2026-03-20 03:59:58
As my variously diseased sports-watching habits go, my fondness for college basketball feels like the most disreputable. The Mets are a family thing. West Coast MLB and NBA games, between teams I don't care about, are mostly about proving that I am allowed to stay up as late as I want. Choosing to watch the Horizon League semifinals, on the other hand, is just very difficult to excuse. I'm not gambling on it, and I'm not even expecting it to impact my bracket in any meaningful way. I could claim that I am just doing enough so I don't embarrass myself for our annual visit from the college basketball data maven and all-around titan Ken Pomeroy for a March Madness episode. But I know that's not it. I am just failing the marshmallow test, over and over, for the entire month of March, every year.
I am fine with this, by the way. I greatly enjoyed Ken's visit on this week's episode. I still didn't know what I was talking about, but it was fun to ask general questions of a real expert and get detailed and informed answers in return. While we talked about this year's men's tournament bracket and the unusually top-heavy crop of title contenders, we also talked about the stuff that will actually make the tournament fun to watch: the surprisingly varied styles of the teams that have been out ahead of the field all year, what a good college basketball roster looks like in this weird moment in the sport, how the transfer market actually works and why, and what has happened to the 5-12 upset.
2026-03-20 01:36:54
What's the difference between betting on sports and "trading on a prediction market?" For the gambler herself, very little. If you go on Kalshi, the suddenly ubiquitous "prediction market" platform that has enjoyed the backing of the Trump administration, one can click on the "sports" tab and see a list of, among other events, all the college basketball games being played today. One can "buy shares" in, say, Kennesaw State to beat Gonzaga, and if that result happens, she will collect profit from the money "invested" by the losers. Kalshi, with a straight face, argues that this is different from traditional sportsbook betting because they are a neutral party simply charging transaction fees, instead of a bookmaker charging a vig. But if you define sports gambling as "risking money on a sporting event in the hopes of making more money," all the synonyms in the world can't hide that.
The state of Arizona sees it this way, too. This week, the AG of the Copper State became the first to file criminal charges against Kalshi for running an illegal gambling operation. Their argument quite simply amounts to "You can gamble on Kalshi," with the lawsuit detailing 20 straightforward instances of various bets on sports and elections accepted by the platform. That you can bet on any world event besides sports on these things opens up a whole other kind of hell, but for today let's keep the focus limited to sports.
On Thursday, MLB announced that it is partnering with Polymarket, a Kalshi competitor prepping for a full-scale U.S. launch, to make them "MLB’s Official Prediction Market Exchange." The deal gives Polymarket the right to use MLB's IP and data, and it supposedly gives the league some power to put restrictions on certain kinds of bets that would be especially vulnerable to insider trading, like individual pitches and manager decisions. As of this writing, MLB's press release refers to this as an "iintegrity framework" [sic].
2026-03-20 01:12:05
Nothing But Respect is a little late this week, due to a small error that I explain here at the opening of the episode. We had Tyler Parker of The Ringer on this week, because he's an Oklahoma City Thunder fan, and after several of our most recent guests have teed off on OKC, we thought it would be a good idea to get a Thunder partisan on the podcast to talk about what it's like to be the villain. Harry also conducted extensive research into the guys who were responsible for defending Wilt Chamberlain in his 100-point game.
It should be noted that this episode contains discussion of Charlie Brown Jr.
2026-03-20 00:45:30
This week we are launching The Span, Defector’s first and only culture newsletter. Every other week, we will collect the best non-sports writing from Defector so that you won’t miss anything, and also let you in on what we’ve been reading elsewhere. Like the Culture section itself, this newsletter will be driven entirely by our…
2026-03-20 00:26:00
A lot of folks don't like the NHL's current playoff format, which tries its best to sequester teams within their own divisions for the first two rounds before matching up the winners in the conference final. The goal is to deliver more rivalries and repeat matchups in the early stages, which is noble (unless you're a Kings fan). But it can look kind of ridiculous in a case like this year's Western Conference, where the Anaheim Ducks lead the Pacific Division but would sit a distant fourth if they were moved into the Central. As it stands, the three best teams in the West—the Avalanche, Stars, and Wild—will have to fight it out amongst themselves. And then the conference final would begin.
This isn't exactly fair to the best teams. But here's a counterargument: I am very impatient to see the Central's terrible trio face each other in best-of-sevens, and the NHL will not make me wait.
In the three games that have involved these three teams this month—Stars-Avs, Avs-Wild, Stars-Avs again—fans have been exclusively treated to overtime stalemates that needed shootouts to determine a winner, and thus have no predictive relevance for the eternal OT of the postseason. On March 6, it was the Avalanche who scored an equalizer with 15 seconds left in the third and eventually stole the extra point. A few days later, with yours truly in attendance, Minnesota and Colorado played to their full potential with a 3-2 Avs win that had fans on the edges of their seats for over 65 minutes of action. And on Wednesday, with the Stars traveling to Denver in a contest of teams trying to avoid third-place Minnesota in the opening round, it was second-place Dallas who gained a point on the Avs with a 2-1 win that, once again, required a post-OT tiebreak.
2026-03-20 00:13:18
It's been a bit of a tough go for newspaper readers in the San Francisco Bay Area this past week, not that it necessarily matters to the outside world. Two longtime staples of the sporting palaver industry, Dave Newhouse, most notably of the Oakland Tribune, and Carl Steward of the Bay Area News Group (everything in the East Bay that isn't Oakland, essentially) both passed within a few days of each other. They were regulars on people's porches and laptops and in press boxes across the various area codes for many years, as well as admired colleagues and worthwhile companions. They were worth every drink and meal your author ever had with either of them, even if all we were doing was repenting for envying their work behind their backs. But death being non-negotiable and all, we can only be saddened by their transition to Level Two, because that's the way this game ends for all of us, holding tight to our aces and tens while the reaper sits with quad nines.
There is, however, the other matter of the retirement of longtime Los Angeles Times and San Francisco Chronicle columnist Scott Ostler, the announcement of which is being greeted with entirely the wrong sentiment by his colleagues and readers. In other words, none of his admirers get it. At all.
Now Ostler has been at this dodge for most of his adult life, which, given that he just passed his double natural birthday is more than half a century. He has been much lauded in that time, winning the California Sportswriter of the Year award 13 times, or once every four years, give or take; being only 13 behind him in that category, we can only assume this is a good thing, provided there was also cash involved. In short, the guy started out with game, has had game the whole time along, and has game now.
