I don’t pretend to be a sports fan (aside from Le Tour de France, the rest holds no interest to me), but I am a fan of what used to be known as journalism. If a sports book is aligned with sports journalists, to the point where the outcome of an event can lead to increased or lost revenue for both, there is tremendous financial incentive for stories to surface favoring one result, smearing individual players, accusations of misconduct.
Let’s say an ESPN segment producer sees a quarterback of a given football team is accused of something on Twitter. On the even of a playoff game, ESPN then covers the story, and people start calling for suspensions after more allegations of impropriety surface. As a result, the quarterback is removed, and his team favored to win now loses, which results in more money for the sports book, which in turn means more money for ESPN. The story might be legitimate, but the financial reward taints everyone involved. Now if the argument is that sports reporters aren’t really journalists, then by all means, let the conflicts of interest fly. Or if the contention is that ESPN itself isn’t a news gathering organization at its core, again, have at it. But if a journalist is financially invested in the outcome of something they are covering, it is a serious conflict of interest. On Sat, Aug 28, 2021 at 2:33 PM PGage <[email protected]> wrote: > Let’s not kid ourselves (or let the NFL and their TV partners kid us) > gambling, legal and illegal, has always been a huge part of the engine > driving big time sports TV ratings, and that goes about 10X more for the > NFL. > > What has waxed and waned is the extent to which they are explicit about > this. When I was a kid the pregame shows always had experts making picks > against the spread, and during lopsided games the announcers would comment > specifically that even though a FG would not impact the outcome, it could > change the direction of millions of dollars in bet outcomes. Then they > stopped being explicit, but still gave winks and nods in the gambling > direction. > > The rise of fantasy football was touted by some as a way for the NFL to > break its dependence on gambling while still driving interest in out of > town and blowout games; whether they were ever serious about doing that, > all it ever really did was give them cover to provide injury, weather and > other information that gamblers wanted, pretending it was just for fantasy > players. In the last few years all pretense is gone, with Raiders in Vegas > and commercials fir gambling sites during games. > > One argument for making it explicit is that the NFL and TV partners have a > huge interest in keeping things honest, and more sunlight helps them do > this. But there have been scandals in the last, and there is way too much > money on the table to entertain even a glimmer of a hope that there will > not be scandals in the future. > > On Sat, 28 Aug 2021 at 1:31 PM Tom Wolper <[email protected]> wrote: > >> >> On Fri, Aug 27, 2021 at 5:54 PM PGage <[email protected]> wrote: >> >>> That ship sailed a long, long time ago… >>> >> >> I read this and got confused. Do you mean ESPN's journalistic cred is >> compromised? Or that taking gambling money affects them. For the gambling >> money, once it was made legal it was clear that everybody was going to do >> partnerships. One thing that surprised me was watching CBS Sports HQ on >> Pluto a couple of months ago and seeing a show advising about how to bet on >> the Olympics. But here we are. In their announcement of new amenities in >> Heinz Field, the Steelers said there will be a new betting shop run by >> their gambling partner so fans can place bets during games. >> >> There are parts of sports journalism, like injury reports, that have a >> lot more value to gamblers than to casual fans. That has always been there >> and will continue to be. >> >> -- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> "TVorNotTV" group. >> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an >> email to [email protected]. >> To view this discussion on the web visit >> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/tvornottv/CAJE-FiGJXeK-09bVubRnxoT8Q1sbMiwmHOmHnEHZ2J7oOFCndw%40mail.gmail.com >> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/tvornottv/CAJE-FiGJXeK-09bVubRnxoT8Q1sbMiwmHOmHnEHZ2J7oOFCndw%40mail.gmail.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> >> . >> > -- > Sent from Gmail Mobile > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "TVorNotTV" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/tvornottv/CAKGtkY%2BR%2BgZRQL8njY%3DwSqf3ivx0wRG8SjmxDULqwJQX7egxVQ%40mail.gmail.com > <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/tvornottv/CAKGtkY%2BR%2BgZRQL8njY%3DwSqf3ivx0wRG8SjmxDULqwJQX7egxVQ%40mail.gmail.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> > . > -- Kevin M. (RPCV) -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TVorNotTV" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/tvornottv/CAKgmY4BwBPDH1oF7i1BmXfZm7KnvoCV3Th2baaiekM2d%3DrK5TA%40mail.gmail.com.
