Feel like you're not cutting it at the office.
Well, it could be worse.
Your governor hasn't had to step in and put pressure on you.
Now Louisiana's Governor Jeff Landry restricted the now former athletic director at LSU Scott Woodward from picking the Tigers' next football coach, and that led Woodward moving on from LSU last night.
Landry's.
Woodward's previous coaching hires after the Brian Kelly era at LSU crashed and burned last Saturday night.
Now this is leaving the school and potentially Louisiana's taxpayers on the hook for Kelly's $53 million buyout.
Well joining me to weigh in this morning is Rick Horos, CEO of Horror Sports Ventures.
Rick, good morning.
Happy Friday.
Happy Halloween to you.
So we have a lot of ground to cover.
So let's start out first and foremost with Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry, saying he'll allow Trump to pick LSU's next football coach before he allows AD Scott Woodward to do so.
So take us through LSU's $53 million buyout and all the drama unfolding here.
Well, first of all, I missed you for the last 3 weeks.
I was in many foreign countries, including Italy, and then I hear about another foreign country, Louisiana, what they try to do with their football coach.
Governors don't hire or fire the trustees and directly do, but every single athletic program has an issue about going after a coach they really want, and that means guaranteed years and that means a hefty buyout.
So with the Kelly buyout, it was just doing.
With the market demanded Billy Napier at Florida had a $20 million buyout after he was fired three weeks before.
And then at the same time, Kurt Signetti, the Indiana coach, gets a $93 million extension.
So it's the free market.
That is Brian Kelly when he was a hero.
Now he's not a hero, but I'm not sure governors don't have better things to do than hire football coaches, just my opinion.
Yeah, and Rick, I do envy all of your global travels as of late, but I do want to shift our focus on to baseball.
So sad to say, but tonight could be the last baseball game this year with Toronto leading the Dodgers 3 games to 2 in the World Series.
So baseball commissioner Rob Manfred also optimistic on expansion in Canada but pretty timely, isn't it?
Well, sad to say unless you're a Blue Jays fan, obviously.
So this, by the way, I do a proper show, you know that this was the last bat that was sold at Jerry Park in an Olympic stadium for the old Montreal Expos, which are now the Washington Nationals.
It's a long story.
At the end of the day, Rob Manfred, the commissioner, uses the. of Canadian excitement to say we may go to 32 teams we've got some labor issues if we do non-T Toronto markets in Canada deserve their right to a seat at the table.
Maybe Vancouver, maybe Montreal, maybe other cities.
What he's saying is if we're going to expand, we want to create as many cities as we can in demand, so.
We can increase the price, and adding two Canadian cities doesn't hurt.
In and of itself.
Toronto clearly dominates the market.
Montreal, Vancouver could be great cities, but so could Salt Lake, so could Austin, so could Charlotte.
So could Monterey, Mexico City.
It is a great derby and baseball wins.
Here's the bat.
Well, Rick, there's a lot of drama in the world of sports, and Portland Trail Blazers coach Chongy Phillips was indicted as the face card in a mafia-backed poker scheme.
So how do you feel about that situation?
Well, yeah, I'm a lawyer, so let's pump the brakes on whether it actually happened that way, but he is indicted, so 31 other defendants also, I found it ironic, by the way, that I heard the news in Palermo, Sicily with the Cosa Nostra being involved, so go.
At the end of the day, Chauncey Billups, by the way, a coach and a very respected, very well respected guy, $7 million a scheme.
Ideas that don't impact the integrity of betting in a positive way just at the same time we have Miami Heat guard Terry Roggier pulling himself out of a game at a certain time.
Prop bets are the problems where you bet on certain things that are going to happen.
So in the days now where the domination of revenue is largely from gaming, you've got to be very, very careful.
This is way, way, way, way, way over the top.
Yeah, and speaking of which, prediction markets might be the new form of sports gambling.
The NHL becoming the first major sports league to license calci and Pollymarket.
So can you take us through this deal, Rick?
Yeah, the NHL is always a game changer and a pattern setter, and both of those entities are threading the needle.
Gaming prediction.
The prediction is another semantic laden way to say, you know, gaming, giving you more information to bet.
Before the bets are cast as they're investigated in Massachusetts and otherwise, the NHL is saying nothing wrong with it.
We're licensing it and that's what we're going to do and a multi-year partnership with CalSci and Polly Polymarket may mean that other sports and other leagues could follow.
OK, Rick, well, we will have to leave it there for today, but as always, thank you so much for joining us.
I look forward to our next conversation and have a happy and safe Halloween tonight.
Great Halloween.
See you next week.
Glad I'm back.
