I've really enjoyed watching this and I do believe a tradition has been born. Just a matter of time until they come to Athens.

Their love of Maction is a combination of great and exciting but also a little demeaning, because it is clearly a little tongue-in-cheek. They have said it is a staple of the degenerates who gamble heavily on the only show in town on Tue & Wed (accurate). They make references to being "1 of the 10 people in the stands."

Also, all 5 of their gambling picks were wrong on Tuesday including 2 picks for Ball State.

This is also what drives ESPN's coverage of the MAC, for what it's worth. They know the role gambling has on their audience.

Not optimal for the league, but is what it is.

I get this point of view. I don’t gamble but find them entertaining and funny at times, other times can be jerks. Think kids need to figure out how to handle their money themselves can’t blame barstool for individuals bad decisions. Think we are similar in we like their funny entertaining sports coverage not so much their heavy gambling promotion. Polarizing is a good word for them. Big cat just launched a coffee company named after his dying dog which I think is sweet.Dave gave money to struggling restaurants during pandemic. I think their appeal is they’re just regular people. They have their flaws but they are a gambling company not the pope. Sometimes they will tweet out celebrity dating news which i care nothing about and promote other celebrity’s I think send bad message like Kim k, Pete Davison, lil and x and others makes no sense for a sports site but maybe for female audiences? Idk. But I do like their promotion of the MAC. At times they bash the talent level too much which makes no sense if you actually watch games and see how many great players in NFL come from the MAC but they seem to genuinely enjoy covering it and if they do college game day like coverage for weekly MACtion games annually I think it is a net positive for the MAC.

I agree, I think we are on the same wave length in our opinion of BS. Other media outlets promote gambling to a degree but IMO barstool takes it to another level. I don't want to live in a world where the gambling aspect of sport becomes more important to fans than the actual competition.

I've already started to see a shift in attention spans at live events. For example, I went to visit some Bobcats I went to school with in a state that allows legal gambling. We took in a baseball game but I noticed that they were glued to their phones pre-game and were constantly checking to see how their bets were doing and scouring their apps for good live bets to place.

Those of us who were from Ohio where legalized gambling hasn't been allowed yet, were actually interested in what was going on on the diamond.

*wanted to add that they were younger than I by a few years, about 25-26 years old

+1 I agree totally with this sentiment.

I'm curious why you think this that legal gambling is a recipe for scandal?

College sports has already seen numerous, very ugly gambling scandals. Each of them was made possible by the fact that gambling was illegal and occurred in a black market, often run by violent gangs. Isn't regulation less likely to cause scandal?

I completely agree with this sentiment. It's kind of like when authorizing the Ohio Lottery was on the ballot in the 1970s. I couldn't figure out whether it would just move illegal gambling to legal gambling, which I thought would be a good thing, or if it would increase the number of people who would gamble, which I thought would be a bad thing. As a result I left that item blank on my ballot. I had no idea, but in retrospect I should have, that the airways would be flooded with ads encourarging Ohio citizens to gamble. If I had realized that outcome, I would have voted a resounding, "No" against the lottery. As it now stands the Ohio Lottery is a tax on stupidity as many or our poorest and least educated citizens spend money on it each week in vain attempts to "strike it rich." So, in my mind, the State of Ohio education bureaucracy is profiting off the backs (and slim wallets) of some of Ohio's most vulnerable citizens. It's just as disgusting to me as the picture you paint of the entanglement of universities in gambling.

Education has gained pretty much nothing from the lottery! As lottery revenues have raised, the amount of state funding has decreased.

Meant for the tread to be more about how barstool covers the mac vs whether gambling is right or wrong but stand by what I said earlier. People need to figure out how to spend their money on their own. Gambling can be fun and if it’s legal or not people are going to do it. I could see two ants on the pavement and go to person next to me hey I bet you 1$ that ant will make it to the grass before the other. Nothing destructive about it all is in good fun. I can see how it can become destructive but don’t think that is always the case. What the middle ground is I can’t say but think it is natural to do and can never be completely stamped out. You might say barstool is only a sports betting company but I don’t see that as the case. They provide entertainment, coverage and content creation that I think while it revolves around their gambling could also stand alone by itself as entertainment. Maybe I’m wrong but is just my opinion.

I agree with this. Would have eventually happened, but if they were honest (insert joke) the 1973 vote would have never 👎 passed.

I love a good wager and will participate frequently come Jan 1st. Nothing crazy though because the feeling of losing money hits me deeper than winning does.

Without PMT, no way does Barstool grow to what it is today.