Dots: Vegas Everywhere

“Is Vegas dead?”

Some of you may recall that I lived in Las Vegas during a short period of time between 2009-2011. It wasn’t a long time, but enough to justify having some claim to being Las Vegasan (or is that a Las Vegan? Las Vegimite? Las Vegasonian? Who knows?). As an interested party, I can attest to the fact that this question has been asked once or twice before in the wake of things like the corporatization of the Valley and the expansion of legal rights for in-state and on-reservation casino properties.

With the overturning of the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (as we noted in yesterday’s Dots), the Supreme Court ruled yesterday that the legalization and regulation of sports betting is actually a state’s right and not one that can be regulated by the federal government.

This ruling is interesting on a number of fronts. Outside of the sports arena, it raises significant questions about the rights of the federal government to regulate things such as illegal drugs. Within the sports world, it immediately raises into question what the implications are of legalizing sports betting.

States will benefit from the revenue streams that come from regulating and taxing what is already a well-established market. In addition, there are consumer protections that come into place when underground and black markets are exposed to the daylight of legalization.

On the negative side, the fears major sports leagues harbor around tampering are sure to be realized to some degree. In addition, there are legitimate business issues that get raised related to derivative profits raised by third party entities off of another entity’s products.

Regardless, I have to think that rumors of Vegas’s demise as a result of this ruling might be somewhat overstated. While the drinks served to bettors in the books might get a little bit more watered down, the effect of more competition in normalizing the lines might actually be a positive for the overall market of sports betting. More volumes at lower margins might turn out to be a good thing for Vegas for sports books everywhere.

We shall see.

Scheduling for Success: PAC 12 Coaches feel Larry Scott can do more

Andy Staples at SI.com posted yesterday about how PAC 12 coaches feel that Commissioner Larry Scott and the conference have not done enough to make scheduling fair in what is already a brutal league.

To his credit, Larry Scott has listened and has taken actions to, at least, make sure that teams that play Saturday road games do not have to go on the road to play a subsequent Thursday or Friday night game.

But is it enough? Staples argues not, especially for the highest paid commissioner in college sports (cost of living in San Francisco and all that).

Taken together with other conference challenges such as media distribution and revenue gaps, 2018 is shaping up to be a challenging year for the one-time media darling who could do no wrong.

A Scout’s View ($) - UCLA

Dawgman.com has started running one of our favorite series. In it, they gather anonymous quotes from coaches and scouts on the overall state of the PAC 12 programs.

Up first is the UCLA review. With Chip Kelly now installed, there is no shortage of opinions to be had not only on where UCLA is but where they are going. Here is a quote to whet your whistle:

“From what I’ve heard, Kelly isn’t too thrilled with being back on the recruiting trail. He didn’t love recruiting at Oregon, but he was younger and still establishing himself, but now that he’s ‘Chip Kelly’ I think it frustrates him a lot. Kelly is a different personality. He’s a great coach and mind, but out the recruiting trail, he’s just different. That’s all I can say.”

This is obviously content that is appropriately behind a pay wall. If you are a subscriber, enjoy the link. If not, please do NOT ask for content to be posted in the comments as we would have to delete them.

Chris Petersen - a championship caliber coach (is that a question?)

Blogger Cole Frederick has undertaken the task of ranking PAC 12 coaches (would it be the offseason without a rankings post?). He provides his own twist by breaking the coaches into tiers based on their readiness to compete for championships.

I’ll leave it to you to click through and decide on how you feel about his rankings. I’ll spoil it and let you know that Chris Petersen obviously fares well. What is more interesting is how the coaches get grouped beyond the Husky head coach.

Dots

• Who is ready for a little Austin Joyner action in 2018? The uber-athletic DB is ready for a breakout campaign according to one blogger.
• Are the Ducks outrecruiting Washington? OregonLive says yes. Discuss.
• We’ve not paid enough attention to UW’s Men’s Golf Season. Apologies. But Carl Yuan is having a good go of it at the Pacific Regionals.

• As you may have heard, Women’s Softball has earned a #5 seed and will host the Seattle Regional in the tournament. Coming into town will be Minnesota, Boise State and Texas. Here is a view from the Longhorn press on the upcoming regionals.
• It’s good to be champs. WOOF!