Sports, Media And Gambling: Where Is Congress? – Barrett Sports Media

My friend covered the Detroit Pistons. He called me in distress one day, asking to borrow money. His gambling habit was so toxic, he said, that hed broached the topic with Isiah Thomas, the teams star player and a hard-ass not to be messed with. Aghast, I told him to make an appointment with the editor, beg for mercy and seek help for his problem if he wanted to save his writing career. He took my advice and moved on to a college beat.

This is why the scummy intersection of sports, sports media and gambling companies is a bad idea.

The public relations director of the Chicago Bears, Bryan Harlan, was privy to inside information on a daily basis. He was fired after federal investigators found his phone number in a bookmakers records and concluded he had bet on NFL games, including those involving the Bears. His father, Bob, was president and CEO of the Green Bay Packers at the time, and his brother, Kevin, has been broadcasting NFL and NBA games for years. The feds also linked calls made to a bookie from team-assigned portable phones belonging to Ken Valdiserri, the Bears vice president of marketing and broadcasting, who claimed never to have called a bookie but that he often allowed ready? Bears players and Chicago media people to use his phones.

Said Paul Tagliabue, then the NFL commissioner: Harlan acknowledged he violated our league policy on gambling. Its the integrity of the game. When we have the kind of competition we have and competition that features integrity, we have to enforce it strictly. The setback didnt stop Harlan from becoming a sports agent and to this day, according to his agency website, he represents coaches at all levels of collegiate and professional football, as well as sports broadcasters at major outlets in Chicago and across the country.

This is why the scummy intersection of sports, sports media and gambling companies is a bad idea.

My colleague covered the Denver Broncos. During one of those Super Bowl losses that got ugly early, he began to pound the table where he was working in the main press box. He wasnt doing so because he was a fan of the team. Days later, another Denver sportswriter, Teri Thompson, was busted by police in a bookies house with cocaine in her purse. Suddenly, it made more sense why her tone had been over-the-top savage in certain game columns.

This is why the scummy intersection of sports, sports media and gambling companies is a bad idea.

My former radio boss, who had moved on to sales at a TV station, asked to borrow $3,000. He didnt say why, but did I have to ask? Reluctantly, I gave him the money and issued a one-month deadline. Many months later, my attorney confronted him at their country club in Chicagos northern suburbs, demanding the money be repaid in increments. Later, I discovered hed made similar loan requests of another radio host and a producer.

This is why the scummy intersection of sports, sports media and gambling companies is a bad idea.

I could go on. Instead, I choose to look ahead in mortified fear, wondering how many other scandals await uglier, larger and of a more damaging scope now that the $300 billion U.S. sports industry has opened the devils door to a gambling free-for-all. When the Supreme Court authorized states in 2018 to legalize sports wagering, the justices couldnt have envisioned the immediate, untamed threat to the very integrity of which Tagliabue spoke. In one swoop, the NFL, the NBA and other leagues that long had viewed gambling as sinful and corrupt embraced the new financial possibilities, less concerned about game-fixing and inside-information-sharing amid their greedy, insidious money grabs. In the all-time hypocritical stinkbomb, Major League Baseball is all-in on gambling, too, even as Pete Rose remains banned for life. The NFL, which once routinely suspended players for gambling associations, now has a partnership with FanDuel and a stadium and future Super Bowls in Las Vegas.

The leagues have dirtied down, you see, striking deals with casinos and companies that include the omnipresent DraftKings, which has encountered issues with the law. And with furious, slobbering zeal, powerhouse media enterprises such as ESPN, Fox and Turner followed the money and jumped right into bed with their league partners, also inviting the gambling bigwigs onto the mattress for a mass wagering orgy. Next thing you knew, so-called journalists were leaving crumbling mainstream outlets for betting information sites while John Skipper, dumped as ESPN president after a cocaine scandal, was teaming with another deposed Bristol personality, the once-esteemed columnist Dan Le Batard, to form a media company that signed a lucrative sponsorship agreement with DraftKings.

Suddenly, sports is not sports anymore. Its a gambling-centric feast that has reduced the actual result of a game the sacred competition between athletes who are expected to remain honest and above-board to a sidebar. The fact the Milwaukee Bucks might beat the Boston Celtics, 113-111, doesnt mean as much anymore as the Celtics covering the point spread, or Jayson Tatum winning the prop bet. The sports industry has allowed this freak-show collaboration to create a tawdry alternate universe that, by and large, reduces a legitimate championship season to background noise.

All of which invites the likelihood of rampant manipulation of games and an inability to investigate the wrongdoing because many elite reporters work for the very media companies that, directly or indirectly, are attached to the leagues and gambling initiatives. The leagues and odds shops say otherwise, claiming sophisticated monitoring apparatus is in place, but theyve yet to explain any security plans in elaborate detail. It reminds me of Big Tobacco. In this case, the objective is to induce bettors at least 15 million of whom are problem gamblers in America to spend their money without any warning of consequences. The betting lines are nicotine, and cancer is diagnosed when people lose jobs and families and end up broke. Have the leagues, media and gambling companies at all considered the lives theyre putting at risk? Do they care that theyre contributing to the demise of society?

Nah. Theyre too busy bidding up, cashing out and bastardizing the purity of athletic competition. Never mind that there are many more sports observers in America who dont gamble such as me than those who do. Every sports visual, from a game broadcast to an ESPN SportsCenter update to a stadium advertisement, must include references to gambling. Inevitably, this alliance will lead to sweeping in-house scandals. The more prevalent gambling is, the more likely an athlete, coach or referee will be tempted to fix a game or a prop bet. What prevents a talk-show personality with a gambling-house relationship from devising a scheme, via an active athlete, to throw a point spread? What if the personalitys producers get wind and spread the word?

And we might never know its happening. Thats because too many former journalists already are on the payroll at gambling sites or eager to work for them. Ask DraftKings and FanDuel. Ask Barstool Sports. Ask Action Network and Vegas Stats & Information Network. They already view themselves as mainstream media companies, with FanDuel executive Mike Raffensperger telling Front Office Sports that hes seeking to poach content creators from mainstream outlets. We are looking to evaluate ways to improve our portfolio through pulling people into the fold, he said. Were actively looking into the marketplace now. It is absolutely part of the strategy if we want to continue to grow the No. 1 sports book in the country.

Meaning, the media people he hires must be gambling experts more than traditional sportswriters, as seen at VSiN and even The Athletic, which ask writers to break down games against spreads while ignoring the basics of who might win or lose a game. Just as Le Batard, while apparently maintaining his editorial freedom on political issues, will relinquish his journalistic values by reading relentless gambling spots during commercial breaks, as required by Skippers $50 million DraftKings deal. Im still flummoxed by a recent remark by VSiN chairman Brian Musburger whose famous sportscasting uncle, Brent, has sold out as a grinning front-man tout holding $100 bills on the company website that legitimate journalists can be hired by gambling sites to dish inside info about athletes, teams and games to readers. My God, how poisonous could this Bermuda triangle become?

Uncle Brent and South Beach Dan used to investigate sports stories and break news. Now, theyre taking gambling fortunes and leaving themselves vulnerable to investigations. Clay Travis once had journalism in his blood, then opted to lean conservative even when his Nashville-based site, Outkick, was covering sports. Fox acquired his anti-woke site last week amid a flurry of media-meets-gambling transactions, with Fox executive chairman Lachlan Murdoch sounding thrilled to have found a brand aligned politically with Fox News. Travis has bigger ideas, writing of the gambling craze, Over the past several months many companies put in bids to buy Outkick. Thats because our business is thriving, particularly our sports gambling business, where we are one of the largest affiliate sites in the country, signing up customers in all ten states where online gambling is legal. Sports gambling is poised to explode in the years ahead and I wanted to make sure whichever partner we picked fit our companys direction.

You could say sports is run by The Mob, a new sort of organized crime.

And if you think thats an overstatement, just wait for the fallout. Congress is busy, but the last time it was asked to clean up a historic moral unraveling in sports baseballs steroids scandals the 2005 hearings were successful in embarrassing the likes of Bud Selig, Mark McGwire and Rafael Palmeiro, which led to the Mitchell Report and a cleansing of the game. Given the staggering amounts of money in this triad, the responsibility of sports as a public trust and the potential bilking of gamblers, damn right a committee should prepare another spectacle and grill Roger Goodell and other commissioners, ESPNs Jimmy Pitaro and broadcast executives and whoever represents the gambling companies. Could you imagine Dave Portnoy, the bad-boy face of Barstool, being interrogated on Capitol Hill?

Weve already seen a naked conflict-of-interest on display at the NFL Draft. When the San Francisco 49ers played a guessing game with the No. 3 pick, I wondered if a week of indecision would spark a flurry of prop-bet activity. Of course, it did. Trey Lance, once a 15-1 underdog to be drafted third, improved to 3-1 on the morning of the draft and to a -180 favorite as the show began. Most of the action at No. 3 was bet on Mac Jones, and when FanDuel and other sportsbooks say the 49ers mystery produced the Drafts highest betting numbers how do we know the NFL, to appease its gambling partner, doesnt encourage a team or two to inject doubt throughout the day and keep the casino cash flowing?

And what planet has Colin Cowherd relocated to? Among the national talk-show hosts now immersed in gambling, he revealed in March that Lance, a friend of Cowherds 20-year-old daughter, had been hanging out at the family home. That wasnt an issue until Cowherd contacted 49ers general manager John Lynch and suggested he draft Lance, the details of which were sent by Cowherds publicist to Pro Football Talks Mike Florio in an email titled, Did Colin Cowherd help 49ers draft Trey Lance?

Spilling the details on his podcast, Cowherd said, So, long story short, I live in L.A. Trey Lance was working out in L.A. about three weeks ago for the draft. Ran into Trey Lance. Really, really impressed with him as a kid good size, looks you in the eye, really humble, really thoughtful. And after meeting him, its funny. I sent a text to a couple of GMs that I thought may have the chance to get him, one of them John Lynch. So I text John, I said `Hey, I just met Trey Lance I dont know what youre doing with the No. 3 pick, but totally impressed, so humble, what a great kid. And Johns like `Thanks, Colin!

I dont hear anything. Then after the third pick, I get a couple of fist bumps texted to me by John Lynch. So I know I had no influence, but nonetheless, it made me laugh. Johns a great guy and I actually think its the right pick.

Problem No. 1: Cowherd, now a gambling-influenced host, texted an NFL executive with draft suggestions.

Problem No. 2: The same NFL executive texted fist-bump emojis to a gambling-influenced host after the pick, fully recalling his advice about Lance.

Problem No. 3: Cowherds team took credit for the pick, as if it was some valiant deed.

As one of the biggest names in sports media, Cowherd should steer clear of such conflicts. But in this emerging Wild Wild West climate, all semblance of independence is lost. Any reliable, self-governed watchdogs out there? ESPN, NBC, Fox, CBS, Turner LOL, all bedfellows, forget it. Legacy media? The Boston Globe is owned by John Henry, who owns the Red Sox; the Washington Post is owned by Jeff Bezos, who wants to own an NFL franchise; the Los Angeles Times is owned by Patrick Soon-Shiong, a part-owner of the Lakers; the Wall Street Journal is owned by Rupert Murdoch, whose son acquired Outkick; and the New York Times reportedly is examining whether to invest in The Athletic, a struggling sports site that openly promotes a sports gambling component.

With nine of 10 sports media employees worried for their jobs these days, how many will follow the money and bail to gambling sites? How many league insiders, such as Adam Schefter and Jay Glazer, will bolt for bigger money now that the NFL is directly linked to gambling? Beat writers, columnists, editors will everyone jump to the dark side and focus on over-unders? Were just now emerging from the worst of the pandemic. People are desperate. Anticipate musical-chairs madness.

In that vein, how many more Bryan Harlans are out there, ready to exploit information? How many media professionals will use such information to bet themselves, recalling my Detroit, Chicago and Denver stories? You might ask, whats the big deal about a media person gambling legally? Answer: It will skew his/her coverage of a game and taint objectivity, along with the prospect of becoming addicted. As for executives, Skipper once stood up to Goodell when ESPN broke exposes about concussions and rallied to the side of Colin Kaepernick. Now, they are partners in gambling smut.

More than ever, investigative reporters are needed to keep three mega-industries honest in their new sandbox. Unfortunately, most sleuths work for ESPN or other aforementioned outlets. So when a betting scandal happens, who will dare probe it and risk being railroaded from a job? Jeremy Schaap is too comfortable in his gig to pound on C-suite doors, preferring easier stories on mascots these days.

I am fortunate. Ive made a great living as a columnist while battling editors who didnt want me immersed in the Rose scandal in Cincinnati, or didnt want me explaining to a Chicago audience why Michael Jordans gambling problem left him exposed to extortion. I usually found a way to get necessary columns into print and commentary onto radio airwaves.

Today, youre reading one of the few industry sites that would publish this column. We are covering sports here, not trying to make bushels of money off sports. I used to appear regularly on Around The Horn, ESPNs banter show. Theres a better chance now of ATH debating the color of Pitaros underwear than discussing the scummy intersection of sports, sports media and gambling companies.

At least I still have my bullhorn, prepared for the oncoming shitstorms. In gambling parlance, Im the longest of longshots, but Im also the rarest of rarities. No one can call me a sellout.

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Sports, Media And Gambling: Where Is Congress? - Barrett Sports Media