🥊 Jon Jones Returns Tonight....Will He Win?

Back on the grind on a Saturday AM as we wade into the world of probabilities. Since we are now fully in the home stretch of getting our Probly product out, strap in for weekly product updates — some material to understanding how our app works, some about the behind-the-scenes process of getting this done — as well as our usual tour around the world of sports to see what stands out.We've got the RETURN OF JON JONES TO UFC, XFL, NBA, college hoops, and a tree falling on our CTO's house ahead. Here's your Probly email for March 4th, 2023! - @ChrisSpags

• 🔓 Probly Beta updates

• 👑 The most probable bets from a HUGE UFC card, XFL, NBA, and more!

Some new screens to show you guys this week as we take a tour through where our product is. You can see our Stories page functioning as it should with the woeful Orlando Guardians of the XFL, our Explore page highlighting bet probabilities (that arrow dropdown thing needs to be fixed for my sanity), and the View All Bets page showing you everything at once for power users.Besides that, I'll be honest: This was another INTENSELY stressful week for our team. Due to some moving parts at Football Outsiders, my payroll was delayed this week and, as a result, I felt the anxiety of the delicate game of Jenga my life is right now between working full-time for a sports media company while funding another of my own out of pocket. It definitely taxed my mentals amidst the generalized lack of control I already face as a non-technical founder who, despite all the product vision in the world, can't hop into our code to fix things.But my ebbs and flows are nothing compared to what hit our CTO (and one of my best friends since high school) Edgar. Here's what happened to his deck and master bedroom yesterday courtesy of an errant tree falling in the Atlanta area:

And it got worse from there with rain hitting within hours while he waited for his HOA to tend to the issue and at least prevent further damage. This poor guy had to deal with water starting to flow through the rest of the house as well:

This isn't some GoFundMe sob story — we don't even have anything to sell you right now besides your time on this email/waitlist — but more a reflection of the absolute bullsh*t you have to navigate sometimes while you're also getting pulled by a full-time job and trying to get a bootstrapped product off the ground (as well as other life obligations we all have). Edgar was able to get the work started on his house this AM but was literally coding things last night while waiting in a house in total disarray in a situation where I know I would absolutely be having a meltdown. You never want your house looking like a Rainforest Cafe.It's a lot like I talked about last week: We're pushing as hard as we can to make sure things work precisely how they need to in order to give you guys the product you deserve. And, unfortunately, it is not always a road of gumdrops and rainbows. Sometimes you have to keep putting in the work and keep pushing amidst everything else being thrown at you and trust that process to get to the finish line.Did this ebb too closely to one of those LinkedIn Lunatics posts, turning a personally awful experience or two into a post about how important it is to grind for a company that owns your soul? I hope not! But if ever there were an analogy for the variables life throws at you when trying to get your dream product off the ground, it's a f*cking tree falling through your bedroom when you're just trying to survive another day.

You all know the deal by now if you've been on this Probly VIP list of ours for a while. The true global probability leader? That's our old pals PF Schio, who must be crushing the Italian women's hoops circuit. Once again, a PF Schio win is the most probable bet in the world with a 96.2% probability against a team called Lucca that sounds way too close to our son's name. Here's hoping for the upset!⛹️‍♂️ So we go to NCAA hoops where #13 ranked Virginia leads the way as a Virginia win over abysmal Louisville has a 91.9% probability, higher than any other mainstream sport. You get their state letter neighbors at #2 with a Vermont win at a 91.3% probability, a Cornell win at a 90.8% probability, a Cal-Irvine win at a 90.4% probability, and an Oral Roberts win at an 90.1% probability. Anal Roberts? Nowhere to be found.🏈 The XFL has a night game tonight followed by a triple-header tomorrow that could be interesting as its best approximation of an NFL Sunday. An Arlington Renegades win leads the XFL's markets with a 77.8% probability. That'll happen when your opponent Orlando cut one of their QBs for giving out the team playbook to opponents, only to allow him back for reasons unclear. A Roughnecks win is #2 at a 64.1% probability, a pass-happy Sea Dragons win is right behind at a 62.7% probability, followed by a Defenders win at a 58.1% probability and Renegades-Guardians under 37.5 points is at a 51.6% probability. Again: It is very noteworthy how bad Orlando is relative to XFL markets that are chock full of near 50/50s.🏀 The NBA is being ravaged by the early tanking from the Pistons with basically all of their relevant players sitting tonight. As a result, despite a bunch of games, their opponent Cleveland dominates the most probable markets. A Cavs win carries an 88.9% probability followed by Cavs moneyline (1st half) at an 81.2% probability, Cavs moneyline (1st quarter) at a 76.8% probability, Cavs moneyline (2nd quarter) at a 70.5% probability, and then the lone non-Cavs line of a Kings win at a 65.3% probability. 🥊 As I mentioned earlier, ESPN+ has the biggest ticket of the weekend with Jon Jones' return to MMA as a heavyweight. His fight against Cyril Gane is not among the most probable markets but a Jon Jones win has a 60.3% probability. There's also a noteworthy 57.4% probability the fight goes over 4.5 rounds. Controversial Jones-favoring decision incoming after he uglies out a win? That sounds about right for the UFC's problem golden child coming off a three-year hiatus.Some of tonight's lower profile UFC fights have much more noteworthy likelihoods. A Bo Nickal win has a 91% probability, an Ian Garry win has an 85.3% probability, a Valentina Shevchenko win is at an 85.1% probability, a Shavkat Rakhmonov win is at a 79.9% probability, and a Farid Basharat win is at a 77.8% probability. That is a lot of heavy favorites outside of the main event.

There we go, another well-balanced diet of Probly product updates and some of the noteworthy data we lovingly cull through everyday. May your bets be profitable and your houses be bereft of tree invasions!No Probly email next week due to being out of pocket at a wedding in Mexico but hopefully I'll return with some updates that will bring me joy and get us closer to Probly's finish line after that. Stay safe until then and, of course, good luck!