper at the risk of excluding people who might not play it otherwise.

maybe you increase the entry fee, make it three games, create a little bit more situational strategy so you can start to include live betting because I think that is becoming a much bigger deal in the betting space right now. Can you buy out at halftime? Can you find a half point if you can bet the other side or make the right decision sort of strategically to find a way to get yourself to even or win a little money on a game that looks like it's going to be a loss? I'd like to incorporate live betting. But ultimately the perfect season-long NFL betting contest, what does it look like? It's one with you and me at the top of the rankings.

Amen, brother. I like they were trying to simplify things that you just threw in a whole wrench. We're like, yeah, just add live betting to a contest. It's like, yeah, make it as complicated as you can. I think it'll separate sort of the Joe's from the Shmows. And I think it'll make it a little bit more fun. All right. Right. Let's see. Here's another one. It's about live betting from Chris. It was reported that NFL Sunday ticket will leave DirecTV and move to a streaming service in 2023. Do you see the short delay is caused by streaming impacting NFL live betting? Is there a way to be proactive to avoid this?

Yeah, it's brutal. Again, if you're a live bedder, you need cable. Like there's no no YouTube TV, no streaming services to watch your. games like that. I mean, that's tough. It's honestly, that's why a lot of guys I know, they don't even own cable. Like if they're going to go watch a game, they go to the book and that's where they live bet. Even if they're betting on their phones, they bet at the book because they want live lines. They want live plays. So to me, if you're just a fan of it and you're not going to be, you know, like some of these degenerates where it's like, I want that half a second ahead so I can get this under bet before everyone else knows this guy gets sacked. Like, it's rare you can pull off that half a second bet because most these books update so quick

and they check your bet before they approve your bet. So it's not that big of a difference as people make it out to be, but it definitely is a difference. Like if you're on a TV, that's a 14 second delay, you can get caught. You can bet on a team all of a sudden the guy throws a pick six. And it's like, wow, I just literally live bet this guy. If I wouldn't on a 14 second delay, that would, that cost me some money. So yeah, the Apple TV, I'm a, I'm a fan of it, honestly. Like them getting Sunday ticket, to me, that's great because me and Chad, our job is the product of the NFL. More people are going to be able to watch that than the Sunday ticket. So that's great from that aspect, from the gambling aspect.

You can't live delays like that if you're trying to bet real big money. Yeah, the delays are really a hindrance for live betting. And I know a lot of markets or a lot of books would like live betting to become more of their handle and have it be akin to what's happening in Europe. where live betting is upwards of 70% of the handle. But the most popular sports for live betting are tennis and obviously soccer. And especially with soccer, they're just more of an opportunity as games go on to make live bets just because of the sort of length of time between action.

Really, really hard to do that with the NFL. Even look, the night earlier this year during the NBA playoffs when the finals were happening, I was watching the finals. And like one of my kids' friends who we were watching it with, he was trying to bait me into betting whether or not a guy was going to make a free throw. But he was getting text from a buddy about what was happening because the buddy was a little bit ahead. So it's just really hard to manage that. Yeah. Now it's dangerous game. From David, what is a normal day like for both of you during the NFL off season, particularly

NFL slow period of May and June? I mean, it's hard to say just because COVID kind of threw a wrench and everything. Like usually I honestly would just be traveling or visiting other pros or visiting friends from like growing up and just traveling a lot to stay busy because I'm like most people. If I'm not being busy doing stuff, I'm usually spending money on stupid shit or gambling like a degenerate I am. So I try to stay busy. This year, it's been a little different.

I've been in definitely more like, you know, shaking hands, kissing babies, like meeting with different people, meeting with other pros and like kind of setting stuff up just because the legalization has really changed everything in my life. Like, I mean, I used to maybe get three, four phone calls a day in the off season. Now I'm getting calls constantly just because New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, these areas are becoming pretty big deal in the gambling world. Like, it's not what Vegas used to be. Like Vegas used to be the spot. now it's kind of becoming the Northeast. So it's definitely been different for me during this offseason. I say a normal day would just be that. It's like I just try to keep busy, maybe go for walks and do whatever, but just a lot of phone calls and a lot of conversation of like, what's the next move?

What's the next step with what everything's going in the sports gambling world? I would say I usually get up about 630. And then I try to do like, you know, 10 minute of stretching, just some me time. You know, it's not self-love is not selfish. Then I'll take my kid to school. come back, have a little breakfast, maybe an espresso, a little bit of smoked salmon, no bagel or anything, just to smoke salmon, some olive oil and lemon on top of that, maybe some overnight oats. Then I'll probably hit the Peloton or maybe the echelon, the rolling machine. Then I take a shower, maybe I walk the dog, depending if my wife is able to do it or not. Then I'm in Zoom meetings.

May and June, because, you know, my real job is as an executive, not as podcast Blowhard, are all about planning. It's honestly so much fun. It's when we're figuring out what we want to do during football, when we're in heavy hiring mode. We're like thinking strategically and figuring out what's going to happen for the rest of the year, getting some deals done. It's all blue sky. It's all optimism.

You haven't lost anything during the NFL season yet where the pressure is really intense. So May and June, usually executiveing. And then Matt Mitchell is telling me what we're going to talk about in the podcast. Matt Mitchell, you got anything to add to that? I like that you think being a podcast blowheart. It's just a barnacle on your professional ship. That's nice. That's nice that you find time to squeeze that in.

It's one, two, three percent in my brain power. Isn't it like that for everybody? Let's see. In the last few seasons, this is from Connor, there have been times when NFL games have become unwatchable, completely agree from so many delays in the action. Replay reviews, injury timeouts, penalties, commercial breaks. as a gambling viewer,

it can even be tough to finish a game start to finish. Could not agree more. Do we foresee any changes in the NFL as an entertainment product in the years to come? Faster games. Is the money involved too large to expect meaningful changes?

I think there'll be changes. I don't think it's any to do with money. I think like the product just needs to improve. Last year you could see, they were making too many holding calls earlier in the year. It was stopping every fucking game. The year before it was the PIs.

Like it was really, interminable how they call these games and it becomes unwatchable because of that. So to me, I think they'll reevaluate as they always do how aggressive their column penalties and the impact it has in the flow of the game. Connor, my friend, don't be anxious. What, were you in a rush? Where are you going? Why is Chadner rush?

You guys have nothing to do. You have nowhere to go. There's nothing going on. So I'm the other way. It's like, I don't care. I just want them to get these games right. Like my biggest pep peeve is phantom calls or calls deciding games. Like, I'm with you on that.

that some of this referee stuff, there's too much money involved. Like, they have to clean it up. I can't tell me how many bets last year that, you know, people had a bad taste in their mouth because it felt like a referee decided a game at the end of the game. So I'm with you on that, but the commercial breaks, all that other stuff. It's just like, I don't know. It feels like if that's the price we pay for a great product, it's like I'm cool with it. But I feel like everyone gets the NFL at this point.

It's like if a team goes three and out and it's a Monday night game, they don't care the other team just went three and out. They're going to show another commercial. afterwards. So yeah, she drives me a little crazy, but that's what cell phones are for. Just look at your phone for two minutes and then look up. Look, football's back on. So I try not to be too down about all the commercial breaks because I get it. It's all a product. You're so wise and patient, Simon. I try. Chad, if I hadn't been assigned that March Madness Vegas story back in your magazine days,

would your career play out differently? A hundred percent. I wasn't even assigned it. It was a trade, a buddy of mine named Brendan O'Connor, who was a, an editor at the magazine as well, who had been to sign the story. And then he got assigned a bigger story. He wanted to go do a feature on the catcher, Jason Kendall, who played for the Pirates. So he was going to go do that bigger story

and ask me if I would do the Vegas story. He gave me all of his notes. It was great. And if I don't do that, I end up not writing the book, The Odds, because it was based on one of the guys I profiled in the magazine story. Then I don't learn anything about betting.

I don't learn anything about this shadow world. I don't start blogging about it, TVing about it, podcasting about it. None of it. It's not part of my life. So yeah, 100% total game changer.

You've got this one from John, which I thought of it, did think of a name for us. It's if Chad and Simon were a traveling comedy act, what would their name be? I came up with Simon says, don't be a Chad. Why does it have to be mean about me?

Because Chad's a hated name. It's just, It's not your fault. It's just what the world's become. So Simon says, don't be a Chad. I feel like it gets both of our names. It's both things we hate it. Because I hated Simon says growing up. I know Chad hates. Don't be a chat. So it's a perfect combo. That is a great. That is a great idea, Simon. I feel like Matt Mitchell would have a field day writing comedy gold for us for that, for that act. That's a T-shirt now. That's already been made into a T-shirt. Oh, such a good idea. Merch. March alert. True story. New York Magazine did a story about the phrase Chad. And like the female equivalent was a Stacy. My wife's name. That's crazy. So she's cut out like the headline from that and put it on our bulletin board and our kids troll us as you can imagine about that all the time. I love it. Great questions. Keep them coming. We will try to do one more mail bag before we get to the end of the season. But even if we don't, we can answer questions throughout the rest of the year.

This has been the favorite podcast from the volume podcast network. I am Chad Millman. He is Simon Hunter for producer Matt Mitchell. Download the podcasts from Apple Podcast, Spotify, whatever you get your podcast. Rate, review, subscribe, give us five stars, say whatever you want. Feedback is a gift. Until next time, love you. Another podcast from some SNL late night comedy guy, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends. Me and hilarious guys. from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier.

This week, my guest, S&L's Mikey Day and head writer, Streeter Seidel, help an a cappella band with their between songs banter. Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and friends

on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.