The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - Darren Rovell of The Action Network

Episode Date: January 29, 2020

Darren Rovell of The Action Network

Big game, big guests. Complete coverage. Anything can happen. Judging from past broadcasts, you know that to be the case. It's Sports Talk 790, live from Miami, presented by Lotee Center and Twin Peaks. Welcome back to the Matt Thomas Show here on Sports Talk 790. Ross Villarreal in Miami for Radio Row, thanks to the Lotee Center and Twin Peaks Lodge. Matt Thomas in Portland with the Houston Rockets.

And right now we're here with me in Miami is Darren Revelle. The famed. Darren Revelle. Whatever that's worth. With the Action Network, Darren. Action Network, betting slanted website and app and all that type of stuff. I was seeing all the year-in numbers, New Jersey and Nevada.

Yeah, it's a banner year for sports betting last year, correct? Yep. Yep. Yeah, 4.5 billion in Jersey. I think the number on Nevada had not seen, but I think it's about $5.3 billion, 1.9 billion in Pennsylvania. And we're just getting started. Yeah, I think so. Well, unfortunately, us in Texas, I think we might have to be waiting a little bit before we get any action.

Yeah, I had this conversation with some other Texas. Yeah, I think you'll be lucky if you get 2022. We look for it. In the meantime, go to some neighbor. Where do you have to go? Louisiana. They don't have sports betting. They don't.

They don't. They don't. Bluxie. You got to go to Mississippi. Oh, man. Who wants to go to Mississippi at the end of the day? All right, Darren. Hey, the Bo Ravage is killing it.

Get the Super Bowl this weekend. And it's interesting to me. I'm sure you'll be putting out bets in action and all that type of stuff. First, we'll talk about the number and then get to the other fun stuff, the props and stuff. What are you seeing? What are the trends looking like? Because I'd seen that the public was on the Chiefs, but it seemed like people. Who knows?

All I know is that some sports books say it's 52 to 48% money. The others say that the other guys are. I mean, it's very, very tight. People don't know what to do with this game. In fact, I mean, I've been doing this for 20 years. I've never seen a game where people don't. This is the last game of the year, so it's very refined as far as what the number should be. I mean, they're just the bookmakers more than ever are just putting it into the computer

and pressing return and see what they get. but I don't think people in general have a overwhelming indication as to what this game is going to be. I mean, I heard Trent Tilfer yesterday talking about how he thought that it was going to be a 49ers blowup, but it seemed like that was based on players named Montana and Rice for some reason. They're not in this game. No, yeah, they're not in this game. They're not? What Steve Young up to?

Is he going to suit up? Yeah, 25 years ago today, it was the 49ers last title. Oh, really? So you always give us these interesting. You know what? And then the stadium food. You got some stuff prep for the stadium food of what they're going to have on today? I better check my email.

Those guys are supposed to, they had like some like 30. Because you were like the guy, right? If somebody's going to, if somebody finds something out about like some stadium food somewhere across the country, like you know who I got to run to this? Darren Ravelle needs to be on top of it. Yeah, you know, that for some reason I became that guy. And, you know, I did. Why you look surprised that I'm sitting down at the radio interview that I should be sitting down at, okay?

Well, we're happy to have you there. And we also have, as I mentioned, Matt Thomas with us in Portland. He's out there with the Houston Rockets, and Matt wanted to talk to you as well. Hey, Matt. Yeah, we consider you a close front of the show. Well, you've only been on the show once, so we always call you that. It's good with me. It's good with me.

I got three things for you. And no particular order. One year, Ross was talking about food. I was in Atlanta for the Rockets Hocs game a few weeks back. Is Atlanta the best stadium food town in terms of food? options and cost. I was amazed how cheap it was to eat food at the Atlanta's Arena State Farm. Well, once the falcon, Matt, once it, yeah, yeah, I mean, once the falcons started that value program, it's almost like the Hawks had to go along with it.

I don't know if it, from a value standpoint, I'd probably say yes. From a like great food standpoint, I'd say no. Yeah. I mean, I think the best stadium in the country for food, I think still is, and it's not just because I'm a Mets fan, but city field, but you're going to have to pay $19.15 for the filet mignon sandwich. Oh, crazy. All right. A couple of things. You have followed Jim McAvill. He's a good friend of the show, a longtime resident. Are we finding, and I'm going to put Jim in this category, mega millionaires doing similar type stuff for promotion and or quick fixes because he, you watched him, we saw him, we saw him running around the country, putting money on the asteros

all over the place. How weird was that for you to talk with him, cover him, and are other people doing that? I mean, I loved it. People said that, you know, people joke that I was having a relationship with him because I, every two seconds was covering him. But there's a reason I was doing that. It's because, you know, people love the story of him putting down those bets. And, you know, now I don't know if he just likes the action or if he knows I'm going to cover him. I know he's looking for a million bucks.

I think on the 49ers now. But, no, I mean, he's a great guy. I really enjoyed getting to know him. And it's amazing to me. ever understood how a guy like that was considered the mogul that he was and made the money that he did if he only had three stores in Houston. That didn't make any sense to me. And I understand that it's, you know, while they're physically located in Houston, people come from all over the place because he's always in the office. They want to shake his hand. And he's a great, great businessman. So it was fun to actually go to some of

his stores and watch him work. I've been on the road with the Rockets all week since the passing of Kobe. and I know there's been a lot of stories about the Nike gear and anything Kobe related. Where are you on the update on who's producing what? What's been taken down? What's been going on? I mean, it feels like it's a fury of people trying to buy anything Kobe Bryant related right now. Yeah. I mean, there's been a lot of things that I've tried as someone who had a deeper relationship with him.

Like I've tried to stay away from doing what almost I've done in the past, which is kind of reporting on the dollars of it. It's kind of been weird for me, but eBay is going absolutely insane. It's hard to figure out, you know, what numbers are real and what aren't. From the Nike standpoint, I think there was some concern from Nike originally

because of reports that, you know, there were pictures of Nike stores and there was no Kobe on the shelf and they were got people saying, well, they're taking it down so that they could reprice it. I mean, Nike doesn't do that. they're not a secondary seller. And one of the things after an erroneous report, at least what I believe is,

you know, Nike basically came out and said the reason why there's nothing on Nike.com is because speculators essentially bought, just search Kobe and bought everything out. It's not that we've taken it, we've taken it down. The one thing I know they have done is they have delayed a couple releases, which makes sense. But obviously there's a lot of fervor for anything Kobe, which, you know, you know, people might say, ah, you know, that's disrespectful. Let's think about the man.

But it's also a sign of respect that people are willing to pay whatever amount of money to have anything, Kobe. I'm going to pass one thing along to you from my good friend, a former PR director for the Houston Texans, Kevin Cooper, came up with this idea. And you are obviously very affluent and are a guy that can pass matches along. I think a cool thing would be for the All-Star game for one team to wear all-eight's and one team to we're all 24s.

Yeah, I mean, that's been put out there. I think it's probably more realistic than the other idea, which is to make the NBA logo, you know, a silhouette of Kobe. But I think it's doable. They have two weeks to figure it out. I don't think it's doable from a merchandising standpoint, perhaps. We're far along as far as the plans and what has to happen there. but at least some sort of tribute, even if it's shooting shirts, I think they should do it.

And I think they might do it. All right. You remain in a close friend of the show. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Matt, there. Well, let's, before we get you out here, Darren, just go ahead and talk about stuff that you've got on the Action Network. I know you got that article up there with the Lynn Dawson stuff.

That's interesting. A couple other articles up there. Yeah, you know, I mean, we try to make people better betters. Even if you're in Texas, I think you'll find some things that are interesting as far as how people are talking about the game. The Len Dawson story is a little bit wacko because I do a lot of those strange searches to put some tweet out during the middle of the game that you don't know about. And in researching that, I was just looking through January 1970 papers and found this whole betting scandal that Len Dawson was a part of. that it turned out he was just, when they subpoenaed records of a guy who they busted on New Year's Day in January of 1970, they found that the guy called Len Dawson twice.

And it was this scandal around the Super Bowl that after the Chiefs did win, the roommate that week of Len Dawson said he aged five years because of, you know, if he lost the game, people would say, well, that's because maybe you had some, Nothing was ever found out. The guy went to jail. But Dawson actually did take a polygraph test, if you can imagine around these times what that would have been like. Wow, interesting.

Very, very interesting. All right, before we get out of here, one last thing. Everybody wants your prediction. What is going to happen with Mr. Peanut? Well, obviously, after the Kobe thing, they had to shelf that. And I assume that the people who are... Oh, I didn't realize that, actually. Oh yeah, they called everything off.

They called everything off a little bit. I think there's going to be a new Mr. Peanut, but we'll have to see. Now there's some mystery to it.