This year, legendary sportscaster Brent Musburger retired from broadcasting then turned his attention towards his second (or maybe first) love — sports gambling. At a spry 77-year-old, Musburger’s now one of the main faces of the Vegas Sports Information Network in addition to his own sports gambling show on Sirius XM. Musburger’s love of laying some cash on the line was apparent in his thinly-veiled references during his broadcasting duties but in a recent interview with The Washington Post, he promised he never bet on a game he was broadcasting.
That changed today when he told theChicago Tribune he, in fact, did bet on a game he called. Once. In the ’80s. An NBA game between the Blazers and the Lakers that Kurt Rambis blew, which led to Musburger flipping out on the mic:
One time. A long time ago I was doing an NBA game. It was in Portland in the ’80s. Lakers-Trail Blazers and the director was legendary Tony Verna, who started instant replay in the (1963) Army-Navy game. I took the Lakers (plus) three points. The bet was dinner for the production team, which I suppose would have been 300 bucks. The Blazers were up by 4, well inside of one minute. Shot clock. The Lakers came across (half court) and a kid by the name of Kurt Rambis jacked up this outrageous shot, and I was all over him! So I paid off the bet, bought the dinner and said to myself: ‘You know, that was not good. That was just not good. You do not want the spread to influence how you are announcing a game.’ I always knew what the number was on every game I did. I told (former ABC executive) Dennis Swanson: I’m not going to bet on games I broadcast. I’ll bet on other games.
After learning that lesson, let me apologize to Rambis. I should not have done that. ‘He could have pounded it inside and I could have had a backdoor cover!’
It makes you wonder if he had any money on Apollo Creed in Rocky II…
(Via Awful Announcing)
