Action Network

When I saw Patrick Keane, CEO of the Action Network, on CNBC this morning, I knew something was up. Mr. Keane was announcing a new round of funding for his fledgling yet burgeoning sports information company Action Network. Turns out, Fertitta Capital, among a few others, pumped in $17.5 million dollars and got a seat on the board of directors. As well as other benefits, I’m sure. CNBC commentator Carl Quintanilla even called it a “Brave New World.” Which is synchronistic, as I have been reading Brave New World…

Now, we here at ESBN are big fans of Action Network and utilize their resources on a daily basis. As a matter of fact, I just renewed my annual subscription. But for those of you who don’t dig any deeper into the “news” you hear or read, we think it is important to point out Fertitta Capital is headed by the wealthy and connected Fertitta Brothers, Frank and Lorenzo.

Frank is the CEO of Station Casinos, as well as the founder of Zuffa LLC, which runs the entity known to most of us as the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC). Lorenzo, to his credit, is no slouch either. Lorenzo is the Chairman of Red Rock Resorts and the CEO of UFC.

To say these guys are hooked up in the sports gambling world is an understatement.

A while back, I ran a few stories about the marriages between gambling entities and information and technology brokers – here is a link to one of the stories, Alternate Broadcast, that is made more relevant today with this new merger and here is another about sports partnerships.

So, we have a couple of casino bigwigs partnering with an industry leader in the gathering and dissemination of sports and handicapping related information. Just as I predicted in the blog posts, above.

The announcement of this merger doesn’t bother to tell us what these entities have in mind. But we sure can make an educated guess…

Hmmm… more insight into the habits of sports bettors, offered up by sports bettors free of charge. On apps they install on their phones, which likely grant access to all your other data – especially your online betting apps! As I mentioned above, I’m a fan of Action Network and utilize their information in my daily handicapping pursuits. But I don’t have their apps on my phone or computer!

And bringing this back to Brave New World, maybe we will start seeing stories that define a narrative that information brokers want to tell us. Programming us to accept the “official” stories they want to tell, which might not be entirely truthful.

The point of the book Brave New World is that through efficient scientific and psychological engineering, people are genetically designed to be passive and therefore consistently useful to the ruling class.

Interesting choice of words Mr. Quintanilla used, don’t you think?