Monthly Archives: December 2019

‘YourZone’ Looks To Be The ‘RedZone’ For All Sports

Looking to follow the huge success of the NFL RedZone channel, which has revolutionized how many fans watch football, OmniView Sports introduced its “YourZone” app, which it claims will “provide real-time, personalized notifications and alerts as well as automated channel tuning to match your preferences (favorite teams, players).”

Fantasy and gaming are two natural uses for such a service, with league scoreboard and Vegas odds from major sportsbooks presented on screen.

OmniView notes on its Website that YourZone will launch soon.

From the OmniView announcement:

The YourZone app uses patented technology to process real-time data to determine excitement levels surrounding a game, you’ll now watch every exciting moment in the sports world LIVE! The YourZone app and GameChangr technology guarantees this personalized sports viewing experience – automatically or with the touch of a button on the app, GameChangr tunes your television to what you can’t and don’t want to miss!

CalvinAyre.com’s most read sports stories of 2019

2019 was a great year for sports and for sports betting, but you might never know it if you looked at our sites readership statistics. 2018 had lots of big hitting stories that got us clicks, like the repeal of PASPA, the kidnapping of 5Dimes “Tony” and other big stories. But in 2019, we hired Paul Seaton and Derek Tonin, so get ready for some soccer retrospectives and political odds!

Whoever scored the most goals gets the most clicks

In early October, Paul wrote about the top 7 goal scorers in soccer history, topped by Josef Bican with 805. This piece, which takes a fond look at some of the best players in the game, past and present, has had a lot of staying and has helped keep the lights on at the CalvinAyre shop.

The story has been responsible for over 14% of all sports clicks that we’ve received this year in less than 3 months’ time, and had more than double the readers of every other story you’ll see in this article, combined.

NFL Week 17: Packers destroy the house win comeback win

After 17 short weeks, the NFL season is finally coming to a close. But with the playoffs just days away, the betting never stops, and our Bodog insider was hard at work as all the last games came to an end.

Packers @ Lions

A big mismatch and a huge comeback combined to make a lot of pain for the house in Detroit. “The Packers closed as -13.5 road favorites against the disappointing Lions,” our insider noted. “The Packers started off slow falling behind 20-3 but if the Lions are known for anything it’s falling apart in the 2nd half of games that they’re winning. The Packers in-game moneyline got as high as 3/1 leading to the biggest live betting loss of the day.”

Jameis Winston

Top at Christmas – a Premier League myth?

Winning the Premier League is one of the toughest tasks in football. While it has been won multiple times by the likes of Manchester United, Manchester City, Arsenal, Chelsea and captured once by Leicester and Blackburn, some big sides have never seen their ribbons on the trophy.

Liverpool, Spurs and Everton are just three of the major sides who have never lifted the Premier League title, albeit with The Red close to ending that hoodoo. But could they collapse in the second half of the season? All these five sides have done exactly in the Premier League.

Manchester United, 2003/04

A surprising name in this list are the record-holding 13-time Premier League champions and the team who have won the most league titles in history, with 20 to their name. United, who won 13 of their opening 17 games in the 2003/04 season, were too by virtue of Arsenal’s ‘Invincibles’ having drawn a large number of their games.

Tennis predictions for 2020

It’s going to be a defining year in tennis. With the old guard of Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic finally showing the chinks in their armour needed to prove they are human after all, a number of young and talented tennis players are queueing up to put their name in lights and claim their first Grand Slam title.

Where well it come? We’ve looked at the betting lines and analysed the action to provide you with the answers for all four stops on the Grand Slam circuit over the next 12 months.

The Australian Open

The first stop is Down Under, as the Australian Open kicks off on January 20th and runs until February 2nd. With Andy Murray ruled out of both the Australian Open and ATP Cup through injury, the pre-tournament favourite is Serbian slugger Novak Djokovic. With the triumvirate of titans at the top of the rankings consisting of two others in Nadal and Federer, the competition will be fierce, especially as Federer knows that this year may be his last opportunity to win a Grand Slam title, expect fireworks.

VAR – The Grinch that stole Christmas football

How did you enjoy your Christmas? If you love football, then you would have been looking forward to bulging Boxing Day nets, incredible drama and plenty of twists and turns at breakneck pace. Whoever you support, you’ll have been after excitement.

I write this with no axe to grind against the results, or any particular decisions. The team I support earned six points and scored more goals than you can count on one hand. Nor was my team robbed of any points, or indeed goals, by the Video Assistant Referee, or VAR for short.

VAR still managed to ruin my Christmas football, and I’ll bet it did yours.

On Sunday evening, after the biggest VAR travesties took place at Anfield, ‘Even though I’m a Liverpool fan’ was trending at #4 on Twitter in the United Kingdom. Even the home fans, bereft of Premier League titles, having witnessed their team being assisted by today’s decisions, took to the social media platform to complain about VAR.

College Football New Year’s week bowls betting preview

Odds courtesy of OddsShark.com

The two most important bowl games, the College Football Playoff national semifinals, are in the rearview mirror but there are still plenty of good postseason matchups this week as the calendar flips to 2020.

How much excitement will there be for the players on No. 11 Utah on New Year’s Eve when the Utes face Texas in the Alamo Bowl from San Antonio? The Utes players are probably still kicking themselves for an upset loss to Oregon in the Pac-12 title game. Had Utah won that, it likely would have earned a spot in the College Football Playoff. The Utes didn’t even get a decent consolation prize: The school’s first-ever trip to the Rose Bowl. Utah is a 7-point favorite and has covered eight of its past nine as a favorite. The Horns have lost their past five as underdogs.

Four games on New Year’s Day and all involve ranked teams. Marquee matchup of teams that had higher goals when No. 14 Michigan takes on No. 13 Alabama in the Citrus Bowl from Orlando. This is the first time the Tide have missed the playoff, which was assured when they were upset 48-45 by Auburn on November 30 in a crazy Iron Bowl. Star Alabama QB Tua Tagovailoa missed that game injured and he’s not playing here, either. Michigan, meanwhile, was routed by bitter rival Ohio State to close the regular season. The Crimson Tide are 7.5-point favorites and have won their past eight after a loss.

Premier League predictions for 2020

The next five months will decide so much for teams in the English Premier League. Who’ll win the league, who’ll qualify for the Champions League and who will be relegated to the EFL Championship.

Who will win the league may be something of a moot point. Barring season-long injuries to Virgil Van Djik, Sadio Mane, Mohammed Salah and Roberto Firmino, Liverpool have the league title sewn up, 13 points clear at the top with a game in hand.

While Liverpool have previously blown four English Premier League leads they held on Christmas Day, it seems highly unlikely that they’ll do anything other than romp home for their maiden Premier League title, won at the 26th time of asking, 30 years after their last English title.

Champions League places

EPL review – How the league was won

The Christmas period has been one of the most intensive ever for the English Premier League. With two games in less than 48 hours for many of the 20 teams in the best league in the world, there were games littered with mistakes, moments of magic and a whole goalmouth full of VAR decisions, many of which have stirred up a social media storm.

While some sides had a Christmas to forget, such as pointless Newcastle or ‘nil point’ Norwich, others fly into the New Year on a wave of optimism, such as both Merseyside clubs, Everton and Liverpool.

Leicester City 0 -4 Liverpool

The EPL Title was on the line on Boxing Day, but it was Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool who bossed affairs at the King Power as they blew Leicester out of contention and effectively ended the title race before the New Year.