How To Approach NFL Betting Advice From Media

Sports betting is becoming legal all over the United States, with different states legalizing the action now that it is becoming possible to do so. And with that legalization has come more and more content being produced about sports betting, content like what you are reading right now! But unlike what you see here, which deals largely in the theories of sports betting, a lot of that contact deals in picking games. And as that type of content gets more and more plentiful, it is understandable to ask what you should do with NFL betting picks from sports media, specifically television and radio.

The Objective Of Sports Media

Sports media can be a lot of things to a lot of different people, as any form of entertainment can be. To some people, sports media is just an escape from the realities of everyday life. To others, it is a way to know more about their favorite teams and players. But no matter what your reason for consuming sports media, it is important to consider what you are watching or listening to.

When it comes to the people hosting and producing sports shows, their goal is to put on an entertaining, interesting, or informative show. Doing this will make sure that people continue to tune into that program, and in larger numbers if the show is entertaining on a regular basis. That is a perfectly fine goal, as it makes sure that we are entertained as one of its main priorities. But why the emphasis on getting more people to tune in? Well, that depends on the goals of the people in charge of those hosts and producers.

For executives of radio and television companies, the goal is for the company to sell as much advertising as humanly possible during the programming on their networks. The more of this advertising that is sold, the more money the station makes, which means the more they can afford to pay those who work there both on and off the air, themselves included.

As you can see, this begins a sort of cycle between those responsible for the content of programming and those in charge of the stations themselves. The powers that be make sure advertising is sold to keep the bills paid (with room for profit, of course), those involved with the programming try to maximize their audience with the hope that consumers buy products from sponsors, and management tries to sell more advertising citing the effectiveness of previous efforts. This continues on an infinite loop, as there is no shortage of businesses looking to promote themselves.

Why does any of this matter, you ask? Well, you’ll notice in the above description of the goals of sports media, that not once is there a stated goal of making bettors any money. Whether you win or lose, these stations are looking to sell advertising to you and keep you listening so you will pay attention to those advertisements. That’s it. While it may sound cynical, the friendly faces on television and the nice voice on the radio are not your friends when it comes to your NFL betting.

Listening To Picks From The Media

NFL betting picks come from everyone in this day and age, because of how popular they are. Almost everyone likes to listen to their favorite personalities talk about who is going to cover the spread in the games that they want to wager on. But when it comes to actually taking the advice of sports media personalities when placing your NFL bets, that might not be something that is totally recommended.

As mentioned before, the mission of these hosts is to put on an entertaining or informative show that keeps you listening for the purposes of keeping advertisers around. And these hosts are just like you and me, in that they have to go to meetings and do all kinds of other worth to run their shows on a regular basis. And there isn’t much of that work at all that goes into researching those NFL picks. They are usually given some quick consideration at most, and there are certainly no NFL betting systems put into place to arrive at those selections.

A great example of the disconnect between the current sports media landscape and what would pass for good sports betting advice comes from Fox Sports’ Clay Travis. Travis, in addition to giving out picks on his radio and television shows, sells his picks to fans for $99 per year. That isn’t particularly expensive, but does make it so a bettor would have to win more over the course of the year to cover their costs. Needless to say, following his picks isn’t a profitable enough endeavor to justify such payment.

On Twitter, a user deconstructed Travis’ track record on his football picks over the course of a season, finding that not only was his record for the season not good, but it wasn’t even as good as Travis said it was with games scored as wins that weren’t listed on his website and other tricks to attempt to improve what was a poor season of picks.

But Travis is under no obligation to make his backers any money. After all, he is just an entertainer, and his goal is to help his bosses sell advertising and sell some football picks along the way. Whether or not his picks win is irrelevant to him and the people who employ him. He entertains people, so they are happy with him. It’s as simple as that.

Travis has parlayed his regular sports betting content into a recurring role on Fox Sports’ new sports betting show, Lock It In, where he makes daily picks with results that are not as good as bettors would need to win. But as he always says, shooters shoot, and Travis is definitely not scared to keep shooting when it comes to his sports betting picks.

Sports Betting Experts On Television

If you have ever seen or heard sports programming heading into a weekend during football season, you have probably heard the name RJ Bell, followed immediately by the name of his website. Bell does radio hits around the country constantly, where he is relied on as a sports betting expert, and gives his insights heading into the week’s notable football games. But the designation of a sports betting expert who does radio segments around the country is paradoxical in nature if you think about it.

Sports betting experts are usually very secretive when they have good information, as giving it away would cause lines to change and for them to lose the advantage that they had in the first place. So, while Bell is positioned as the voice of the professional bettor, you have to keep in mind that it would be a cold day in hell before any professional bettor would let someone give their information away on radio stations around the country. And that is before you get to the fact that Bell, too, is trying to sell something.

Bell’s website, which always gets mentioned multiple times during each of his radio segments, is a website that sells sports betting picks to the public, with various handicappers selling picks across different sports. They also provide information free of charge, but what exactly the site does is never mentioned by Bell or the radio hosts who promote the site for free on their shows. And that can be interpreted as a little sketchy to more scrupulous bettors.

Of course, there is also the issue of Bell’s handicappers not providing a positive return on investment to bettors who do purchase picks from their site. Deadspin’s long read on Bell’s site and the performance of its handicappers should be required reading for anyone on the fence about purchasing sports betting picks, as it outlines just how much paying for picks impacts the amount of winning you would need to do in order to turn a profit while still paying for the information.

This means that Bell and his army of “pros” can easily be dismissed as entertainers the same way that other members of the sports media can be when they get into sports betting talk. But it’s the unwavering talk of legitimacy and professionalism that radio hosts speak of Bell with that is alarming, given that his company’s paid picks don’t appear to be any better than flipping a coin. If nothing else, it is a stunning lack of willingness to hold anyone to even the most decent standards before blindly calling them an expert or a genius that is the biggest offense here.

And that isn’t to say that Bell doesn’t give out some good information. He understands the importance of metrics like yards per play rather than using per-game stats and generally knows the principles behind sports betting. Nobody is disputing that. But if nobody can use their tremendously large radio platform to mention that Bell’s site isn’t as great as they are making it sound, without him having to pay for it, then that is an issue that needs to be addressed.

In general, bettors should be skeptical of anyone whose goal is to sell picks to bettors. If these individuals or groups were truly elite sports bettors, they would be able to bet large amounts of money on their selections themselves and not need to sell them to anyone to make their money. As mentioned earlier, a professional bettor selling their picks would result in line movements and shifts that could destroy that bettor’s chances at a profit long-term.

They should also approach sports betting experts with a skeptical frame of mind to some degree. Using any valuable information that they provide, such as trends and statistics is a great idea. But putting too much stock into their picks could be dangerous for the reasons described above. And when it comes to anyone you listen to or watch that is positioned as some kind of expert, be sure to research them and find out who they are and what their motivations are.

Transparency In Sports Media

There are so many people in the sports betting industry that operate without integrity, claiming ludicrous win percentages or using other tactics to try and generate business. But a lot of members of the sports media lack integrity in another way, where they fail to mention their hit rate when they are making picks, which makes it difficult to trust them.

For most sports personalities, this is fine, as they are making picks for entertainment purposes only, a phrase that is incredibly annoying to hear when someone is trying to reinforce that gambling isn’t fully legal in the United States and far less so when used to describe picks that shouldn’t be taken too seriously.

But for the personalities like the aforementioned Travis or Jason McIntyre who routinely talk about how good they are at sports betting and how they should be trusted with your money when they make picks, you would love to see those people publicize their records whether they are good or bad. Of course, if such personalities were picking games at a high level, they would be shouting it from the rooftops, which should lead you to be skeptical of these people right off the bat.

Sports media personalities should strive to be more like Colin Cowherd when it comes to being transparent with his weekly NFL picks. Known as the Blazing Five, Cowherd makes five NFL picks each week during the season, and is sure to mention to his listeners how those picks fared not just after each week, but with a note of the season total as well. That is the type of transparency that anyone making sports picks for a large platform should be required to provide.

When Cowherd was doing his show for ESPN, his picks were kept on ESPN’s web site in addition to on his radio show. Everyone could see what his picks were for each week, as well as how his record changed after each one of them. If he won, the results were right there for everyone to see. If he lost, the same was true. And, impressively, Cowherd has historically done well with those picks. Combined with his transparency, that makes him one of the few sports betting content providers that bettors shouldn’t run screaming from.

Remember that when sports media personalities fail to disclose their records and other important information when they make picks on their shows or online, it is either because they aren’t good at making sports betting picks, or they want you to think that they are better than they really are. Being able to recognize that and what a problem it is will help keep you from making decisions based on the opinions of people who don’t deserve that kind of trust.

Doing Your Own Research

With so much information out there that either isn’t good, is meant to sell you something, or just isn’t worth your time or attention, the question becomes what you should do to have success in sports betting. The answer is to do your own research and utilize the systems that give you an increased chance of coming out ahead in the long run.

That is the most important thing to take away from a discussion of sports media’s increased presence in sports betting space. Sure, you can get some interesting information from the media, even if you shouldn’t put much stock into their actual picks. But the best way to get information and to use it to your advantage is to look into each team yourself, from their statistics, to injury news, to analyzing the games that they have played leading up to the one you are interested in betting on.

Usually, doing this will reveal a few things that you didn’t know about the teams that are competing, which can either strengthen your position on a game that you think will make for a good bet, or will dissuade you and help you discover that looking elsewhere would be the right choice. Either way, arming yourself with knowledge is the best thing that you can do, and this research is like going to a store full of knowledge ammunition.

Also, it is worth remembering that by doing extensive research into each game you bet, you will probably be more armed with information than the sports media personalities who make picks for everyone to hear. Those people are entertainers, who are not specialists in sports betting, who probably don’t spend time looking at yards per play, or which teams struggle at defending slot receivers, or any of the other information that can give you an edge in betting on football.

By doing all of the learning that you can about sports betting and about the games that you care about most, you can make it so you don’t need to know what the popular sports pundits in your area and around the country think.

You Have Choices

What is great about being a sports bettor in the digital age is the fact that there is a limitless amount of information that you have access to, with which you can inform yourself and make yourself the best bettor that you can be. But remember, before you listen to any source of information or read anything, that you have so many choices when it comes to things you can use to your advantage when placing your bets.

Even if there is a very popular sports personality out there who is giving out sports betting advice, you are under no obligation to put any stock in what they have to say if they aren’t transparent and if your research indicates that their information isn’t great. Even if a very popular website is being promoted for free across the country despite a losing track record, you are under no obligation to pay any attention to what that individual has to say. And even if there is someone out there who is transparent and has a great track record, you are under no obligation to stand in lock-step with them.

With a million podcasts, websites (like this very good and informative one), and other sources of information out there, you are free to find the ones that you like best to give yourself as much information as you want. Alternatively, you can choose to not pay attention to any of those things, and instead trust your own research and ideas to carry you to solid sports betting success.

One of the keys to sports betting that is rarely talked about is how important it is to cut through all of the noise. There are so many carnival barkers and touts out there who want you to think that they have some kind of magic elixir for sports betting that they have and that you can obtain from them. But if that was the case, those people wouldn’t be able to tell you about it, because they would be too busy living on an island that they own while sipping on a drink with an umbrella in it.

What all of these people don’t want to tell you is that sports betting can be hard work, but that it is also work that can be done by anyone willing to put in the work and apply the right systems and frames of mind. Strong discipline and bankroll management, combined with relentless research, betting systems and strategies like the ones you’ll see here, and the ability to rely on one’s own hard work are all anyone really needs to be a good sports bettor.

As sports betting becomes legal in more and more places, you will hear lots of voices telling you that you need them to be a great bettor, rather than the things I just mentioned. Keep in mind that they are wrong, and that you can accomplish your goals if you just stick with it, end of story.