Week 9, CBS is scheduled to broadcast the following games:

DEN @ DET 1:00 PM
CIN @ BUF 1:00 PM
SD @ MIN 1:00 PM
JAC @ NO 1:00 PM
NE @ IND 4:15 PM
HOU @ OAK 4:15 PM

What do you think the odds are that CBS's #1 announcing team gets a game other than New England at Indy? 100,000 to one? 1,000,000 to one?

Or, to put it in a bit more concrete terms, what odds would you have to be getting right now in order to place a bet that another game gets the #1 team? Let's say that you have to place a minimum bet of $100.00 (The minimum is designed to make you think about it. Anyone can bet a dollar on 1,000,000 to one odds).

I know that you could not get anyone to take your bet. And I also know that, with enough money at stake, one could influence this outcome. For purposes of this thread, lets just pretend that someone will take your bet and that the outcome will not be influenced by the bet.

A $1,000 minimum bet would be going way too high for my bankroll to justify betting no matter what the odds were.

A $1,000 minimum bet would be going way too high for my bankroll to justify betting no matter what the odds were.

+1

50-1

I changed the minimum bet above.

I'm here to play ball, not attack your framing of the hypothetical question.

I offer 50-1, as I suppose it's possible that a transportation issue or something else behind the scenes (things I don't claim to understand) could create a surprise here, but I discount the possibility very highly.

what are the scenarios in which the #1 CBS team doesn't get that game?

I can't even think of one.

50-1

Lower than I would have thought. Much lower, actually. Despite my hyperbolistic (is that a word?) numbers above, I would have probably pegged the odds at 1,000 to one or so.

50 seems low to me because I can't see anything other than injuries to Brady and Manning and both teams losing a couple of games to make CBS even consider switching. But, I almost never gamble and never do prop bets, so take my position with a grain of salt.

Quik, you know your way around this gambling thing a bit. Any reasoning behind 50-1?

dola--you were explaining as I was typing.

I would need at least 200:1, maybe more to take that bet even at $100. This is of course if I'm a regular gambler and losing $100 wouldn't make me sit down and cry abotu the three text sims I could have bought instead.

Of course, the bigger and more outrageous the odds got, the more I'd worry that someone had insider info. Assuming I know they don't, I would say 500:1 before I'd make that bet.

I would never make that bet, I'd rather keep my hundred dollars. I'd say the odds of winning the lotto are almost equal and my minimum bet for that would be $2. And I don't even play lotto.

Quik, you know your way around this gambling thing a bit. Any reasoning behind 50-1?

Really as simple as "in nearly all situations, we know less than we think we know."

Like just about anyone else, I *think* it's a mortal lock that the first team hits that game. But I don't know what it would take to vary that. What if the on-air guy has to go to his mother's wake that morning in Minneapolis? What if there were some sort of contractual obligation involved that I wouldn't know a thing about. I dunno.

I'd throw down whatever is necessary to get me about $10 million in return, then finance a carefully orchestrated hit on one of the guys, while also ensuring I'm in the Bahamas on vacation while it goes down.

Really as simple as "in nearly all situations, we know less than we think we know."

Like just about anyone else, I *think* it's a mortal lock that the first team hits that game. But I don't know what it would take to vary that. What if the on-air guy has to go to his mother's wake that morning in Minneapolis? What if there were some sort of contractual obligation involved that I wouldn't know a thing about. I dunno.

Part of me says I think there are a lot of scenarios where the #1 team does not do the NE-IND game (due to freak occurences, sickness, familial obligations, travel issues, etc.) but probably far fewer where that team actually broadcasts another game (which is the bet if I'm understanding things). So I'd think you'd need great odds, I'd say 200 or 300-1, that something like that pops up to affect that team in some way.

But like Quik says, that's based upon some kind of assumption that I understand with any accuracy how these broadcast teams are actually assigned. Maybe things are determined largely by how many of that team's games a crew has already worked this season, maybe it's regional or divisional, or maybe the difference between the #1 team and the #2 team is so small in the eyes of the producers that they go to those other criterion as a kind of tiebreaker and #2 has done a pair of Pats and Indy games already and knows the teams well. That kind of situation sounds logical, even likely, to me, and I'd guess that 50-1 would be fantastic value from that perspective, ridiculous value even.

So I think Quik's largely right to say there's probably a very good bet here for far lower odds than we might initially suspect.

I think you are reading way too much into this. The #1 team will do this game. When can you point to that this has been otherwise in this type of matchup? Pick a game. There are no examples of this so there is literally zero chance of the #1 team being assigned to another game. Regardless of what you don't know it doesn't happen.


Thus you'd have to be looking at at least 500-1.

This was/is like betting on the US to beat England at the rugby world cup last month.

Just because I had no idea who their top team was (which maybe says something), I googled and it's Simms and Nantz. And after looking at who their number 2 crew is (Greg Gumbel and Dan Dierdorf), I'm willing to concede that the interchangeable #1/#2 theory is thoroughly debunked. :)

For reference, the CBS crews in descending order (from Wikipedia):

Jim Nantz/Phil Simms
Greg Gumbel/Dan Dierdorf
Dick Enberg/Randy Cross
Kevin Harlan/Rich Gannon
Ian Eagle/Solomon Wilcots
Gus Johnson/Steve Tasker
Don Criqui or Bill Macatee/Steve Beuerlein

There aren't any odds that I would put money down on. None of the scenarios tell me that the #1 team isn't there. Unless the entire team is incapacitated in some way, they are going to be there. Missing a member wouldn't change that. The only selection based scenario I can envision would be if both teams lose their next two games and suffer catastrophic injuries to Manning and Brady. Even then, I think the #1 team is still there.

it's like betting say Memphis to win the NBA title. sure there's tons of things that can happen and we don't know but is 1000-1(or whatever you get) really representative of the actual odds? it's way higher. run it 1000 times. that team doesn't win it.