Opinion: Leagues Take Gambling Industry Money, Why Shouldn’t Players?
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Author Danny Funt shared an insightful story about former MLB Commissioner Fay Vincent when we spoke earlier this year.
The anecdote appears in Funt’s book, “Everybody Loses: The Tumultuous Rise of American Sports Gambling,” and it aptly describes the relationship between leagues and betting companies today.
“I interviewed (Vincent) a little bit before he passed away last year, and he was the commissioner at the past hearings who spoke very emphatically that baseball would never get into business with gambling,” Funt said. “As he put it, ‘It would make a mockery of his office.’ Obviously, times have changed, and he was very bitter about that.”
The NFL was staunchly against gambling until it wasn’t. After PASPA was overturned in 2018, opening the door to legalized sports betting across the US, the league struck its first deal with Caesars early the next year and never looked back.
There’s been a lot of hand-wringing lately after LeBron James signed a multimillion-dollar deal to promote Polymarket.
James, who served as an ambassador for DraftKings prior to joining Polymarket, spoke out against the effect sportsbooks were having on the game just three years ago.
“It’s kind of taken some of the integrity out of the game because people are kind of really only caring about the betting,” James said.
Make of that what you will, but why shouldn’t athletes capitalize on these partnerships in the era of gambling normalization? Simply put, leagues don’t exist without players.
Wemby Takes The Road Less Traveled
Spurs’ star Victor Wembanyama recently said that he will “never” endorse sportsbooks or prediction markets. That’s laudable. Wemby added that it was “very sad” to see other players doing it. That’s unrealistic.
Future NBA Hall of Famer Kevin Durant, who has endorsed FanDuel since 2022, noted that he never considered the morality of that partnership when asked about Wembanyama’s stance.
“That’s Wemby,” Durant said. “He’s going to do what he does. That has nothing to do with me. I really don’t think about that question at all. It’s not really on my mind as much as his. But people are going to do what they want to do.”
That includes all of the commissioners and leagues that decided to take gambling industry money. The overarching point here? It’s wrong to expect players to turn down these deals when all of the major US sports leagues are pimping betting products.
Vincent, the former MLB commissioner who would never condone gambling, is probably rolling over in his grave.
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