Sports betting and the ramifications of the end of the federal ban was the subject of much discussion at the spring meeting of the SEC (Southeastern Conference), which oversees athletics in the southern part of the U.S.
SEC commissioner Greg Sankey told the State, “Every meeting in which I have appeared, there’s a very clear conversation about the centrality of integrity around our competitions. I don’t think that we’re looking to embrace it. Right now, it’s understand it.”
CNHI Sports, which attended the spring Big 12 conference last week quoted Kansas State Athletic Director Gene Taylor, who said, “It makes me nervous. It takes a step that just gets uncomfortable for a lot of people. We’ll have to figure out how to control it if it does pass and how to manage it better.”
“I think we’re all trying to get our arms around that,” Florida Gators athletic director Scott Stricklin told the Tampa Bay Times.
“My personal opinion, I don’t like it,” Baylor athletic director Mack Rhoades told the Dallas Morning News. “I don’t think there should be legalized betting on college sports. It is now—and I don’t like it.”
SEC Commissioner Bob Bowlsby told the News, “Well, in all frankness, I wish I knew how it was going to affect landscape. You just look at our footprint. We have five different states that are going to have five different sets of rules and laws.” He compared the differences among the states to the current diversity of laws concerning marijuana usage.
Oklahoma Athletic Director Joe Castiglione commented, “It’s imperative to point out we’ve had safeguards in place for many, many years, very proactive with everything from education to monitoring those things we can.” He added, “Bringing sports betting in a legalized way closer to home is an entirely new situation for virtually any school in the United States.”
University of Mississippi (“Ole’ Miss) Athletic Director Ross Bjork told CBS Sports, “Before, it was more underground, online, offshore betting. Now, it’s going to be in your face, down the road from our campus.” He added, “Now it takes on a different light. Now, you have to tell these players, ‘You can’t go in sportsbooks. You can’t bet on sports.’”
Despite the fact that each of the five states that the conference includes are considering laws to legalize sports betting doesn’t prevent West Virginia President Gordon Gee from opposing it. A devout member of the LDS Church, and an opponent of gambling, he said, “I don’t believe this is in the best interest of sporting. I would not advocate for it,” he declared. “The purpose of that is my strong belief that this opens up yet another venue for athletes to be approached by folks that do not have the best interest of intercollegiate athletics in mind.”
He added, “If you’re LeBron James in Cleveland and someone offers you $10,000 to miss a shot, you’re going to pound him into the ground. If you’re a young kid in a collegiate environment and you come out of distressed circumstances and someone offers you something like that, it becomes tempting.”
West Virginia’s legislature has already passed a bill that legalized sportsbook if the Supreme Court lifted the ban.
West Virginia’s athletic director Shane Lyons says he will adjust. “We’ll have to step up our game from an education and compliance standpoint to make sure our student-athletes and others are educated on gambling and the do’s and don’ts involved in that,” he said.
Texas Athletic Director Chris Del Conte, told CNHI Sports “I don’t know what it will exactly look like, but 10 years from now we’ll probably be trying to capitalize on the fact that you could come to the stadium and place bets and do whatever.”
“I think each state is going to have their own approach,” Alabama athletics director Greg Byrne told the State. He is staying in touch with state lawmakers and with the governor’s office regarding sports betting legislation that may be in the offing.
Auburn University, which is also located in Alabama, will be impacted even if the state itself does not legalize sports betting. Auburn Athletic Director Allen Green commented, “The most important thing in our opinion is that there’s integrity with our student-athletes, educating our student-athletes and fans and making sure we’re not operating in a way that’s not appropriate for intercollegiate athletics.”
Greene added, “The ADs understand that it makes sense for us all to collaborate on some best practices to help make sure our game remains as pure as possible.”
“In Alabama, that’s not something that’s a prominent part of what we’re doing, but we’re certainly watching it. I know next door in Mississippi, there have been a lot of discussions about it,” said Byrne.
But even Mississippi faces months the hammer out the details so they get it right the first time.
Some coaches, like Tennessee athletics director Philip Fulmer, will from now on be suspicious of too much interest from acquaintances who might be looking for information they could parlay into a wager. He told the State: “I had some concerns about people around the program in the past. You always have to have your antennas up when it comes to that.”
Some coaches say they will be even more paranoid than they have been in the past.
Kentucky basketball coach John Calipari added, “You just worry about the integrity of our game, from players to coaches to officials, everything. That’s the only thing I would worry about.”
“If you’re on a phone call with a buddy and he wants to know a little bit too much, you say, ‘What do you want to know that for?’ ” Tennessee AD Phillip Fulmer told CBS Sports. “ ‘That’s none of your business.’ ”
Nevada has had sports betting for decades and University of Nevada Athletic Director Doug Knuth is well familiar with the issue. He told CBS Sports, “Sports gambling has been happening for a long, long time. Now it’s going to be above board and regulated. My sense is this probably cleans things up even better.” His school is just a short drive from a Reno casino.
“We have fans, boosters who will ask us from time to time, ‘How is so-and-so’s ankle doing? We tell people, ‘We don’t comment on that. Nice of you to ask, but because of student privacy laws … we’re not allowed to say anything,’ ” he said. “I see and hear what everyone else is saying. One of the things I keep telling people over and over again: The gaming industry is the most highly-regulated industry in America.”
A problem that college sports faces that professional sports do not is that college teams have twice as many players, plus support staff that includes students and people who work at near minimum wage, making them vulnerable to being turned.
Says Commissioner Sankey, “There are many more touchpoints around college sports than there are around professional athletes.” One possible result could be that college sports follows professional sports in making public announcements on injuries to discourage gamblers from trying to ferret out secrets. He told the Tampa Bay Times, “My statement is, we need to take time to learn. It’s new.”
Geoff Freeman, chief executive officer of the American Gaming Association, says that it’s to the advantage of all to maintain clean, honest sports. He told CBS Sports “We’re actually going to detect more betting fraud. The implications are significant. Colleges now have a choice. The NCAA has a choice. Keep your head in the sand or come into the modern age, embrace the technology, utilize the resources that are available to track all the bets that are placed in order to protect the integrity of the games.”
To help maintain “integrity,” the NBA and Major League Baseball have been pressing to be given a 1 percent “integrity fee” to offset costs of maintaining that integrity.
West Virginia has agreed to such a fee and some athletic directors want to use that money to hire compliance staffers to keep college players from giving in to temptation, which they are more vulnerable to than professional athletes because they are paid so much.
