Odd Balls: Reality TV Fantasy Sports | Get GOATed
Odd Balls: Reality TV Fantasy Sports | Get GOATed
March 2024
Welcome one and all to ODD BALLS. We aren’t the newsletter you want. We’re the newsletter you need. The one you deserve.
We’re Dan Holmes and Cole Rush, freelance writers in the gambling industry. For every story we write, many more end up on the cutting room floor. That’s where Odd Balls comes in. Once a month, each of us will bring you a unique story related to sports, betting, or online gambling from an angle you may not have considered. Once-dead ideas will have new life, and the intersections of our many passions will come to the forefront. Questions? No? Cool, moving on.
Grab your goggles and hammer on your helmet; this is ODD BALLS.
The Sport-ification Of Reality TV
BY COLE RUSH
Let me rip a band-aid off really quick. Survivor is still on. Yeah, the show that took households by storm in the early 2000s is airing its 46th season. And it’s good. I’ve submitted an audition video each year for the past five years, and I have yet to receive a call (what’s up with that?!).
Survivor’s long run has spawned countless imitations and iterations. Fast-forward 20+ years since its premiere, and we’re sailing on a sea of reality shows: RuPaul’s Drag Race, The Circle, The Bachelor, The Traitors, The Challenge…the well of reality competitions floweth over.
I’ve long been a fan of such reality shows. They’re my hobby by choice. My expertise by circumstance is the world of betting and gambling—a series of chance encounters in 2013 spawned my career, and it has all culminated in this, a substack newsletter with 2+ subscribers (hi, mom!).
Jokes aside, there’s a unique convergence taking place. The world of sports betting and daily fantasy intertwines with reality TV more than ever before. Bracketology is the company at the heart of this confluence, helmed by founder and Chief Revenue Officer Kaitlyn Hurley.
Founded in 2022, Bracketology has offered reality TV fantasy games to over 100,000 unique users across 17 reality show seasons. One of those 100,000 is yours truly, and I can attest that the app is oodles of fun.
Bracketology constructs the rules for each show—Survivor, RuPaul’s Drag Race, Big Brother, The Amazing Race, and many others. Here’s Hurley, explaining how it works:
“Fans draft a team of reality contestants and win or lose points based on things they say or do. With multiple game types, from March Madness-style brackets, to fantasy football-like drafts, there is something for everyone.”
Bracketology pays close attention to each show’s ethos. It’s fan service at its best. For example, Drag Race queens get points if they say “gagged” or “sickening.”
This approach—one of careful attention to detail and an inherent love for reality TV—has sparked early success.
“In the first month after our mobile app launch earlier this year, we amassed nearly 40,000 mobile app downloads and peaked at #23 of the trending Entertainment apps in the App Store on The Bachelor’s season 28 premiere night.”
The kicker? Bracketology has precisely two full-time employees and has, to date, spent $0 on marketing or user acquisition.
There’s a growing market for this stuff, and Hurley aims to capture it. Reality TV is a perfect fit for this type of game.
“As a huge fan of The Bachelor franchise and fantasy football, I wanted to create something for TV fans that mirrored the competitiveness of fantasy sports. Our audience gets just as fanatic about reality TV as many do about sports, so there was a natural fit. It also pulls a new potential audience into the 'fantasy' space. Many people who weren't sports fans love playing fantasy for TV, and we've found that many fantasy sports players get just as hooked on Fantasy Bachelor. Reality TV fans crave deeper engagement and community interaction with their favorite shows, and that's what BTV provides.”
She’s right—if only you, dear reader, could’ve seen me when Tyson Apostol won the challenge to come back into the game from the Edge of Extinction. My exact quote (after shouting and cheering for a good 60 seconds) was: “This is what people who love football must feel like.”
Hurley thinks reality shows are taking notice. They don’t necessarily change their formats in response to apps like Bracketology, but they do see the need for engagement beyond plopping your butt on the couch and watching an episode.
“With so much content being put out, and the overall dispersion we've seen across streaming platforms, it's a lot harder to generate the kind of audiences we used to see when everyone tuned in at the same time on Monday night to watch The Bachelor on cable. The competition for viewers' eyeballs requires the networks to lean into additional opportunities to keep fans engaged - and we've seen that one of the best ways to do that is by investing in technology that connects and unifies the fragmented communities.”
Reality TV fans rejoice! Bracketology is here. Hell, we may even run the occasional Odd Balls exclusive league for our favorite shows. Stay tuned!
-Cole
Get Your G.O.A.T. Out of My Yard
BY DAN HOLMES
Someday when they construct the National Acronym Museum Expo & Universal Symposium (NAMEUS), they will likely have an exhibit about sports acronyms, where you’ll find terms like “MMA,” “RBI,” and “NASCAR.”
That unnecessary venue will probably be located in LA, of course. Or perhaps NOLA. It will definitely be a place you’ll want to visit, because: FOMO.
The marvelous thing about modern society is this: no matter how smart you are, there’s no shortage of inane phrases you can utter that will make you seem remarkably stupid. Like an acronym that is grossly misused.
Allow me to introduce GOAT. As in G.O.A.T.—Greatest Of All-Time. This fatuous acronym has wormed its way into our vocabulary. Even bursting from the confines of the sporting world to inhabit pop culture in far too many annoying ways. “The GOAT of Late Night Television Hosts” is a thing, and so is “The GOAT of Financial Advice.” That’s Johnny Carson and Dave Ramsey, if you’re tracking GOATs at home.
Most annoyingly, many people today use the phrase as a way to simply give praise. As in “I love Friends, it’s a fantastic show: Ross is The GOAT.” (By the way, Ross is NOT the GOAT of Friends). But those folks simply mean, “I like the character Ross.” Why not just say that? I mean…literally.
Where did GOAT come from? Turns out it began with good intentions. Boxer Muhammad Ali called himself “The greatest of all-time” frequently. When he wasn’t punching men in the face. Which by the way, is an odd thing for a person who didn’t want to fight in a war to do. But I digress.
In the early 1990s, Ali’s wife created Greatest of All Time, Incorporated (G.O.A.T. Inc.) so she and The Champ could gather in piles of money for “merch,” as it were. Hey, we all have to make a living. But, according to my research (a search engine, some newspaper databases, and my Uncle Bob), no one started to use “GOAT” as we know it today until this century.
In 2000, a rap artist named James Smith, who you know better as LL Cool J (acronym alert), released an album titled, you guessed it, “G.O.A.T.” By that time, folks had started to whisper that Mr. J (Mr. Cool?) was rap’s Greatest of All-Time. Or is it “Greatest Of All Time?” You know, if it’s the former, the acronym should really be GOA, yes? But, hey grammar is just another word for your father’s mother, am I right?
By the mid 2000s, even Merriam-Webster, protectors of the vernacular (The GOAT of Words), have bowed to placing GOAT in their tome. That made it official, and every Idiot With a Computer (IWOC) seemed to start to (mis)using GOAT.
I am proud to reveal that a college in my home state of Michigan is trying to do something about GOAT. Lake Superior State University, which is tucked way, way, (and I mean WAYYYYYYYY) up north in Northern Michigan, where bears like to eat people, and people like to drink loads of beer, listed GOAT as its number one word for banishment a few years ago. Turns out the academics in “Canada’s Soul Patch” are getting it right. Of course, they sign their school stationery with “LSSU.” Maybe they’re working for the enemy.
I’m not saying I want to stop hearing the debate of whether LeBron is the real GOAT, or whether it’s still Michael. I’m not saying it irks me when people simply tack “GOAT” after Tom Brady, as if it’s his official name suffix (ONS). I’m not saying I’m tired of hearing how the latest music artist gyrating and lip-syncing the halftime show at the Super Bowl is “The GOAT” of hip-hop.
Wait, actually, I am saying that. Stop, people. Stop with GOAT, please. For love of all things sensical (FLOATS), cease!
Sometimes, the latest anointed “GOAT” is a 20-something, whose most prestigious accomplishment is the fact he or she has dated Pete Davidson and has 5 million views on YouTube.
No one can be the GOAT of anything if they’re under 30 years old. That’s a rule.
Also, Michael isn't The GOAT. But neither is LeBron. Google Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, kiddos. And he starred for U.C.L.A. and L.A., so acronym that.
-Dan
Odd Balls Rollin’ ‘Round The Web
Dan:
Play MA: MA Regulators Tell Fantasy Sports Operators To Cool It
BaseballEgg: Babe Ruth Won His Only Batting Title 100 Years Ago
NC Sharp: Top 8 NIL Deals Among NC Athletes In The Men’s ACC Tournament
Cole:
Gaming Today: What Are DraftKings Dynamic Odds?
Gaming Today: Five Terms North Carolina Sports Bettors Should Know