January 28, 2014

Apparently the Denver Broncos Have Lots of Dumb Fans

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The other day I noticed that the Broncos were favored to win the Super Bowl, and I was puzzled. I thought the Seahawks were favored. But I don’t pay a lot of attention to this stuff, so I figured I just misread something somewhere.

But no! Apparently the betting line has changed substantially over the past week or so. The New York Times explains why:

The [oddsmakers] know things. They know there are two kinds of money: the sharp dough of professional gamblers and the square dollars of the public. They know that betting lines are meant to be moved….They know that square money is enthralled by favorites and falls hard for teams that have done a lot for them lately. The Broncos, for instance, not only covered against New England, but looked good doing it. It’s part of the reason Denver is currently the 2 ½-point favorite even though oddsmakers opened with the Seahawks — a team they believe is better — as a 2- to 2 ½-point favorite.

That’s a big swing. Apparently the dumb money is falling hard for the Broncos. If that’s the case, the smart guys ought to make a killing. We’ll see about that.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

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