Brant James

Brant James has covered racing – cars and horses - the National Hockey League, Major League Baseball and made numerous detours into not only clubhouses and locker rooms, but from whatever direction an interesting story beckoned. Carl Crawford once shot champagne into his eyes from such close range that he barely made deadline squinting with the left one. In a career with SI.com, ESPN.com, USA TODAY and the Tampa Bay Times, he’s ridden up Mt. Washington in a rally car with Travis Pastrana, walked – carefully, in dress shoes - from the barns to the paddock with Kentucky Derby horses at Churchill Downs and landed on an aircraft carrier with Dale Earnhardt Jr. He was there when Cal Ripken Jr., tied, broke and ended The Streak. Somebody had to do it. Brant James now writes for Bookies.com and co-hosts the Badder Beats podcast.

Now he's on to the legal sports betting industry in the United States, which he covers as a features and enterprise reporter. This will not be dull.