LAS VEGAS, NEVADA - FEBRUARY 10: The sportsbook in the Circa Resort & Hotel ahead of Super Bowl LVIII on February 10, 2024 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Mario Hommes/DeFodi Images via Getty Images) DeFodi Images via Getty Images One late August morning, University of Florida students intrigued by a future in the fantasy and sports betting industries will virtually file in for the first day of Fantasy and Sports Betting Careers, a new offering from the school’s College of Journalism and Communications. The instructor -- a UF alum himself -- who’ll progressively roll out the innovative curriculum, offer insights from personal experience, leverage an extensive network for guest speakers and administer the grades? One could say he’s got some credentials:
Instrumental in getting ESPN to break the sports betting ice on its platforms prior to legalization. Integral to ESPN securing its first official sportsbook partnership. Directly responsible for live in-game betting odds being featured on a professional sports broadcast for the first time.
And, in keeping with his successful career’s underlying theme, Professor David Bearman has built the entire course from scratch. A three-decade-and-counting industry veteran, he did so while fueled by a credo that’s repeatedly served him well – bet on yourself, and good things tend to happen. Sports Betting Seed Planted Early Before Bearman landed at what many a sports media hopeful would consider the ultimate employer – the four-letter network in Bristol, Connecticut – and played a pivotal role in the advent of all things sports betting at ESPN, he had quite the circuitous professional journey. Throughout a winding path of roles that officially began in late 1995, when he talked his way into an internship with legendary prognosticator Hank Goldberg on South Florida sports talk radio station WQAM, and included multiple internships with the then Florida Marlins while still an undergraduate, Bearman took plenty of gambles by plunging headlong into his sports media dream. During his tenure with the station, he also often lent a hand to radio sports betting pioneer Ed Kaplan, who’d started WQAM’s all-sports format back in 1986 with a nightly show that disseminated Las Vegas odds and famously catered to bettors by not signing off until the last West Coast score was in. Kaplan’s show, which Bearman credits for “planting the sports betting seed” in him decades before the activity would go mainstream, also served as the platform for a momentous personal milestone – his first winning ticket. During his final weeks of teen-hood in August 1998, Bearman was assisting the host on a remote broadcast at a Bahamas casino and legally able to place his first official bet while on the island. He took a flyer on the Over 7.5 wins for the Minnesota Vikings in Randy Moss’s unforgettable rookie campaign. That wager had paid off by the middle of what would be a dominant 15-1 season and gave Bearman the heady taste of cashing in on his sports knowledge for the first time. “I’m 19 years old, and I’m not sure I’ve made a better bet since,” he fondly recalls. Laying the Betting Groundwork at the Worldwide Leader Bearman had also already done some freelance stat work for ESPN by the time the network came calling for an entry-level Production Research department position in 2005. As he’d done in previous professional stops, he both quickly grew into the role and also began expanding its boundaries. He eventually began facilitating statistical information for flagship shows such as SportsCenter, and starting in 2007, as the lead researcher for the fledgling College Football Live. By 2011, Bearman had added plenty of research and stat work for ESPN’s BCS and rapidly expanding PGA coverage to his duties. In the process, he earned himself a promotion to Production Research management and was made responsible for ESPN’s Bottom Line scroll, an innovative-for-its-time on-screen news wire that kept fans abreast of everything from scores to the latest sports headlines.
David Bearman is pictured in his University of Florida faculty photo. David Bearman UF Faculty photo During his interview, Bearman had already pitched having betting odds for games listed on the Bottom Line. While a foregone conclusion in today’s legalized sports betting era, the suggestion was borderline scandalous in 2011, when the leagues were still keeping any tie-in of betting to their sanctioned events at arm’s length. The idea unsurprisingly got the cold shoulder at the time, but it did plant a very early seed that would eventually bear fruit. In a 2014 meeting called by network execs to discuss how ESPN could head off an ambitious new competitor, Fox Sports 1 (FS1), Bearman reignited his push for sports betting data, presenting it as a unique way to differentiate the network. “Why can’t betting content be one of the tools in the toolbox?,” he suggested, envisioning that everything from the Bottom Line to SportsCenter would benefit. The urgency created by a new competitor made for a slightly more conducive environment for the idea. While the leagues still didn’t want ESPN associating betting with their products, Bearman and Chad Millman – who’d go on to serve as Editor in Chief at ESPN The Magazine and ESPN.com before an eight-year tenure as Chief Content Officer at Action Network – got the green light to “start off small.” That equated to the purchase of Gold Sheet data from legendary handicapper Bruce Marshall, a treasure trove of granular individual game information for multiple sports dating back decades: Every line and total from every NFL regular-season and postseason game in the Super Bowl era. The same data for every college football regular-season and bowl game since the 1978 FBS-FCS merger. Ditto for every regular-season and postseason NBA game since Michael Jordan’s 1984 rookie season. Bearman and Millman set about painstakingly importing the data over the next four years into a proprietary database that still helps power ESPN’s now extensive betting coverage in the legalized era. In trickle-like fashion, the information was integrated into ESPN programming, albeit with plenty of cover – no official picks were being made on air, and team/league logos and names remained no-go zones. SCOTUS Decision Ignites Betting Expansion, Innovation That is, until May 14, 2018. That’s the day the U.S.’s sports betting floodgates officially opened, and those that had set a foundation were primed to ride the wave. The U.S. Supreme Court’s official repeal of the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA) on that mid-May day was a seismic event in Bearman’s ESPN universe. Soon after, he was on a conference call with company executives pitching a daily betting show, not to mention potential rights deals with sportsbooks. By Thanksgiving 2018, Bearman was immersed in helping put together a pilot for such a show. That episode subsequently landed at the highest levels of ESPN’s parent company Disney for a green light it ultimately achieved. However, there’d be a good old-fashioned sweat associated with the rollout – the directive was to get the show ready for air by March Madness 2019, as opposed to the following NFL season. Bearman left his day-to-day management duties to feverishly help get the program – Daily Wager – ready for its eventual debut. He also traveled to Las Vegas shortly thereafter with the Vice President of Business Development and helped lock in ESPN’s first sportsbook partnership with Caesars. Now fully immersed in the network’s burgeoning betting vertical, he was promoted to Deputy Editor of Sports Betting for ESPN Chalk while also serving as the de facto liaison between the network and Caesars. Bold Gamble Makes Sports Broadcasting History At this juncture, there was an increasingly receptive environment – 12 states in addition to Nevada had instituted legal sports betting by the start of 2020, and $7.7 billion had been wagered legally outside the Silver State in 2019. However, game lines had yet to make it onto a sports telecast. That would soon change in conjunction with the XFL, the renegade professional football league Vince McMahon had initially rolled out for one season in 2001 and that was primed for a spring 2020 rebirth. In the disruptive spirit that defined the original iteration of the resurrected league, XFL 2.0 and its noteworthy array of television partners, which included ABC and ESPN, decided game broadcasts would incorporate plenty of sports betting information. Thanks in no small part to the foundation Bearman helped lay, ESPN was ready to roll right from Week 1, when Caesars’ XFL pregame betting lines and futures were featured on air and openly discussed by the broadcast team. The next breakthrough? Live betting odds on a telecast for the first time, allowing viewers to see how lines moved in concert with the flow of a game. Bearman first voiced the idea on a post-Week 1 conference call with XFL brass and Caesars personnel, the latter which happened to be visiting the network’s famed Bristol headquarters. After all three parties took the time to relish the ground broken in the league’s opening slate of games, he proclaimed the next step was displaying dynamic odds throughout all four quarters, powered by Caesars data. “A TD is scored. What’s the new line? Come out of TV break with the new live line and drive that convo,” Bearman explained in making the case to league representatives.
Live in-game betting lines are shown during a live telecast of a 2020 Week 2 XFL game between the New York Guardians and D.C. Defenders. XFL 2020 Week 2 Screenshot The XFL was on board, and with Caesars providing the necessary data, the practice was implemented the following weekend, making sports broadcasting history in the process. A final sports betting-related milestone in Bearman’s ESPN tenure came a few years later. He helped set the foundation for the 10-year, $1.5 billion deal between Penn Entertainment and ESPN that led to Penn’s sportsbook eventually being branded as ESPNBet in November of that year. Betting Enters Arena of Higher Learning By spring 2023, after nearly two decades at the Worldwide Leader and a robust list of accomplishments, Bearman was open to a change if it meant breaking new professional ground. That opportunity presented itself in the form of a Chief Commercial Officer position at Pro Football Network (PFN), now known as Pro Football and Sports Network, which he was hired for in April of that year. Bearman embraced the opportunity to help the ascendant site scale up significantly under the Absolute Sports umbrella, including by playing a considerable part in PFN’s Super Bowl 58 and 59 coverage. As part of his amicable PFN departure in June 2025, he negotiated the rights to the Betting with Bearman podcast he’d started while at the company. The show typically drops once a week on all major podcast platforms and leverages Bearman’s vast experience to break down betting angles on a wide variety of sports. He supplements it with a thrice-weekly newsletter centered on bettor education, industry consultant work, multiple weekly appearances on Vegas Sports and Information Network (VSIN) and online betting freelance work for the likes of PrizePicks and Sportsline. And in keeping with his long-standing tradition of successfully donning multiple hats, he recently added adjunct professor to his plethora of titles. Bearman’s first dip into the teaching waters actually came last spring with his initial academic brainchild, Fantasy, Sports Betting and The Media. Delving into a robust “virtual Rolodex,” Bearman secured fantasy sports legend Matthew Berry and former ESPN colleague/renowned betting analyst Chris “The Bear” Fallica as guest speakers, allowing course participants to get invaluable first-hand input from a pair of accomplished industry figures. Fantasy and Sports Betting Careers, the aforementioned Fall 2026 course, is thus the next step in incorporating the sports betting industry into the academic arena. The idea for the class stemmed from discussions with students last spring, when he realized there was a dearth of information regarding fantasy sports and sports betting-centric occupations. Jobs such as VP of Risk Management at a sportsbook. Sports betting analyst. Fantasy games developer. As he began breaking down the possibilities to the class, the new course practically developed itself. And while Bearman hasn’t quite tried his hand at all the positions he’ll shed light on this fall, it would be difficult to find a more qualified messenger to impart what will be the class’s key lesson: Bet boldly, reap the rewards. This article was originally published on Forbes.com