It feels like a sure thing.
There have been gambling experts on the fringes of the media for years, but now with the first states (including New Jersey) legalizing sports betting, expect more and more shows to saturate the market.
The first daily nationally televised show committed to sports gambling is Fox Sports’ “Lock It In,” which debuted Monday.
“I felt like for years I’ve been ahead of the curve with the sports gambling thing and knew if I didn’t jump on this I was going to quickly get behind the curve,” panelist Sal Iacono said. “By this time next year, there are going to be 10 shows about gambling. This is a perfect fit for me.”
Iacono, 47, is more famously known as Cousin Sal, a writer and occasional on-screen presence on “The Man Show” and “Jimmy Kimmel Live.” Iacono, Kimmel’s cousin, co-shares the “Lock it In” screen with radio host Clay Travis and oddsmaker Todd Fuhrman. Rachel Bonnetta hosts the show.
The hour-long program has the feel of a fast-paced debate show with a gambling twist.
“[Executive vice president of content] Charlie Dixon from Fox called me up and we had some conversations. It was going to be tough for me to leave ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live’ because I had been there for 16 years,” said Iacono, a Long Island native.
“And to forfeit my writer’s responsibility was going to take a lot of convincing and Charlie did it. I have faith in the show and everything I wanted to do, so I signed up.”
The show was timed with the start of the football season, though it will be an uphill climb for viewers in the early stages. The Sports TV Ratings Twitter account noted the show pulled in 41,000 and 45,000 its first two days on air. Fox Sports has shown a willingness to be patient with new studio shows as they grow original content and the hope is interest will increase as more states legalize sports gambling.
“I think it’s going to work a lot like fantasy sports,” Iacono said. “First you were weird if you played fantasy sports then there’s television shows and radio shows. Now you can’t go a Thursday or Friday where it’s not all over the place. They worked it into the network pregame shows.
“I feel like it’s going to be the same way. A year from now there’s going to be shows trying to copy what we are doing now.”
There are others getting involved, just not at Fox Sports’ level yet. CBS Sports and ESPN+ have shows on their streaming services, NBC Sports is not expected to be far behind, and TVG — a national horse racing channel — has two gambling shows airing Sunday mornings, including one with the personalities behind Barstool Sports.
Iacono is close with Bill Simmons and worked with him at ESPN’s Grantland and now The Ringer, where he hosts the “Against All Odds” podcast with his so-called Degenerate Trifecta. Iacono made his NFL picks on “SportsCenter” in 2015 and ’16, and had an impressive win percentage, but felt the network was marginalizing his potential.
“ESPN just kind of wanted to dip their toe in the water when it comes to sports gambling and I feel like that hasn’t changed a lot with them,” Iacono said.
“Fox is more diving head first in. Yahoo would write articles about me coming out of nowhere picking 75-80 percent of his games and ESPN wouldn’t mention it. I think they were kind of embarrassed and talked about [sports gambling] tongue-and-cheek. Fox is all in and that’s more my speed.”