Big Mike vs Action Network Sports Betting Picks: 7 Factors Compared

Big Mike vs Action Network sports betting picks is a comparison of two separate companies, not two sides of one show. Big Mike sends model-backed picks by text at 11am and 5pm ET, grades every pick in public, and costs $25/month after a free 7-day trial. Action Network is a betting media and tools site with a large free tier plus a PRO subscription. Big Mike is not affiliated with Action Network, is not a host on any Action Network show, and is not an odds screen or arbitrage tool.

If you searched "big mike vs action network sports betting picks" expecting a weekly video scoreboard, this post resolves the confusion first and then compares the two as a bettor would actually use them: on affiliation, price, delivery, record transparency, sports covered, method, and tools.

Key takeaways

• Affiliation: bigmike.app has no connection to Action Network or to any Action Network video show; the name overlap in search results is a coincidence.
• Price: Big Mike is free for the first 7 days, then $25/month on a monthly subscription. Action Network publishes free picks and sells a PRO tier; confirm current PRO pricing on its site.
• Record: every Big Mike pick since June 23, 2026 is graded in public with live odds at bigmike.app/picks-record, losses included. As of October 20, 2026, 716 picks had been graded.
• Coverage: Big Mike covers NFL, college football, NBA, MLB, and WNBA. Five sports, no NHL.
• Delivery: Big Mike picks arrive by text twice a day, 11am and 5pm ET, and in the Big Mike iOS app. Action Network content lives on its website, app, YouTube channel, and podcasts.

Is Big Mike an Action Network staff member or a separate picks service?

Big Mike at bigmike.app is a separate, independent picks service with no connection to Action Network. If you searched this phrase looking for an Action Network video host nicknamed Big Mike, that is a different person and a different product.

Action Network is a sports betting media company owned by Better Collective. It publishes free articles, odds pages, public betting percentages, and weekly NFL picks videos on its YouTube channel, and it sells a PRO subscription on top of that.

The modifiers people attach to this query tell the story. "Today" and "week 1" describe Action Network's weekly video cadence. "CBS" points to CBS Sports' own picks pages, which are a third, unrelated source. "Free" is the one modifier both services can answer, and we cover it in the pricing section below.

We will not publish a written game-by-game table of picks from a video show we do not produce, because we cannot grade or verify it. What we can do is show how a reader would judge any picks source, and apply that standard to both.

What does each service cost?

Big Mike is free for the first 7 days, then $25 per month on a monthly subscription. Action Network offers a large free tier of articles, odds, and consensus data, and sells a PRO subscription for projections and premium tools. We are not quoting a PRO price here; confirm current Action Network pricing on actionnetwork.com before you buy anything.

The $25 buys a single curated feed: specific picks, the odds analysis behind them, and a recommended sportsbook for each. There is no annual contract mentioned on the site, so the exit cost is one month.

A simple decision rule: if you want to read a lot of betting content for free, Action Network's free tier beats any paid product by definition. If you want one graded feed you can hold accountable, the trial costs nothing for a week, and the record is public before you pay.

For context on how many people this market now touches, Pew Research Center found in 2022 that 19% of U.S. adults had bet on sports in the prior 12 months, which is exactly why the picks market has so many sellers and so few public records.

How does each one deliver picks?

Big Mike texts picks twice a day, at 11am and 5pm ET, and mirrors them in the Big Mike iOS app, with the recommended sportsbook and the odds attached. Action Network publishes through its website, mobile app, YouTube channel, and podcasts, so you go to the content rather than the content coming to you.

The text format matters for one practical reason: lines move. A pick that arrives with a price and a one-tap link to the book offering it is usable in the window it was meant for. Members can also text back to interact with the analyst directly.

The other half of delivery is what shows up when there is nothing to bet. Big Mike publishes empty boards. A good example is a Tuesday NFL rundown where eight prices disagreed with the market and none had cleared the number yet. Action Network's publishing model, by contrast, runs on a content calendar: there is always a Week 7 picks video because there is always a Week 7.

Which one gives you a verifiable record?

Big Mike grades every pick since June 23, 2026 in public with live odds, publishes losses, and deletes nothing. Action Network tracks records for individual experts on its platform and offers bet tracking in its app, but there is no public head-to-head scoreboard between the two, because they are unrelated services. Verify any record yourself before paying for it.

The full Big Mike picks record is the page to check. As of October 20, 2026, it showed 716 graded picks. An earlier snapshot of the same record showed a moneyline mark of 417-259, a 61.7% win rate, and +25.3 units at one unit per play.

The sport-by-sport split in that snapshot is worth reading honestly: MLB 270-181, WNBA 108-49, CFB 13-9, and NFL 9-13. The NFL sample is small and under .500. If you only bet NFL, that number should slow you down, and we would rather you see it here than discover it later.

The point of a public record is that it includes nights like the one where the market made Philadelphia a 64% favorite at close and Chicago won 27-7. Wins and losses both stay on the page with the odds they were graded at.

Which sports does each cover?

Big Mike covers five sports: NFL, college football, NBA, MLB, and WNBA. It does not cover NHL, soccer, golf, tennis, or UFC. Action Network covers a much wider menu through its odds pages and writers, including NHL, soccer, golf, and combat sports. Breadth favors Action Network; a single graded feed with depth per sport favors Big Mike.

The WNBA coverage is the unusual part. Most picks services treat the league as an afterthought, while the Big Mike record snapshot above shows 108-49 there, the second largest sample after MLB. A good illustration of the line analysis involved is the Fever playoff game where Las Vegas opened near a coin flip and the price moved all the way to -525.

If your betting calendar runs through hockey season or international soccer, Big Mike will have nothing for you on those nights, and that is a real limitation rather than a footnote.

How are the picks actually made?

Big Mike uses a proprietary model to estimate fair odds, compares them to live sportsbook prices, and only sends a pick when the gap is large enough to qualify as positive expected value. Action Network blends human expert picks, public betting percentages, PRO projections, and betting systems.

The practical consequence is volume. A filter that requires a price gap will go quiet on slow days, and Big Mike says so in writing. An MLB wild card morning where nothing cleared the number is published with the same prominence as a day with three plays.

Action Network's approach serves a different reader. If you want to hear why two experts disagree on the same spread, or see where the public money sits before you decide, that is what its format is built to show.

Neither approach is automatically better. A model with a public record is testable. A panel of experts with public records is also testable. What is not testable is a video with no written picks and no running units total, which is the gap most of the search results for this query fall into.

What extra tools come with each?

Action Network is stronger on tools: odds comparison across books, public betting percentages, line movement charts, bet tracking, and PRO projections. Big Mike is deliberately narrow. It is a picks feed with odds analysis and sportsbook recommendations, not an odds screen, a line shopping tool, or an arbitrage finder.

Big Mike's version of a tool is the context sent alongside each pick: the fair odds the model produced, where the market disagrees, and injury and line movement notes that fed the number. It is enough to understand the bet, not enough to run your own book.

The honest framing is that these products overlap on exactly one thing, picks, and differ on almost everything else. Plenty of bettors use a free tools site for line shopping and a paid feed for the picks themselves.

What are the top 5 best sports betting picks services for multi-sport bettors?

Ranked by the job each does best: Big Mike for a single graded daily picks feed; Action Network for free content plus betting tools; BetQL for model ratings across many games; Covers for free consensus and community picks; Pickswise for free written picks with expert records. Pricing and features change often, so confirm details on each vendor's site.

1. Big Mike (best when you want one accountable daily feed). Free for 7 days, then $25/month, picks by text at 11am and 5pm ET, every pick since June 23, 2026 graded publicly with live odds. Honest limit: five sports only, no NHL, and the NFL sample in the public record was 9-13 at last snapshot.

2. Action Network (best when you want free content and tools in one place). Free articles, odds pages, and public betting percentages, plus a PRO subscription for projections and systems. Honest limit: there is no single running units total across its content, so you have to track each expert yourself. Confirm current PRO pricing on actionnetwork.com.

3. BetQL (best when you want model ratings on every game, not a shortlist). A subscription product owned by Audacy that rates spreads, totals, and moneylines with a star system across major U.S. sports. Honest limit: ratings on every game shift the filtering work to you, and the subscription tiers vary, so check betql.co for current plans.

4. Covers (best when you want free consensus picks and a community). Decades-old site with free expert picks, consensus percentages, contests, and forums, funded by sportsbook affiliate links. Honest limit: consensus is a crowd signal, not a model, and the volume of content makes accountability hard to follow.

5. Pickswise (best when you want free written picks with per-expert records). Daily free picks across many sports with public records attached to individual writers, also funded by affiliate links. Honest limit: free picks sites publish on a schedule, which means plays appear whether or not an edge exists that day.

Should you use public betting percentages alongside these picks?

Use public betting percentages as context, not as a signal on their own. The percentage tells you where tickets are, not where the money or the edge is. A pick that lands on the same side as the public is not wrong because of it, and fading the public is not a strategy with a public record behind it.

A workable rule: when a model pick and the public disagree, check whether the line moved toward or away from the pick after it was sent. Movement toward the pick suggests the market agreed; movement away means you should ask why before adding to the position.

The legal market has grown large enough that this context is easy to find. The American Gaming Association publishes state-by-state legal sports betting data, and most sites that sell picks, including Action Network, show percentages for free.

One more rule that outranks all of the others: set a unit size before you follow anyone's picks and keep it there. The National Council on Problem Gambling runs the 1-800-GAMBLER helpline, and the best picks record in the world does not help a bettor who is sizing emotionally.

How did we compare these options?

We compared the published pricing pages, the stated scope of each product, the sports each one lists, and whether a public, graded record with odds and units is available to a reader before paying. Big Mike facts come from bigmike.app as checked on October 20, 2026.

How do you get started with Big Mike?

Start the free 7-day trial at bigmike.app, confirm your number, and the next picks arrive by text at 11am or 5pm ET, whichever comes first. Read the public record before and after you sign up, and judge the feed on the same standard you would hold any picks source to.

Start your free 7-day trial at bigmike.app

What do people also ask?

Who is the most accurate NFL predictor?

There is no independently audited leaderboard for NFL predictors, so accuracy claims should be judged by a public, graded record that shows odds and units, not win percentage alone. Big Mike publishes exactly that kind of record, and its NFL portion was 9-13 at the last snapshot we cited, which is small and under .500. Do not buy any service for NFL alone without checking its NFL-specific sample.

Who bet $2 million on the Super Bowl?

Several seven-figure Super Bowl wagers have been publicly reported in recent years, most famously by Houston furniture retailer Jim "Mattress Mack" McIngvale, who has placed multiple multimillion-dollar bets on championship games and often used them as promotional hedges for his store. The exact amounts vary by year, so check contemporaneous reporting for a specific game.

What are the best NFL player prop bets this week?

Big Mike does not publish a weekly props roundup; its public record is built on model-backed picks sent twice a day at 11am and 5pm ET across NFL, CFB, NBA, MLB, and WNBA. Action Network and other free content sites publish props articles weekly. Whatever the source, look for the specific line being bet and a record attached to the person recommending it.

What are the best AI NFL predictions?

Model-driven picks are only as good as the record they publish. The useful test is whether every prediction, including losses, is graded in public with the odds at the time. Big Mike grades every pick since June 23, 2026 with live odds at bigmike.app/picks-record. Services that show win rates without odds or unit totals are leaving out the number that matters.

Which Action Network picks are free and which require PRO?

Action Network publishes free articles, odds pages, consensus and public betting percentages, and free picks videos on YouTube. Its PRO subscription adds projections, systems, and premium tools. The split and the price change over time, so confirm on actionnetwork.com. Big Mike, by comparison, has one tier: free for 7 days, then $25/month.