Bears hit Briggs with franchise tag

Football Betting Lines

02/16/2007 - Lake Forest, IL (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Chicago Bears designated linebacker Lance Briggs as their franchise player on Friday.

The designation means that Briggs will be guaranteed a one-year contract for an average of the five highest paid players at the position, which is an estimated $7.2 million. This is the first time that the contract is guaranteed thanks to the new Collective Bargaining Agreement that has gone into effect.

Briggs, who was to become an unrestricted free agent March 2, can still sign an offer sheet with another team. However, the Bears have the right to match the deal or receive two first-round draft picks as compensation.

Briggs had a career-high 176 tackles and was selected to his second straight Pro Bowl this season.

Wwwlakings Football Betting News

<< Almirola surprise winner of Busch pole
Daytona Beach, FL (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - In 2006 Aric Almirola won a pole as a substitute for Denny Hamlin. Hamlin drove the car in the race to a second- place finish. This time the 22-year-old Almirola will get to drive the car from t

<< Field set for WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship
Tucson, AZ (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The field for next week's World Golf Championships - Accenture Match Play Championship was set Friday afternoon. The top 64 players from last week's World Ranking all committed to play at The Gallery

<< Lyon get late rally to slip past Lille
Lille, France (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Lyon increased its lead at the top of the Ligue 1 standings to 14 points on Friday with a dramatic 2-1 win over Lille at Stadium Lille Metropole. Goals from Fred and Sebastien Squillaci in the final

<< Stuttgart move into second to kickoff weekend fixtures
Frankfurt, Germany (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Stuttgart kicked off the weekend Bundesliga action with a dominating 4-0 win at Frankfurt on Friday. The visitors, who moved into second in the table - four points behind Schalke who plays at

<< All-Star break awards
(Sportsbook Betting Lines) - It's hard to believe, but the NBA's All-Star break is here. This season has been filled with plenty of rim-rattling dunks and exciting finishes. The trade deadline is near, and soon the playoffs will be

Eger atop crowded leaderboard in Florida >>
Lutz, FL (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - David Eger opened with a four-under-par 67 Friday to grab a one-stroke lead after the opening round of the Outback Steakhouse Pro-Am. Tom Wargo, whose last tour win came in 2000, is alone in second place

Several MLB rules changed for 2007 >>
New York, NY (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Major League Baseball announced a number of changes for in-game rules, starting this season. This marks the first time that the rules have been changed since 1996, when the strike zone was redefined.

Illini's Jamar Smith out for season; Carlwell out of hospital >>
Champaign, IL (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Illinois head coach Bruce Weber announced Friday sophomore center Jamar Smith will miss the remainder of the season after being involved in a traffic accident Monday night. Freshman center Brian Car

Los Angeles Sparks (WNBA) >>
Signed guard Marta Fernandez.

Yow-zer: NC State downs No. 2 UNC >>
Raleigh, NC (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - On the day that NC State named its basketball court after women's head coach Kay Yow, the Wolfpack rewarded their long-time leader with a 72-65 upset win of second-ranked North Carolina at Reynolds Coliseu

SPORTS BETTING - Tennis is an underrated and under-utilized bettors' sport.

Ten years ago, at just about this time, I called Alan Boston in Vegas and left him a voicemail that went something like this (abridged version): "Hey Alan, Chad Millman from ESPN The Magazine calling. I want to do a book about wise guys, you in?"

A couple weeks later I got a message back (abridged version): "I don't know, maybe," Boston said. "Call me and we'll talk about it. But not later today. I got $1,000 on Andre Agassi to win the French Open at 40-1, and he's in the finals."

Here's what happened next (abridged version): Agassi won his tourney. Boston won his $40,000. I wrote sportsbook.

In the ten years since, how much has been wagered on the big-time tennis events? Put it this way: The Nevada Gaming Commission doesn't even track the number year by year because it's so small.

"Tennis makes up about one-tenth of one percent of our take," says Lucky's bookmaking boss Jimmy Vaccaro. "The last big golf major we probably had $100,000 worth of bets. In tennis, we might have written two big tickets."

Tennis' lack of popularity amongst the American bettoratti is no surprise, really. For starters, the biggest sports betting holidays -- the Super Bowl, the NCAA tourney -- are must see TV. People, at least the degenerates I know, plan vacations around watching those events in Vegas sports books.

But Wimbledon? Doesn't exactly reel in the whales. "Seriously, it's the nuts as an event," says Boston. "But who even knows when it's on?"

Here's another reason that helps explain why golf gets traction, something I call "The Bubbe Theory." My Bubbe is pushing 95 and has cataracts so bad that, to her, even the most crystalline Chicago day is mostly cloudy. But she still listens to the Cubs games, and she still calls me in a fit if she disagrees with something Rick Telander writes in the Chicago Sun Times. She's a sports fan. If she doesn't know you, you're just filling a niche. And niche players, even historically good ones like Roger and Raf, don't drive betting volume. Only the highest profile names attract square money, which inflates wagering totals like a shot of saline to the lips. Bubbe, and the public, loved Agassi, tennis' last cross-the-rubicon, mainstream draw. She also has a crush on Tiger. She's given me standing orders to put a sawbuck on the big cat whenever I walk through a sports book (or mistakenly tap into one via my Internet machine.) That explains why the Masters is getting $100K in action at some books while the four tennis majors might not get that combined this year.

This isn't a case of tennis being a difficult sport to bet. In fact, in Europe, it's probably the second most popular sport for gambling after soccer. Granted, as the WSJ football betting last week and The Mag's Shaun Assael examined in even greater depth last year, that might be because gamblers across the pond see it as an easy game to fix. But it could also be because, over there it holds the kind of sway the big two do over here.

Street corners in Spain are peppered with public courts and kids doing their best Raffy impressions. In some war torn parts of Eastern Europe poverty-stricken kids view tennis as an escape route, like football or basketball here. A couple years ago The Mag's Lindsay Berra wrote a great piece about Belgrade's Jelena Jankovic, Ana Ivanovic and Novak Djokovic. They learned the game as kids while bombs were raining down on their homeland. They practiced in drained swimming pools. Not exactly Nick Bolletierri conditions.

In the United States, casual fans think tennis is played four times a year. But on the tightly packed European continent, national interest in homegrown talent runs deep every weekend. Of the ATP's current top 20 players, only two, tennis betting and James Blake, are American. Fourteen are from Europe, representing six different countries.

No wonder fans from Lisbon to Bhudapest get jacked up for the net game, whether it's Wimbledon or a low-level tourney like the Estoril Open in Portugal (congrats to Spain's Albert Montanes for winning that one, btw). Chances are good that someone representing their flag will not only be playing, but have a shot at winning.

And that's all any bettor can ask for.

To visit this sports book go to MySportsbook.com for all your football betting needs.