NBC press release:

PHILADELPHIA (March 3, 2022) – NBC Sports Philadelphia and NBC Sports Chicago are partnering with PointsBet to present BetCast, an alternate live game sports-betting experience, covering the Chicago Bulls at Philadelphia 76ers NBA matchup on Monday, March 7, at 7 p.m. ET/6 p.m. CT. The Bulls-76ers BetCast marks NBC Sports Regional Networks’ first dual-market sports betting telecast and will be presented on NBC Sports Philadelphia Plus and NBC Sports Chicago Plus.

The BetCast will deliver on-screen live odds data powered by PointsBet – including Spread, Over/Under and moving Money Lines – along with futures odds and player props. The real-time data will appear on an enhanced graphic overlay surrounding the regular live-game coverage.

The BetCast will also include alternate announcers to provide commentary with a sports betting focus. NBC Sports EDGE host Sara Perlman will be joined by NBC Sports Philadelphia’s 76ers analyst Jim Lynam, NBC Sports Chicago’s Bulls analyst Kendall Gill and Jay Croucher, Head Oddsmaker at PointsBet, to provide analysis and insights throughout the game.

As part of the Betcast, the NBC Sports Predictor app, powered by PointsBet, will deliver a special ‘Pick n’ Roll’ contest for the game with a guaranteed $50,000 jackpot. In addition, ‘Bet the EDGE GameTime,’ a special edition of the podcast hosted by Matt Bernier and Drew Dinsick, will lead into the game on NBC Sports Philadelphia Plus from 6-7 p.m. ET and NBC Sports Chicago Plus from 5-6 p.m. CT. Viewers can engage with the BetCast on social media by following along and interacting with @NBCSChicago, @NBCSPhilly and @PointsBetUSA on Twitter.

The traditional live-game coverage of the Bulls-76ers matchup will be presented on NBC Sports Chicago and NBC Sports Philadelphia, respectively.

BetCast viewers can select PointsBet’s ‘Live Same Game Parlay’ options to place bets while tracking odds, player performance, and team stats in-real time.

….

They did this a few years ago, but as a Sixers-only alternate broadcast. Remember that? It was Marc Farzetta, Anthony “The Cuz” Gargano, and Brad Feinberg. It was called the “NBC Sports BetCast” and aired for 10 games during the 2019-2020 season after NBC trialed it during the 2018-2019 season.

Kyle Scott, aka “The Maestro” weighed in on those broadcasts when they first started:

“The thing that rubbed me the wrong way or that I feel was totally misguided is there was no data on the screen other than that tiny little bug that had the line and over-under, and they updated it for the quarterly lines, but as anybody watching this knows, online betting allows a range of real-time bets and prop bets. I mean, you’re talking 40, 90, 60, 80, 90 markets for some games. That’s a lot of information to put on the screen, and betting is very numbers heavy. It’s something we’ve struggled with here at Crossing Broad as we’ve built out our studio and set up our betting pages, particularly with video. How do you make numbers visual?”



“And for a TV broadcast, CNBC and Bloomberg have kind of already solved this problem. The financial market, financial news is very similar to betting news in that a lot of it is numbers that take place on a black board. They change and they update frequently, and that’s what people are tuning in to watch, and if you look at a CNBC broadcast, you obviously have this scroll across the bottom, and you have kind of the L bracket on Bloomberg with news on the side and numbers and stock information down below and other data. That’s the way these betting broadcasts should be presented.”

How will this broadcast be received? We’ll find out next week.