I am a veteran now of several sports betting-related conferences, which usually feature a bunch of interesting speakers discussing their areas of expertise on various panels. And, typically, the morning sessions for these are better attended than those in the afternoon, when the cocktails start to flow and people start thinking about their plans for the evening.
Nevertheless, something funny happened Thursday as I sat in a darkened hall in Manhattan for NEXT.io’s iGaming and sports betting summit in New York City. The room had been maybe no more than 50% full that afternoon for panels about Latin American gaming opportunities and sportsbook product development (which were very informative, I have to say). But as the clock inched closer to 4 p.m., approaching the happiest of hours, the audience was growing.
There are only so many people who could get a group of lanyard-wearing conference attendees back into a room like that, especially in NYC, where there is a lot of fun stuff to do. And one of those people, I now know, is journalist/commentator/media mogul Stephen A. Smith.
One more round of tweets from me at the @nextdotio NYC summit, where the one and only Stephen A. Smith is now sitting down to talk sports and media and (presumably) betting with @HowieLongShort. pic.twitter.com/JT5mJw2Uv1
— Geoff Zochodne (@GeoffZochodne) March 7, 2024
If you made it this far, I feel like you already know Smith’s resume. He’s well-known for his takes on ESPN’s "First Take" and "The Stephen A. Smith Show" on YouTube, among other things. He’s also got a lot of other stuff going on through his production company, including a drama series of his creation, he told the NEXT crowd.
Smith is a captivating person and speaker (behold this Pokémon take), as he managed to pull plenty of people back into the conference hall. Those who returned weren’t disappointed either, as Smith delivered his thoughts about sports and media during a conversation with JohnWallStreet founder Corey Leff.
For example: Is athlete-created “new media” hurting the players and the leagues?
“That depends on how stupid they are," Smith said on Thursday at the NEXT summit. "If you are going to go out there and speak on subjects you're not educated about, it's a problem.”
Sorry about your girl. He’s right about charizard though https://t.co/JoGSQHKFGD
— Stephen A Smith (@stephenasmith) January 31, 2024
Agree to disagree
There was a lot more, obviously, but the part that stood out most to me, as a guy who writes about the sports betting industry, was a question Leff put to Smith about whether sports bettors and fans want to be educated. Leff noted former NBA player J.J. Reddick recently questioned on "First Take" whether that was the case.
Smith called Reddick brilliant but explained why the audience may not be hungry for the kind of education he can provide: because sports fans already think they know.
“In sports, which is not the case with almost everything else, they want to hear what you have to say for the sole express purpose of saying ‘I agree with you or I don't,’” Smith said. “In other genres, that's not the case. But in sports it is. So if you're doing sports, you have to remember that when you're debating, you shouldn't be debating to convince somebody you're right. You should be debating to make sure they hear your point of view and I give a damn whether they think you're right or not.”
Maybe I’m reaching, but I enjoyed this part of the panel a lot, because, to me, anyway, it helps explain the popularity of Stephen A., sports betting, and sports betting-related content.
Betting on sports is expressing your opinion financially. It’s putting your money where your mouth is and, while he didn’t say it on Thursday, Smith is probably well aware of this fact, because daily fantasy sports operator PrizePicks has a marketing deal with the "Stephen A. Smith Show". The man was made to make predictions.
Furthermore, people think they know sports and think they know sports betting. For proof, look at the billions being wagered in the U.S. right now and the millions in revenue being generated from what I’m sure many bettors thought were “locks.”
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Some things never change
These dollars are being lost despite a ton of analysis and content out there about making smarter bets, including on this website. Sometimes, people just think they’re right, even if they think they’re right about a seven-leg same-game parlay that has no hope in hell of hitting.
“I wager on something why? Because I have an opinion. Because I think I'm going to be right. That's it,” BetMGM CEO Adam Greenblatt said on the same stage that Smith spoke from, albeit a day earlier. “And it makes me feel good. That's why I do it. And that is not going to change.”
So there’s probably always going to be a business for betting and for expressing opinions, just as long as you don’t get too hung up on trying to win over the people who disagree with you.
You just have to know your audience, and it sounds like Stephen A. knows his very well.
"People think they know," he said. "And that is the reason why they don't want to learn: because they think they already have. Not because they want to be ignorant, not because they want to be clueless, they think they already know."
