Among several potential sources for revenue for college sport’s governing body, NCAA President Charlie Baker implied gambling was extremely viable.
Speaking at “The Future of College Sports” event in Washington D.C., Baker said the NCAA has financially underperformed. The comments were mildly surprising considering the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament receives nearly $1 billion in media rights, tickets, and sponsorships, and the College Football Playoffs are expected to bring in another $1 billion.
Baker, however, said there will be a gap financially among football and other sports, and it is up to the organization to think of ways to close it. One of those ways, Baker said, was to embrace gambling, something the NCAA has been hesitant to do.
This goes counter to what previous regimes at the NCAA have practiced. The issue was made even murkier when several universities, such as the University of Colorado, Louisiana State University and Michigan State University, had sports betting partnerships with sportsbook operators. They then had to cancel those deals when it was discovered that sportsbooks were targeting students, some of whom were under the legal gambling age of 21.
Still, Baker believes it is a relationship worth exploring.
“That’s a major opportunity, right in front of us,” Baker told the audience of industry insiders. “We have a major opportunity to get into the sports betting space … anybody who has a phone (being) able to bet from any place they want and two-thirds to almost three quarters of all people between the ages of 18 and 22 betting on sports.”
The former governor of Massachusetts, who took over the NCAA on March 1, 2023, quickly reiterated that the NCAA has to do a better job protecting student-athletes from the dangers of problem gambling.
“The truth is, if there are lots of kids on campus betting on college sports and betting on the teams on their campus, this puts student-athletes in a very difficult position,” Baker said. “(The NCAA needs to) create a program that we hope we’re going to get everybody to endorse around helping them develop the tools and techniques (athletes are) going to need to deal with this stuff.”
Baker did not reveal any specifics at the seminar in the nation’s capital, but said all sports will be looked at to see if monetizing relationships with sportsbooks makes financial sense.
“We dramatically underperform across a whole bunch of other revenue raising opportunities,” Baker said. “And those items are going to get a lot of attention from us over the course of what I would describe as the next four to six months.”
