Originally published on October 9th, 2023 as a TSP Live Insider article…
One of the topics I wanted to discuss is something I did differently this football season, which you probably noticed in recent weekends. On Saturday’s and Sunday’s I have not covered tennis, soccer, MLB, UFC, etc. much since the football season started.
I love doing this so much, and I appreciate all of you so much (subscribers, freeloaders and haters), that when one soccer fan messages and asks if I will cover soccer on a Saturday morning in September…I am immediately happy to oblige. However, there’s a problem with this approach. I subscribe to the theory of Heather Heart…”It’s better to do one thing well than ten things poorly.”
So, instead of trying to appease the tennis, soccer, MLB, golf, UFC, Gin Rummy, darts, rugby, etc. fans by covering the sport they are requesting coverage on for a Saturday, Sunday, or any day…I concentrate on football on the weekends and whatever sports are trending well in the Index during the week…expanding out to other sports ONLY when there is time to do it and the primary sports have been covered in FULL.
I have gotten a lot of messages about how consistent the football content has been this season so far. Instead of spending an hour or more going through Ligue 1, Serie A, Bundesliga, EPL, La Liga, etc. on a Saturday morning…or diving into UFC, which has always been an underperformer for sharp buying, I jump right into football. I review the analytics, clear out bad readings or misreads. I dive deep into the book’s chat, system notes, action profiles, etc. That hour that went to soccer is now invested in tightening up NCAAF….and then NFL on Sunday. Is it perfect, of course not, but there has undoubtedly been a decrease in volatility this season. We have had healthy winning days, even a couple epic days so far this football season…but we have avoided the major pain of an epic losing day. If you gamble regularly you will have regular epic losing days…it’s all part of the business. If you can do things to minimize the frequency of those epic losing days, you can exponentially increase the profit margins.
For those who do make requests, please know I am fine with the requests, you are welcome to send them, and if there is something for that sport which popped on my radar (and thereby is material) that I will always report it to everyone. If there’s little going on in a particular day, and I fully covered the hot sports at the time, then yes, I will move down the ladder of sports that are active for the day and report what’s there.
In the meantime…stay calm…and just win money in football for now. Don’t get worked up because you are a fan of another sport and there is no coverage on a particular day. I love soccer too, and I am tracking its performance…along with all other active sports, even if I am not reporting on them publicly. If those sports turn or there is strong information, of course I will report. If not, I will concentrate on where the money is…and that’s football right now. The primary goal of professional betting is to win money wherever that may be…not bet on our favorite sports as fans. As you saw back in 2020 during the COVID pandemic, I am not a particular fan of Belarus hockey, Russian table tennis or Belarus and Nicaraguan soccer. However, I bet those sports regularly and with success during the pandemic because I dedicated my time to diving deep into them. If it is a Saturday and you need to bet English Premier League, but I have no content on it, go ahead and bet what you like. Me rushing through an assessment of EPL is providing content that is about as good as a coin toss anyway.
That’ll do it for me today. I hope you have a wonderful day and good luck in your action!