You're listening to Later with Moe Kelly on demand from KFI AM six forty.
It's Later with Mo Kelly and We're gonna go Beyond the box Score with Jackie Ray.
We're live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
And some time ago, I think it was during the show Hey Otani, just before the show Hey Otani, controversy if you will, I said, and Jackie Ray said that we're probably going to go down this gambling path within the next three sixty five days. And since then, which is still less than a year ago, we've gone down that path a few times with a few players. John tay Porter was banned from the NBA, but we also said.
There's probably more out there.
Come to find out that the investigation which led to the banning of John tay Porter from the NBA has now at least publicly been revealed that it included other players. Terry Rozier, formerly with the Charlotte Hornets, he was under investigation. He's given no but he was being investigated for underperforming, possibly limiting minutes, possibly sending signals that he would have
decreased minutes on a given game in particular. Now, no formal charges were levied and no specific acts of wrongdoing were pointed at Rose. So let me just take this a step back in Jackie Ray, what does this say to you when there are more players being investigated that we're not even aware of aside.
From we told you so.
Uh, that's the first thing, and it's just a very deep rabbit hole when you're talking about gambling. One of the things about this story that I find interesting is the potential of him sending signals which means he can go out there, he can play his game regular and then to you or I who are unaware of these signals, we won't know what's going on. Maybe he just scratched
his ear or something just for example. I'm not sure what they are, but it just if there's a level of you would have to really to more jobs in the league, probably every league, with people just sitting around and watching players to try to see if there's anything
off in their game. On top of that, you would have to have different people in the locker room when somebody's complaining about soreness or tightness in their foot or in their leg, just to make sure you have to have some sort of checks and balance on that, which obviously these things that I'm saying, they're not going to happen. So I'm not entirely sure what the fix is for this, but we knew the second. We live in a capitalistic society. I don't have to know how many times I have
to say this. When you live in a capitalistic society where money goes first, then just know people will do whatever they can to get it. People who have a lot of it will do whatever they can to get more of it.
And that's what we're saying.
For those who don't follow betting, we're talking about, at least on a small level, prop bets. You can have a prop bet that Terry Rozier is going to get fewer than five assists tonight. And if Terry Rozier, sorry to pick on him, but he's in the story. If Terry knows that, well, I can make a lot of money. If I send a signal that my foot is bothering me and I may not play as many minutes as I usually would as a starter, then yes, he's not gonna get his five assists in a given game.
To add on to that, though, people need to understand, yes, we've seen athletes fall down with these major injuries and you can tell immediately like they've torn in achilles or something like that. But if you have soreness in your elbow or soreness, there's no way that a trainer's going to be able to say you're not sore, go back out there and play. You just have to take the player's word for it. So there's no rectifying that.
And also there are little tricks that athletes can do beyond that. You could legitimately tweak your ankle and then be asked to go back to a locker and get treatment on it, which is going to take a large portion of the game. And now you're working within the confines of the rules. You're not doing anything wrong. But if you sent an advanced signal, that's how people get paid.
Now there are two questions here, I think for a reasonable person, the first question is is what we're watching legitimate competition top to bottom, in other words, where the results of games being tweaked, or is this just individual players who may be involved on various levels to make themselves individually more money.
So again, I think when you really go down this rabbit hole, that's a great question. I think that when you're talking about investigation, specifically investigations like these, where the premise is we want to make sure that we let the public know what's going on and that we're getting in front of it because we want to protect the integrity of the league and we want you to know, as the fans, that we are always above board.
That's a great smoke screen.
In my opinion, that is a fantastic, fantastic smoke screen, because in reality, where there is smoke, there's always fire. And so again, this is not just players who want more money. These are always going to be coaches, owner, everybody wants more money. So the question it should always be at the forefront mind is is this just the sac official lamp?
Is that what we're seeing right now?
Let's let's get this distraction over here so we can tell you, oh, but we would.
Never It doesn't always have to be the players.
It could be someone who's a trainer, someone who just has inside information as to a player's status. Look, I'm not even absolving members of the media. I've been in locker rooms. I know if someone's gonna go Sometimes before we gave back in the day when I was doing beat reporting. So there's no telling to your point, how deep the rabbit hole goes. If we shouldn't just say this is conspiracy because there are a lot of folks with a lot of information who could choose to monetize it.
That's my concern.
But when you have that many people again, times are getting harder and harder and harder financially for a lot of people. So to your point, as a reporter, in some of these rooms, we're making the bare minimum. I know sometimes, especially for those of us who are on air, it looks like we're rolling in the dough. Trust me
when I tell you that we are not. So when you see people who and you build these relationships with players, I can't even tell you how many times somebody has said something to me privately that I haven't shared publicly because you don't want to damage that relationship.
Now, if they share something with.
Me privately that I don't have to share it publicly, but I can make that work for me financially.
What are we talking about? So that rabbit hole is going to go very very deep.
I might as well make another prediction here that I think is going to come true, that the NBA is the NBA specifically, I'm not talking about baseball, not talking about football, just the NBA. The NBA is going to have another major gambling slash betting scandal before the end of twenty twenty five. I hope I'm wrong, but I don't think I will be. No.
Look, I'm going to up the Annie.
I'm going to say we'll have another betting scandal by the end of May.
Oh wow, oh wow. In other words, before the end of this season.
Yes, m hmmm mmm. I said it.
Y'all write it down, you know, And I can't say that you'd be wrong, if only because folks get a little too loose and a little too complacent and comfortable. And even though these investigations are going on, you know, some knucklehead out there who may be a legitimate representative or just a friend of a representative of a player using their inside information to get rich, and then it all falls apart.
Yep, Terry might even do Nino Brown and say if I'm going down.
With me, that's a new Jack City reference. You got to pull back just for that.
Or were you not head of the narcotics consort him the Mersey bloody CMB.
Yes, I could not hear you.
What you please speak up mister Brown.
Yes, I was a member, but I was forced into this way of life.
Hey look, I've been dealing drugs ever since I was twelve years old.
See, I didn't have the chances that you had, Miss Hawking. I wasn't born with a silver spoon in my mouth, Miss Hawkins.
And I wanted to get out, but they threatened to kill my mother.
Who are you talking about, mister Brown? What day they look at it? Kareem Ac Bah. That's right, the educated brother from the bank. He's the real head of the CMB, the Brays behind the whole thing. I told you this thing is breaking a needle Brown, and I got a list.
Of whole in the court order in.
The court now on the other side of New Jack City, Jack Uary. When we come back, let's talk about the super Bowl. Yes we can say it's the super Bowl.
We're not promoting any product, so we don't have to call it the Big Game the super Bowl this Sunday and State Farm and other insurance advertisers are really pulling back on their ad spend.
We'll see what that's about when we come back.
You're listening to Later with Moe Kelly on Demand from KFI AM six forty.
We're continuing to go beyond the box score with Jackie Ray and Super Bowl Sunday is coming this weekend. And State Farm, the insurance company which has received a lot of bad publicity lately concerning its management of insurance policies against the backdrop of the fires in California, and also State Farm, they have not one, but multiple members of the Kansas City Chiefs who are playing in the Super
Bowl as endorsers of State Farm. You would think that they'd be spending goog gobs of money on this Super Bowl like they would any other super Bowl. But State Farm and other insurance providers they're not going to spend any money on the Super Bowl. They're pulling all their ads. Why do you think that is as an outsider at least Jackie Ray, well.
State Farm specifically, it's just a bad look to be in the biggest sports stage. And we here in California we still are talking very very very bad about them. So just for the optics, it's a good idea.
Now.
They did say that they had I thought about at least considered moving away from the super Bowl before the fires, but then once the fires happened, and that's what kind of solidified it. But I think because the fires solidified it. I think this just speaks to the nature of the insurance game as a whole right now, because it's unfair to me, and this is just my soap box, and I'm a stand on it. It's unfair to me that they're spending billions of dollars on advertising, but they don't want.
To help people get their homes fixed.
So I think if I go, wait, don't run by that. Okay, okay, let's talk about that.
Because State Farm alone last year spent one billion dollars in advertising, A billion dollars, right that could have rebuilt a lot of houses.
I'm just sorrying so your premium.
And this is the argument that I have always had with insurance because I've had to use my car insurance and I've gone for I think the last time I had an accident, I had gone for twelve years and never had an accident, and then I have and I've been paying insurance this whole time, and then I want to go get my car fixed and they're like, oh, we're not going to cover it.
Are you kidding me?
If I would have just put that money that I was spending giving you into my savings. I could have paid for it myself out of pocket, no problem. And so this is the problem I think a lot of us have with insurance. It's like, what are we really paying for? Are we paying you for these great advertisements? I love the guy that plays Jake from State Farm out to him because I like him, you know, But the original guy was an actual employee for State Farm that wasn't making the kind of money that he was.
Because this is a trained actor, you know, So he's right. The first guy was great, But what are we paying for? Are we paying for your advertisement or are we paying for you to ensure our homes? Because now in the dawn of social media, you can still get these advertisers out. You can get the word out so people will buy your insurance, and you have a brand's name.
Now everyone knows State Farm.
You don't have to spend billions of dollars on advertisement just to turn around and rob the people who pay for insurance.
And this is a California story because State Farm is the largest insurance of both property and cars here in California.
Yes, I have State Farm boo.
Let me ask you this though, talking about these commercials. There are other commercials which may be quasi political controversial. I know that Robert Kraft, the owner of the New England Patriots, has this anti hate, anti semitism, quasi political ad that they're running during the Super Bowl. I wonder, because the NFL used to try to stay away from all that, now they're seemingly more embracing that.
Why do you think that.
Is Well, I'm definitely not going to give the right answer to that right now. I think we have more of it because it's needed. We live in a time right now where hate lead is leading the way. So I think anybody who is against hate has the money to do an advertisement that is anti hate, no matter what it is, anti LGBTQ, anti black, We have all these hateful sentiments that I think, if you have the money to do an advertisement like that, kudos.
To you, go ahead and do that. It's needed right now.
I've also noticed, and maybe you've noticed it as well. I don't know there is the same clamor by companies to advertise during the Super Bowl when they know, like, wait a minute, we can get millions of views of our ad online. We don't need to spend all these all these dollars for one day because most of the people have seen the ads before they can get to the actual Super Bowl. And just because you have all
those eyeballs on that one day. I don't know if it has the same impact today as it did maybe ten to fifteen years ago with the advent of YouTube.
Absolutely, because you know, a couple of years ago, the big well, I don't even say a couple of years ago. For the the longest time, if your team didn't make the Super Bowl, you were only watching for the commercials because advertisers went all out on their commercials.
They were funny, they were witty.
Dorito's actually had a competition where people would make their own commercials and those would appear in the Super Bowl. But guess what happened, like four or five years ago, all those marcials came out like a day before the Super Bowl on.
YouTube on YouTube.
So now, if your team's not in it, and this is a crazy thing, I always go to a Super Bowl party. If my team is not in it, I can tell you nobody's watching that game. We having drinking games. We we might be watching to see who dropped the ball. Last time I went to a drinking a Super Bowl party. We had to call each other by football name, so we were and if you didn't, you had to take
a shot. So we're playing games, we're not really paying attention enough that you're going to speak to us as consumers. The party is the whole point exactly, Not the game, right.
Not the commercials. The party is the point. Jackie Ray, you did it again. I appreciate you coming on with your insight. I was kind of a disappointed over the weekend to see by women's USC basketball team lose to Iowa.
Was I mean, come on, come on, I know, boo, you know. I know it was.
Hyped because it was Caitlin Clark's jersey retire ironment.
But this is supposed to be the year for the Trojans, supposed to do ithout.
Shout out to Asia Wilson.
She got her jersey retired as well, so I want to shout her out too, because she getting your jersey retired.
While you're still in your prime is a big deal.
Oh a huge deal. Jack Array will talk to you next week.
Talk to you next week.
You're listening to Later with Moe Kelly on demand from KFI AM six forty