 This is covering the spread. Here are your hosts Jim Saunas and Dr. Ed Feng What is going on everybody? Welcome on into covering the spread That's right here on the FanDuel podcast network and numberfire.com and today We're breaking down the return of the Boon Miss Liga with Alex Heinert of Numberfire. My name is Jim Saunas. I am a senior writer and analyst for numberfire.com Join here as always by Ed Feng. You can find his work at thepowerrank.com Ed, we had live sports back this weekend. How are you doing today? I'm doing great because I watched Boon Miss Liga this weekend and it was awesome Just a couple of things I want to say about that like I'm a huge soccer fan I actually consider international soccer like my favorite sport to watch It's not my favorite sporting event, which would be the NCAA tournament It's not my favorite sport that would be football American football But it's my favorite sport to watch just because of the continuity and like it's a 90-minute thing, right? So and I haven't gotten into club soccer lately just because with all the responsibilities in my life So it's really cool to watch some Boon Miss Liga Also last week, I finished my video on exponential growth and Confirmed COVID cases and I actually posted a visual on Twitter just showing the difference about how the US and the German Cases were look the exact same in March and look drastically different since then so that you know the cases in Germany are doubling it like every 18.2 weeks, which is a long time and in the US. It's more like five so they get to have sports because the number of cases just looks a lot different in that country and we Pray that we get our sports back this fall Yeah, and I think that there has been some positive momentum recently California was talking about how they're more open to having Sports without fans at some point in the not-so-distant future for baseball talking about their negotiations Which is not a little bit messy, but you know, they're progressing and they're happening at least we've had NASCAR There have been discussions around opening up college campuses again, so it's been at least better news recently and I Feel like I'm feeling better about it than I was Ed But what do the numbers say, you know based on your look at them as far as where we're at in the progression of all this stuff Well, I mean, you know, we're not doing as well as South Korea and Germany. I mean, that's what the numbers say I hope that it is good enough by Fall that everything, you know the NFL has no problems Opening up. I've already talked about, you know Probably getting college football in the spring just because of the timing of kids getting back on campus probably not happening until September Can't really throw them back onto the field then But you know, I mean, I don't feel like my view is necessarily changed since the last time we talked about this, but I think That we are on the right track. Yeah And I like feverishly refresh Twitter every day at like five o'clock for when Nate Silver tweets out like the Context behind that day is COVID-19 numbers and they've been looking better I mean, it's not good obviously like there's still a lot of bad things happening, but it's been getting better So I'm allowing myself to feel optimistic just because I could use that after two months of being locked down But it also it's easier to be optimistic and when I get to watch NASCAR and yeah Pretend things are no normal for a couple of hours. It's been that was fun. I enjoyed it. Excellent And you got your Bundesliga so we're gonna break down the Bundesliga Get some betting insights from Alex Heinerth as mentioned He is a writer for a number fire. You can find Alex on Twitter at a Heinerth H-e-i-n-e-r-t midco s-n-m-i-d-c-o-s-n as he works for a TV station out there in the Dakotas We're talking about the Bundesliga. We're talking about betting on soccer in general It's thoughts on the Bundesliga and any takeaways he may have had in the opening weekend of games And any takeaways for you for watching the Bundesliga at least for a little bit over this weekend The takeaway is that I was very happy after watching some live sports And I plan to continue to watch a lot of Bundesliga over the next couple weeks. Good. I like this We can get our fix in you've got your Bundesliga. I've got my NASCAR. We're too happy. Yeah, two happy co-hosts here After a long time of being shut out of the sports world Well, I've plenty more discussion of the sports world as it opens back opens back up talk about different sports You can bet on and all that right here on covering the spread So make sure you are subscribed to covering the spread wherever you get your podcast Apple podcast Spotify Stitcher the Google Play Store. You name it You can find us there and while you're there if you like what you hear Please leave us a rating and review as well Before we take a look at last week's show and go through covering the past because we actually have things to discuss once again Fandals sports book is now available in Colorado, but what's a sports book with no sports? Well, it's Fandal anything book Fandals newest free game each day We'll pick one free prop like the weather stocks anything pick it right to win five bucks inside credit Then play again tomorrow play Fandal anything book free only on Fandal sports book must be 21 plus max Bonus is $50 visit fandal.com slash audio for terms gambling problem call 1-800-522-4700 Let's take a look about back now at last week We had PJ Walsh of the action network on to preview Sunday's race in Dalton and PJ made a pretty good pick We had to go back over covering the past All right, so last week here on covering the spread we previewed Dalton again with PJ Walsh find PJ on Twitter at PJ Walsh 24 he had talked about Tyler Reddick and at the time that PJ was discussing this Tyler Reddick was a hundred and ten to one To win the race at Fandals sports book at least he did close there I think I saw other places where he dropped down to like 65 or so But so not a lot of line movement, but the actual pick itself was really good Tyler Reddick finished that race in seventh And I think that actually under sells how good he was because Reddick finished the first stage in eighth He started that race in 29th worked his way forward at lap 90 He was already up to eighth Then he had a pit road tire violation, which isn't his fault as his team's fault and he had to restart at the end of the longest line Worked his way through traffic again and wound up finishing seventh So Tyler Reddick one ten to one doesn't pay off But a really good pick by PJ and to show you how good that pick was Tyler Reddick for Wednesday's race at the exact Same track is 28 to one So really good one there by PJ Walsh I talked about Matt Di Benedetto Di Benedetto was 50 to one at the time We discussed him did get a lot of closing line value here because it closed at 26 to one So 50 to 26 is a good shift However, he was not as good during the races Tyler Reddick finished 14th never really pushing for a win So I would say PJ really nailed that one But Ed it felt good to get the line movement at least in favor of Di Benedetto He is I think 50 to one again To win for Wednesday, which is probably not gonna happen. It's 42 to one So a little bit movement there, but getting one ten to one to actually be pretty live was pretty fun on PJ's part Yeah, for sure I mean, I think that's a great performance and like the way you put it in Context in terms of what happened during the race was great Yeah, absolutely So hopefully we can get PJ back on here to talk to NASCAR once again because that reddick pick was pretty good And we'll see maybe you can come through on Wednesday night probably gonna rain So it's probably not gonna happen Wednesday, but regardless Tyler Reddick good pick by PJ Walsh Let's move now to covering the present and bring on Alex Heiner to break down the Bundesliga follow Alex on Twitter at Hey, hey, hi nerd midco SN again. He writes up some of Number Fire's Bundesliga betting content Let's get his thoughts on their return to action Soccer betting and also what he sees coming up for this weekend Covering the present Let's bring Alex Heiner into covering the spread to break down the Bundesliga Alex Welcome to covering the spread. How are you doing today? I'm doing great guys. Thanks for having me Absolutely, it's been fun to read your betting guides up on Number Fire over the past couple of weeks trying to Acclimate myself with the Bundesliga because I know I know literally nothing about it Before we dive into that how things been going for you during this weird weird time because your day job is in sports as well And covering all that stuff. So I'm sure things have been kind of wild for you. It's been a little slower than usual Yeah, it's been a unique spring. Yeah, I cover sports for the University of North Dakota for regional sports network in the upper Midwest And the teams are getting ready to start postseason play and things got shut down right before the quarterfinals for men's hockey And and yeah, it's been pretty dead since then so kind of a unique time to try and think of creative ways To still create consents and kind of looking ahead and seeing what's gonna happen for the summer and for the fall Yeah, we're all kind of in the same boat in that regard for sure Yeah, well, hopefully things get better for you soon and we can get back to some semblance of normalcy by the fall at the Very least we're gonna start things off here Alex because we have not done a soccer podcast here on covering the spread yet So we may have some listeners who don't know a whole lot about soccer betting in general So we'll start things off broad and then focus ourselves on the Bundesliga after that Starting things off broadly. What are the main markets that we can bet on in soccer? Primarily, what are the main markets there? Sure, I think like most mainstream sports It's all kind of the basic stuff money line, you know goals scored score at halftime Maybe individual goalscores those things are all on the table kind of basic stuff like that You know the big difference and maybe not an obvious one to our listeners But if you if you know soccer, you know that draws are possible And so like any particular match you can have the home team win the await team win or the draw be a possibility Because there's no such thing as overtime, especially in league play after these soccer matches So you kind of have a third option if you're just looking to pick a winner in these games But for the most part though, it's a lot of the same type of stuff You would see if you're betting NBA or MLB or whatever Awesome. So we're a data-driven podcast. So we always want to know where you go to Look up numbers that can inform your betting. Where do you find this information and what is that information? Yeah, there are a couple of really good analytic based soccer websites out there. I know soccer analytics It's a little bit different. There's not as much overarching data when you have a one-nothing game, you know in terms to sort of pull from but there are some really good sites I mean if you want to look at more of a team-based Look at things soccer stats calm and who scored calm are both really good resources that track all the top leagues in Europe And in North America where they can give you kind of everything from a team's possession stats to what what this team's form is at Home versus on the road like percentage of goals scored at home versus on the road those sorts of things Transfer market comm is a better resource if you want to look more Individually if you're a fantasy player and want to see the percentage of matches a certain player has started or like what their run-of-form is In terms of goals and assists transfer market comm is a really good one as well So those are those are some of the best websites that I look at and just like again Just like any kind of sports you want to see when you're thinking about picking a game How is this team performs in recent weeks? One of the big differences in soccer though is that kind of like the NBA schedule is so huge Like if for an NBA team if they're on the second half of a back, you know back to back They're probably not going to perform as well as maybe they did on the first half And it's the same thing with soccer where some of these matches are going to come thick and fast And they especially will now here after this restart So looking to see if a club just got off a big European match midweek before they play a league match at the weekends Or seeing who's up on their schedule next those things can make a big difference based on What type of a squad a manager might pick for any certain match and that'll obviously influence the end result one thing that you mentioned there Alex with possession stats and I think that a lot of times we're trying to look for Areas that can help us spot regression for teams teams that may be underperforming what you would expect based on what they've done is Possession a number you look at when trying to find teams that may perform better going forward than they have thus far You know Jim, I think possession is a good Indicator of what type of a team, you know a club is that you're looking at if it's a team that has a high possession number That typically means it's a it's a superior team that wants to hold on to the ball and work up from the back and try and score Kind of death by paper cut like that say if you're if you're a football fan I mean that's the old Spanish style of sticky tack a football where you keep the ball Make the opponent try and take it away from you and then find a way to get through if you're a low Possession-based team more often than not your consent to sit back Let the other team have the ball and then try and win the ball and score on a counterattack or score from a set piece and so Possession if you're a low possession team It doesn't mean that you're a poor team or a team that's gonna get relegated It just means that you're not a dominant team and that can kind of depend on especially if you're someone that Wants to look at you know betting something specifically in terms of like is it gonna be a high scoring match or a low scoring match? If you've got a pair of low possession based teams that don't score a lot You know you're more than likely to skew on the on the lower side. Those are sorts of they're just hints Basically about what a team is all about Perfect. That's helpful. Thank you very much. I appreciate the explanation here because again I don't know a whole lot about soccer. So let's talk about you specifically Alex What is your personal process look like when it comes to betting soccer? Are you? Analytics guy, are you power rankings guts schedule? What what kind of formulates the ideas behind your bets here? You know, I think I think like anybody I think it's kind of a combination of everything You know, I think you're sort of looking at a lot of different data points when you sort of make your predictions You're looking at how you feel about a certain team a lot of times It is kind of a gut thing where you have seen if seen a team play and they looked really good the last match And now they play a team who maybe you saw the week before who did not look very good And you just have a sense of confidence like yeah, I think this match is gonna go a certain way But I think it is I mean to be perfectly honest like I am not someone that that is a big better That's not I don't have a long history of looking, you know to sort of pull back from but But I do love to make predictions and I do love to do the research and do the analysis to see what's gonna happen And those are sort of the data points that I like to pull from along with yeah Just using your eyes and that's why for folks that are new to Soccer and new to the Bundesliga who are trying to get excited sort of in this dead period That's I would really encourage you to watch these matches Maybe before you start to dive in and kind of get a feel for how the league works and what teams are good And what teams you like to watch and to cheer for because that's sort of the fun of this is that you're Placing a wager and then you get behind that team So don't just dive in head first take a little bit do a little research do some reading watch these games And that'll make a big difference I think probably in your success if you decide to go ahead and put some money on something Awesome, so let's talk a little bit about the Bundesliga a Bayern Munich is usually the top dog they won the last seven championships and They're at the top of the table with 58 points Dortmunds four points behind they had a pretty impressive win over over Schalke. I That was the first game of live sports. I've watched in two months YouTube TV that was really really awesome But anyways, those are top two teams Just give us a maybe handicap the race for who's gonna win the Bundesliga Well, those are the two best contenders that that's that's for sure I that's I had a chance to write a piece for number fire a couple of weeks ago Kind of detailing maybe who could knock off Bayern and as you mentioned, I mean, they've been The class of the league for a long time 29 times. They've won the German top division They've won it seven years in a row and Dortmund was the last team to knock them off under Jurgen Klopp Liverpool guy now, but was a big part of Dortmund's renaissance in the early 2010s But since then yeah, it's been all Bayern Munich every year and this year it looked like for a while It was gonna be different by and really stumbled out of the gates We saw other teams kind of take the reins and sort of lead the pack early And then they made a coaching change in November Nika Kovac went out after he got beat five to one by Eintracht Frankfurt his old team they inserted Hansi Flick as the manager and they've been incredible since they've won 13 of their last 16 league matches since the start of November under Flick who was a former Bayern Munich player and a former German national team assistant coach and Honestly, it's weird to say but like the break almost came at the right time for them Robert Lewandowski who's probably their best player He's the best goal scorer and really in all of Europe He said 40 plus goals in each of the last four seasons. He's got over I think 26 now this season now after the penalty that he scored this weekend against Union Berlin He had fractured a bone in his tibia right before the hiatus happens and it wasn't gonna be that sounds really bad I wasn't gonna keep him out for more than two months But the fact that he then had a two-month break to heal that and recover He would have missed the basically the last two months of the season The first day of the restart should have been the last day of the Bundesliga regular season Instead Lewandowski's been able to jump in and didn't really only missed a handful of matches in February And is right back to high scoring form. And so this is a Bayern Munich team that it's an all-star team They've got the most money They've got the most prestige they can pluck all the best players from all these other clubs And that's what we're seeing right now. They're on a great run of form They do however play Dortmunds on Tuesday. So coming up in a couple of days We get this great their classical match the best match in Germany every year And if dorkman wins that match and it's at home all of a sudden it becomes a one-point gap And that's easily surmountable and goofy stuff's happened I mean, there's only eight matches left and dorkman has put themselves in position now To really make a run at this and they've won five in a row just like byron has They're high flying at the moment. They're a great offensive team eddie referred to that win over schalke I mean for nothing against their biggest rivals and schalke was a team that's sixth in the league So not a bad club and dorkman just blew them off the fields and They look like they're on a mission a little bit this year to do something special And it's it's uh, they're obviously hit by injury as well They they weren't able to field jade and santa who's one of the best midfielders in the league a young England player that has I think 14 goals and 15 assists this year. That's a really high number That's tops in the league and assists and think third best and goal scored He only played a handful of minutes in that match So the fact that he's probably going to be healthy for the stretch run make will make a big difference They're the only team really that has a realistic shot brucea munching lab back right now is in third They led the league for a while in the fall You know kind of an up and down form for a team that's not very deep was expected They have a big match this weekend against byer labor cruising that we're going to talk about it a little bit But they have an outside shot I believe they're only six points back And then after that leipzig rb leipzig who's kind of the the new boys on the scene a ton of money courtesy of red bull They've been in the mix the last couple of years. They've got a really exciting young squad under julian nagelsman They've hit the skids a little bit of late They had lost back or they had drawn back to back matches before the hiatus happened They drew and the first game of the restart against fryberg and it didn't look very good doing it a One one draw at home to a fryberg team. That's just so so they're now pretty much out of the race for a title So really it's it's byer's to lose. But if dormant beats them on tuesday, it's anybody's game Sounds like a monster match coming up not too far down the pipe now We always want to be careful alex about not overreacting to one one match and we something only one Round of matches so far since the long layoff But when there is such a long layoff, I feel like it's okay to put more weight in what you saw in that small sample So based on the matches you saw over this past week What were the big takeaways for you if there were any from the opening weekend of the return to play for the bundesliga? Yeah, oh, there were takeaways And you bring up a really good point because Going into that weekend. It was hard to sort of know how much Should we draw from matches that took place two months ago? I mean that's typically the entire length of the league off season really like you have June and july off and then things start in august on a normal year and now these guys hadn't played for two months What do we expect and especially in conditions with no fans, etc But I think what we saw the first takeaway really was we saw the teams that were playing well before the break Continue to play well after and maybe that was a bit of a surprise But we talked about dormant had a great win lunching lab back one three one and wasn't really tested labor qs in one four one on the road I Byron one, you know two nothing and kind of wanted a cancer really on the road at union berlin All the teams even wolfsburg who had kind of been peaking a little bit before the break They kept it going with the two when went over augsburg So the teams at the top who had been playing well kept it going In the same token the teams that weren't playing well leipzig who had been on a bad run of form They continued that with the draw you said the teams at the bottom they have really struggled They just kept on leaking goals whether that was hoffenheim that really had hit the skids before the break They struggled and lost three nothing there it seemed like that there was a continuation of form that I don't think we expected And we'll see if now we'll see if that carries over now to match the 27 year coming up this weekend But that was one big takeaway The other one too was that home field advantage basically was non-existent And this is a league where home teams typically have a massive advantage The bundesliga is the highest attendance of any of the top five leagues in europe over 40 000 people on average attend these matches And with that the atmosphere to lift maybe some of the lesser sides you could really feel it I think the home teams went one five and three on the opening weekend back And that's not very good I mean typically home teams went around 60 to 70 percent of the matches in this league So the fact that only dormant was the only one at home to pick up a win That's telling so now one thing you should say the teams that won who were visitors were typically all ahead in the table So it wasn't like we had road teams going to quote unquote better teams And finding success without this atmosphere was mostly the better road team getting the job done But that might be the case again of of the lesser team not having the home support behind them to lift them to new heights And that might be something certainly to watch this weekend and potentially in the weeks ahead Yeah, for sure at the dormant game. It was kind of interesting how quiet it was and then they uh, the fourth goal was was Amazing with great finish on that goal and they pumped in some music and it was almost like it was almost like there was someone watching that You know live, but but there but there really wasn't so Uh, so yeah, let's talk about the winners of this weekend. Uh The their odds over at fan dual sportsbook any games that stand out to you Yeah, I mean there there are some really tantalizing fixtures coming up this weekend in matchday 27 on friday You got the berlin darby with union taken unhurt the berlin. That's a fun match Certainly the two top six matches that are going to take place with wolfsburg hosting dorntman's and then by our labor cousin going to Uh, sorry by our labor cousin going too much in blab back. Those are ones to watch on saturday. They're going on at the same time I think the dorntman wolfsburg game is going to be on fs1 so you can check that out There are some games when you look at the lines and you kind of think i'm not really sure why this team is Favored as heavily as they are or why is this team getting an advantage? Just because they're they're pretty much even as as the opposition and I think drawing back on what we just talked about You can see that the odds makers have still sort of catered to the home team And I think that's the case in sort of a a smaller match maybe but Um fortunia dusseldorf is going to cologne and that's a match where cologne is 10th in the league and dusseldorf is 16th So there's certainly a gap between those two. Dusseldorf is very much in a regular relegation fight And cologne is kind of in the middle of the pack But the fact that cologne is such a big favorite I think dusseldorf is like plus 3 10 and that number continues to shift in the opposite direction And the draw is plus 300 you think like gosh, why why is there so much discrepancy and It's because dusseldorf has been a bad road team all season But is that going to matter necessarily this weekend? Dusseldorf's a team that has drawn a lot of matches I think their fourth most uh fourth most draws in the league this season with eight They've only got one loss in their last nine You're looking for opportunity like that here two pretty evenly matched teams where one is getting Pretty good odds. It sort of makes sense. Maybe to look in that direction. Um, the labor cues in munching class back Sorry, the labor german's hard sometimes the labor cues in munching gladback match Is going to be a lot of fun munching gladback's third labor cues in spiff. Those two teams are two of the hottest in the league labor cues in You know if you watch that match again, they won four to one at the weekends And just looked scintillating at a Admittedly a bad border brahman team But there was just something about watching that match where you said that team has something right now Even though they're going to have to travel on the road It just seems like they've got a great shot to pull something off at munching gladback and again The draws at plus 270 munching gladback is only a plus 135 favorite labor cues in plus 180 And that number again also has been shifting in the last couple of days But naturally if these teams are pretty much even You know, it's not that's not the worst idea just to take the odds in these cases And then we mentioned the dormant match if you want to grab an upset I think wolfsburg has a great chance to at least draw with dormant and they looked fantastic this weekend But there's always the question of What type of aside is lucy and fava going to put out knowing that he's got firing unit coming up on tuesday And a match that might decide the title and knowing that he's got guys coming back from injury Wolfsburg gets their best striker back a guy named wow stweg horse to miss the last match with suspension So he's going to be fresh They're playing at home and against the team that they really would love to beat certainly that would help their cause for champions league It just seems like dortman's probably going to put out a lesser side and that makes the possibility for a draw really high And when you look at a The odds again are plus 300 for a draw in this match I don't know It just seems like if you want to pick an upset or want to cheer for an underdog That seems like a match maybe you could look at as a potential one for this weekend Hey, alexa just one more thing. Uh, so I was watching uh Shalka get their butts kicked by dortman and I decided they were my team because I like western mckinney American good american. Yeah, there you go. Good pick. Yeah, so, uh, what is your team and what advice do you have for people that need a Bundesliga team now? Oh, that's a great question. Um, so I up until the restart here I had mostly been an epl guy So I followed the Premier League pretty closely and I've been a Liverpool fan since 05 and For me, like I always admired Jurgen Klopp's project at Dortmund and it was that was always kind of my second team And so now sort of getting fully back into the Bundesliga that it's maybe an easy choice and kind of a Trendy pick to say Dortmunds you're you're sort of your second favorite club But I've kind of latched on to the Dortmund bandwagon a little bit But I think if you're looking for a club and you've already got one There are some really good resources online where you can sort of look and see what's kind of the equivalent What's maybe the Premier League equivalent or the mls equivalent or just the sports equivalent to a current Bundesliga side and Schalke is kind of the Mirror image of Everton in the epl where they're sort of they both wear blue They lose a lot of matches. They kind of break your heart. They've never won the whole thing Those things kind of make sense Dortmund and Liverpool are sort of mirror images of each other when you let me they sing You never walk alone at the end of matches They have an incredible crowd stadium with the signal Laguna park versus anfield Klopp obviously has foot in both camps Bayern is obviously Manchester United where they've got the most money. They've won the most titles Don't pick Bayern if you're picking That's it's just too easy to to pick the best team with that as the most money As you kind of go down the list buy or labor cues and is a great example of spurs where they've come so close But if never won anything buyer is kind of it's called never cues in because they've never won the There's a lot of good parallels between the two. Yeah, so yeah, if you're looking to pick a club Yeah, do do some research watch some matches get to know these clubs a little bit One club for your life. That's always the motto when it comes to soccer So don't make don't just jump in half-heartedly do some research and make your choice. Yeah So so actually my epl team back when I used to watch a lot more soccer was actually everton. So oh, there you go I'm now going to try to strangle you through the Skype because Liverpool stuff behind you, but uh But yeah, no, I made that choice because of a bill Simmons article after a world cup one year and picking an epl team And when I started so anyways, I thought that was really funny They both wore blue and and now I you know, that's not the reason that I picked y'all god I just I like the Ann Arbor guy picking the blue team weird Hey It wasn't any kind of fair weather choice man. They were getting their butts handed right So that's the sign of a true fan when you pick the team that's losing for nothing That's what you know, and I often and I often, you know, everton's never won anything either Right. So it's it's like I got to pick some kind of underdog scrappy kind of underdog to You know and I would agree like it's it's really hard. I mean you put on a Byron jersey that that's you know, it's just You know, there's too much uh domination there. I think to to really take that team Well, speaking of Byron before we let you go Alex, I gotta ask I'm not gonna ask you You don't need to make a pick or anything but How are you diagnosing that that Byron Dortmund match on Tuesday Uh Byron is minus one 10 in the money line Dortmund plus 250 the draw is plus 300 any thoughts on that? Again, doesn't be betting but just thoughts on how you see that one playing out on Tuesday It's gonna be a great match I mean when you look at what happened earlier in the season Byron Slaughtered Dortmund and that was the first match under Hazy flick and shards That was a four-nothing at the Alley on Zarina now It's going to be back in Dortmund for this match again No yellow wall no great atmosphere, but you know, I think if I was looking at this Not knowing again when you don't know what happens on the weekend that makes a big difference Somebody could get hurt. Well, we never know what's going to happen But I just think that Dortmund at home on the run They've been will certainly give Byron a game and I think that they're just they're not quite as talented They don't have the overall squad depth as Byron does but on any given day Like I would say Dortmund is just as good as Byron Munich for 90 minutes. So I think it's going to be a great match I'm excited to check it out and see what happens their classical 2.0 here coming up on Tuesday and again the stakes are so high and I just it just feels like because it's been So long for that Dortmund team since they've won anything anything any kind of silverware and it's been Byron's run for so long I just think something special could happen this weekend. We might have a title chase a true title race on our hands So give me give me Dortmund in this. I really think they're going to pull this out. I really have a good feeling about it We got an upset pick. We got german pronunciations. We got bundes league a favorite team breakdowns We got everything that is alex heiner alex. We appreciate the time It was fun talking to you and have fun watching actual sports this weekend Yes, you guys too. Thanks so much for having me fellas. Appreciate it. Thank you Covering the future One final thank you to alex heiner for swinging by and breaking down the bundes liga with us Find him on twitter at a heiner midco s n check out his work on numberfire.com as well And ed I think that something that that he talked about that is broadly applicable to all sports for the Probably decently long-term future is the effect of home field advantage And how it was kind of non-existent when you were just looking at the bundes league of this past weekend What are your thoughts on that? I know it's a subject of interest for you as well Yeah, for sure. Um So look, I mean, there's not going to be any fans and football games in the united states for probably at least a year So I've already been thinking about, you know, what is home field advantage going to look like When we get football back and let's just kind of set a baseline, right? So When you look at the nfl, I broke it up into kind of five year increments And so from 2005 to 2009 home field advantage was 2.43 points From 2010 to 2014 It was 2.64 points. So actually increased a little bit And then the last five years has been 1.73 So a huge drop and part of the reason is because 2019 was a very anomalous season Road road teams actually scored 36 more points than home teams Uh, so was there is a negative home field advantage? Uh, it's been, um You know, a lot of people have been trying to explain it. Usually the idea is that Um, there's a book called score casting by Tobias Moskowitz and John Wertheim and they talk about how home field advantage Comes from kind of this unconscious bias from refs because of the fans Um, we actually didn't see that according to some, uh, work by sports info solutions Uh, there there were just as many, uh, like the differential and penalties was just was as big Last year Despite the fact that there was no home field advantage So So last year was definitely an anomalous year if you look at the four years before it was still Home field advantage was 2.2 points And that's kind of consistent with this drop in, uh, home field advantage Basically across all sports We're seeing the same decline in college football. I actually have some solid numbers for you there Uh, 2008 to 2013 that's a six year period Uh, I look at home field advantage only in conference games because you don't want some of these cupcake games to to mess with your home field advantage Uh, and I uh, so from from 2008 to 2013 home field advantage was 3.2 three points And for a long time I've used three points as your you know your classic home field advantage in college football The last six seasons that advantage has been 2.41 So it's significantly less than three Uh, definitely big hat tip to edward egros frequent guests on the show He actually put a plot up that got me looking into home field advantage in college football again And you know college football it was a little bit bigger last year was 2.89 But certainly you want to you know when when you're assigning a home field advantage You want to have something that's that's less than three now because that's what's going on So, um, you know, one of the things I'm doing is just tracking results in in leagues as they come back and the bundas league Is the first one so there are nine matches And the away team scored seven more goals. Okay, so that's a home field advantage of negative 0.78 goals Obviously, it's a small sample size, you know, your standard air is about 0.72 goals So so we're not making uh, too many conclusions about that and alex hiner definitely pointed out how some of the better teams were on the road Byron munich and and others so Something i'm going to continue to track Um, I I hope that I I expect to see a small home field advantage even with no fans And hopefully that kind of percentage is a constant across a bunch of sports Whether it's the bundas league or major league baseball or mba or whatever You know sports that nature is going to give us before Football starts again in the fall. Uh, but something i'm definitely tracking And I think that the effect of crowds is something we can like We can mention anecdotally like you can tell like not even just like motivation Like in football communication is so much easier when you're at home and everyone's quiet Like there is a tangible advantage to having the fans being on your side and now You're gonna be able to do whatever you want effectively. So I think the impact of that'll be interesting I would be curious to see like like I I want to I wish I could like we could do this But just like finding out the impact of like Travel and stuff like that on sleep because it seems like teams have been taking more analytical approaches to that In how they are traveling to games when they travel the games stuff like that Maybe staying on the east coast if they have a couple of games out there if they're a west coast team I think that's all really interesting because it's been so different recently, but It's it sucks because like like I said, we can't really Quantify how much each of those segments is worth really so yeah, it's really interesting I think that the bunda sliga kind of gives us at least our first initial glimpse at that, but How much do you think you'll be able to glean from that and do you think that like maybe the kbo Can provide any data for you too or how are you doing this overall like how much can we learn from these sports? Yeah, I mean I haven't gotten around to doing any Korean baseball and I might not just because I think we're gonna have major league baseball Yeah, um before football season starts and I have a ton of data on that and we'll have a ton of data Hopefully this year when it starts up. So Between baseball between I mean the NBA is talking about getting back Um, I don't know in what form, but they're talking about finishing the regular season and the playoffs I don't know if that's necessarily the best thing for them to do. They should really have a single elimination tournament Just to prove themselves how awesome that would be But anyways, I digress so I think we'll have data from european soccer We'll have data from major league baseball and mba I think we'll may you know, I mean, I think that's three data sets that the you know, the top levels in the world Uh, and hopefully, you know, hopefully they all there's just one average, you know, yeah home field advantage in an empty stadium is 20% of what it normally would be right. Can you imagine a single elimination mba tournament? Oh my gosh. Yeah, I can And you got and you got to play with the rules where you play to a score in the fourth quarter So there's no fun. The the uh, the kobe all-star game rule Yeah, okay. I mean that would be that That might be I mean and then in a sports starved pandemic world I mean, that'd be crazy and even if you can't get every mba player to do it Then just let the four top guys pick their teams and do it or the eight top guy like, you know Yeah, like do something for real. It would be amazing. I think it would change sports I'm not a huge basketball consumer. That would get me to consume a lot of basketball. So Use that as your baseline. I watch the ncda tournament every year, even though I'm not It's hard to be a huge college basketball fan when you're a northwestern fan. So like that would get me involved So if you want to get my interest Listen to that. I think I think it's gonna happen. Adam. Adam Silver is a forward thinking commissioner. Yes So I think we'll you know I mean, there's a lot of things going on. There's a lot of moving parts But I think there's a decent chance we could get that and we can at least dream even if it doesn't necessarily work out that way My cover in the future for today is going back to the nfl because fangirl sports book now has odds posted for every team to either make or miss the playoffs and It's important to remember with these markets that there are now seven playoff teams per conference So if you are used to looking at these odds from past years They're going to look different than they were because there is an additional playoff team Both in the afc and in the nfc But even when accounting for that the additional team I'm okay betting against the colts making the playoffs at plus 160 They're plus 160 to miss and I think that number Is really enticing now if you go to sharp football and look at their schedule rankings The colts had the easiest schedule in all football by a pretty significant margin That's based on vegas wind totals of their opponents Which is a better way to look at it than if you look at Strength the schedule from the past year you want to look at what vegas is saying what bookmakers are saying and that's good for the colts But there's a lot of bad in their profile too. The first thing is that the defense is a big question mark They were 19th overall defensive last year They were 20th against the past based on number fires metrics the defense could hurt them and We also don't know what to expect out of philip rivers I do think that rivers got too much flak for his numbers last year I think that a lot of his interceptions were in garbage time and there it's okay to be aggressive You know you want to try for those chunkings and interceptions there are not that bad But he was also throwing to keenan allen Mike williams hunter henry and os neckler and now He does get a much better offensive line in indy and when you're a philip rivers age That does matter a lot But the downgrade in skill players offsets I would say at least if not all the improvement in the offensive line at least quite a bit of it If you're looking at implied odds of this number at plus 160 You would need the colts odds to miss the playoffs to be 38.5 percent But number fires team rankings which account for that said easy schedule have that number up at 48.8 percent So about a 10 percentage point gap between what number fire has and what the betting market's out So I can see a case for liking the colts and I get why this number is here, but With the big question mark save gots I think there are enough paths to them missing the playoffs for me to pull the trigger at plus 160, so I'm a philip rivers guy. I've been a philip rivers fan for a long time. I love frank rike I adore this offensive line, but I think when you're getting plus 160 for them to miss the playoffs I am willing to buy into that add any thoughts for you On the colts with philip rivers at the helm for 2020 Yeah, I mean, I think I've been talking about how bad that defense is for more than 12 months You tried to talk me out of betting them last summer. That was before Andrew luck retired But like you tried to talk me out of it. Then I'm listening to you now. All right, sweet Yeah, I mean, I still have a lot of questions on the defense. I mean, I haven't I haven't gone over the roster with a fine tooth comb yet, but Yeah, I've had questions about the defense I think, you know having some concerns about an old quarterback is is legitimate and So, I mean those odds are really interesting though, right? I mean, that's You know the odds are that they make the playoffs. So You know I mean, there's a lot of randomness. So I think I could definitely go your way Yeah, I think that looking at the the odds that I saw every number that I liked was a number where you were Getting plus juice just because the way things broke down Because there is a lot of randomness, you know, trying to bet towards the mean here And I think that with the colds there are my favorite one I'm also okay betting against the bills to make the playoffs. They're plus 140 and giving josh allen being josh Alan I'm okay doing that. But yeah, I live near buffalo. I'd rather not You know get bills mafia against me more than they may be already. So we'll just we'll leave that one there Say in passing rather than the full segment here For covering the future And we might be on the verge of potentially retiring quarantine corner because we actually have live sports to watch again So we can maybe do one this week, but I think it's we might have actually like we might have made it through this Yeah, uh Maybe we can skip it for this week because I kind of forgot about See it's because we had live sports to distract us again, but yeah, exactly It really was like well, my wife she my wife worked on saturday when she came home and was like, hey, I got to watch sports Is this smile fixed on your face for the rest of the day? Yeah, it was pretty good. Yeah Um, if you want a podcast recommendation, I do have uh, and this one actually go for it This mix is well with uh, the return to sports this one And if you were to ever Want get into nascar this would be your podcast because it is called positive regression It is uh with alan kevada and david smith and david smith is like He is uh, I don't know the best way to phrase this he's kind of like Bill james has done some interesting things uh recently and I've Questions some things that bill james and bill james is like the the pioneer of baseball analytics David smith is like that for nascar and he hosts a podcast They discuss all of his motorsports analytics I use website motorsports analytics.com which is a patreon page is like five bucks to get access to all of his nascar cup series info But they go on their podcast and they talk about When they have a restart in nascar and the cup series Which lane you want to be in because of the lane that is faster at that specific track they discussed Uh, some drivers who perform well based on the track type based on the banking of the track based on the length of it Based on the surface whether it's concrete or whatever else it may be And just kind of a fun podcast to go into the analytics of nascar and see which drivers may be bound for some regression And they have lots of us every or they have shows every thursday So to search for positive regression wherever you listen to your podcasts. I highly recommend it Again, I think david smith's page motorsports analytics.com is A good resource too. So we're blending them together for our final quarantine corner By bringing a return to sports with something you can do with your downtime too That sounds good. Yeah, maybe for maybe for not really a quarantine corner But I didn't want to talk about the the video I made on youtube. Yes. Um, so So part of me is, you know, you want to understand why COVID is so dangerous and You know, it's really the map behind how the disease spreads And so I made a video kind of explaining that idea, but it's based on a simple problem So, you know, if you're a small business and you're hit on hard times during the pandemic And the government helps you out, right? So you can either get $500,000 Or over 10 weeks you can get $1,000 a week one $2,000 a week two $4,000 a week three and a doubling amount For those 10 weeks So which one should you take? So that's how I introduced the idea of exponential growth If you want to know the answer you can check out the video I actually have a special link. You can just go to the power rank The power rank dot info that'll take you to it on youtube, but You know, we talk about kind of how to look at some of the data of confirmed cases in the united states And um, and then I end with my own story about Sloan and how I Almost certainly had coveted and how it went through all our friends I've told the story on this podcast before but I tell it again on the video because I I think it just makes sense So, yeah, it was a fun thing to do. Uh, it'll only take 10 minutes of your life So, uh, yeah, go check it out I will watch anything that involves ed fang and data. So I'm in and I will go check that out You said the power rank that info, correct? Yeah, that'll take you to the that'll take you to the page that that has it Okay, perfect Then that is all that we have for this week ed anything else going on for you over at the power rank Anything else going on for you as far from a sports consumption perspective Anything else you just want to mention before we close up shopper today? Yeah, I mean I'm always at the power rank dot com A lot of this home field stuff will be for people on my email list So if you want to get a head start there, uh, you can just sign up at the power rank dot com And then uh, yeah, just kind of enjoying being outside a little bit more with the kids and And uh, you know things are opening up a little bit. Yep. So Let's cross our fingers and Hope that everything continues in the right direction. I get to grill this weekend. Everything's great. Life is okay That's that's all we need and things getting better. Hopefully they continue to do so and hopefully uh Your lives are getting back to normal as well big Thank you to alex hindert for swinging by and breaking down the boondest liga with us again Follow him on twitter at a hindert midco s n to get all his work at number fire And uh, his boondest league of betting guides there as well find ed on twitter at the power rank I am at gymsanus j i m s a n n e s You can also follow the fan dual podcast network at fan dual podcast Make sure you are subscribed to covering the spread because we're still chugging along here and sports are starting to crank back up So a lot of good stuff coming in the coming weeks here on this podcast feed find us wherever you listen to your podcasts Big thank you to calvin theobald our video producer for running the video side of things here today as always Thank you cal and thank you to everyone for tuning in and Sticking with us through all this weird time finally getting some sports back It is definitely exciting and definitely a much needed distraction from all the stuff that's going on and The next couple of weeks should hopefully continue to get better and better. We'll talk to you all again soon Stay safe. This has been covering the spread right here on the fan dual podcast network