JoeD as someone who works for Pregame and cares about the site I appreciate your thoughts and time. This is a very thought provoking thread with a number of high quality posters involved.
Hype, substance, credibility. These are all important issues. I understand they come to light whenever Game of the Year titles are used.
I'll try to give you my two cents, but please understand I do not speak for Pregame. I am just an independent contractor.
As far as I know, Pregame's revenue comes from pick sales not from taking advertising from sports book. Please understand this. Pregame provides much free and differential content. Where else can you read Dave Malinsky, for instance? If there is a sharper guy willing to share his knowledge I have yet to read or hear of him.
Pregame also heavily encourages its paid pros to interact with posters. I'm happy to do that as long as the conversation is fair and reasonable, which it certainly is here.
Games of the Year sell. The sad fact is you could win 15 straight games and if you put out a normal rated play with a generic promo and a competing 'capper who had lost 15 straight games puts out a Game of the Year that same day he is going to get the vast majority of the sales.
So this is why there are Games of the Year. The key is balancing substance with marketing. No pro is forced to make plays.
I'll use myself as an example. I had put out three previous Thursday night NFL games prior to last week. My record was 2-0-1 in those games. My NFL season record going into last Thursday was 30-25-2 (54.5 percent). It's currently 33-28-2 going into this week.
I had a very strong opinion on this past Thursday game between the Titans and Jaguars that the total would go over. I wrote in-depth about why I felt that way in my analysis. I studied the schedule and realized that it would be unlikely I would have a stronger opinion on any remaining Thursday game.
So I made the Titans-Jaguars my Thursday Night NFL Game of the Year. It is my job to handicap, contribute and bring revenue to Pregame. That's what I did with this game. Unfortunately it lost. Tight lines and the many random factors that occur during a game make gambling what it is - gambling. In this case, I got tripped up by both coaches calling way too conservative games that I didn't foresee.
I have no problem with handicapper's records being listed. Pregame does this to some extent. Is there any pick selling site that is perfect in this regard?
This is an evolving, ever-changing landscape. Turnover is high at many places. Maybe some of the handicappers who left here needed to go.
Maybe there is merit in pointing out that some handicappers are really good just in certain sports. Again, I can just use myself as an example.
I've had a very disappointing November. Since that Thursday night loss, I've put out 21 picks involving NFL, NBA, college football, college basketball and hockey. Only one of them was a Triple Star (it lost). Am I being fair to my employee, Pregame, by hurting my sales only putting out just one Triple Star during this time? Again, the balancing act between credibility, revenue and trying to make a living when you are in competition with other 'cappers some of whom market very aggressively.
I'm a one-man operation trying to do NFL, NBA, college football, college basketball and hockey, which I added this season. I feel an obligation to do everything because of subscriptions. Looking hard in the mirror, I realized I can't do them all properly - and that's reflected in my disappointing month.
So I'm going to fully concentrate just on NFL, NBA and college football. I'll get more to college basketball and hockey when football winds down.
I apologize for taking so much time. But I wanted to give you at least a glimpse from the perspective of a Pregame pro.
Thanks for listening.