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Episode 206: How the Gambling Industry Swallowed Sports Media Whole

Added 2024-07-31 14:59:56 +0000 UTC

"Legalize and Regulate Sports Betting," NBA Commissioner Adam Silver wrote in The New York Times in 2014. "NFL Betting Promos & Bonuses | Top NFL Betting Sites & Offers for Week 9 NFL Odds & More," USA Today offered readers in 2023. "Bookmakers break down NBA, NHL playoffs, big bets," reads a June 2024 Fox Sports headline.

It's not an exaggeration to state that, since its legalization in 2018, sports betting and other forms of sports gambling have all but taken over American sports media. Increasingly, over the last six years, leading sources on sports news, including ESPN, Fox Sports, CBS, and NBC, have signed multi-million and billion-dollar agreements with major players in the sports betting industry, and launched suites of gambling-themed verticals, podcasts, and series designed to urge viewers and listeners to keep placing their bets, no matter the social costs.

These media platforms claim to reason that, amid a shifting media landscape where cable channels struggle to adapt to the streaming era and legacy newspapers hemorrhage advertising revenue, partnerships with sports gambling companies help keep them afloat. But what does it mean when sports media are beholden to betting companies? Given the predatory nature of the industry, and the clear conflict of interest, what are the social and political costs to shifting sports from an admittedly already very flawed entertainment business, to a widespread peddler of increasingly unsustainable and gimmicky gambling opportunities?

On this episode, we examine how sports media in the U.S. have increasingly embedded themselves in the exploding online sports betting industry. We look at the corrosive effect this has on sports coverage, the glaring conflict of interest this generates, and the moral hazards of a media climate (and state and local governments) that welcomes with open arms a regressive tax pushed by a notoriously rapacious and exploitative industry.

Our guest is, friend of the show, The Nation's Dave Zirin.

Guest

Dave Zirin (@edgeofsports) is Sports Editor at The Nation, host of the Edge of Sports podcast and its magisterial spinoff The Butterfly Effect, as well as Edge of Sports TV, which airs on The Real News Network. Dave is the author of 11 books on the politics of sports, including What’s My Name, Fool?, Brazil’s Dance With The Devil, Welcome to the Terrordome, A People’s History of Sports in the United States, and Jim Brown: Last Man Standing. His most recent is The Kaepernick Effect: Taking a Knee, Changing the World, published by The New Press in 2022.

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Show Notes

Online Gambling Has Swallowed Professional Sports

Dave Zirin | March 27, 2024 | The Nation

Legalized Sports Betting Is Class War Against You

Hamilton Nolan | February 3, 2022 | In These Times

The NBA Is Monetizing A Public Health Crisis

David Sirota and Lever Time | June 14, 2024 | The Lever

The NFL May Buy a Stake in ESPN. Is This the Death of the Network’s Journalism?

Dave Zirin | January 17, 2024 | The Nation

Gambling and Neoliberal Rot - How Our Most Regressive Tax Flies Under the Radar

Episode 63 | January 23, 2019 | Citations Needed

The ‘Last $100 in Your Bank Account’ Economy - How Media’s Love Affair with Crypto, NFTs and Gambling Preys Upon Working People

Episode 160 | May 4, 2019 | Citations Needed

It’s only a matter of time before legalized sports betting ruins the game

Jay Willis | April 7, 2024 | Fast Company

Baseball superstar Shohei Ohtani has been caught up in a gambling controversy. He won’t be the last.

Bryan Walsh | March 22, 2024 | Vox

Proposed legislation targets sports betting marketing tactics

John Barr and David Purdum | March 19, 2024 | ESPN

St. Bonaventure/Siena Research survey reveals almost 1 in 5 Americans have an online sports betting account

American Sports Fanship Survey | February 5, 2024 | St. Bonaventure University

Young gamblers place sports bets while showering, wager away student loan money, addiction therapist warns

Jon Wertheim, Aliza Chasan, David M. Levine and Elizabeth Germino | February 4, 2024 | 60 Minutes

Gambling companies battle ESPN in new talent war

Tim Baysinger | February 3, 2024 | Axios

An Explosion in Sports Betting Is Driving Gambling Addiction Among College Students

Oliver Staley | December 12, 2023 |TIME

The sports betting craze: How did we get here?

Steven Norris | December 12, 2023 | The Review

An N.F.L. Stadium Brings Sports Betting Inside

Jenny Vrentas | September 14, 2023 | The New York Times

The Human Cost of the Sports-Betting Boom

Rachel Epstein | August 22, 2023 | Men's Health

ESPN Enters Sports Gambling in $2 Billion Deal With Casino Company

Kellen Browning | August 8, 2023 | The New York Times

Manfred has no intention of altering Pete Rose’s lifetime ban from baseball

Ronald Blum | July 11, 2023 | Associated Press

Gambling Is Ruining the NFL for Fans. Blame Chris Christie.

Matt Ford | January 26, 2023 | The New Republic

ESPN Expands Sports Betting Content Portfolio

John R. Manzo | September 8, 2022 | ESPN Press Room

Sports betting timeline: From Las Vegas to the Supreme Court

Matt Bonesteel | August 29, 2022 | The Washington Post

The Rising Human Cost of Sports Betting

Kurt Streeter | January 31, 2022 | The New York Times

Publisher Gannett strikes first of its kind deal with sports betting outfit

Helen Coster | July 27, 2021 | Reuters

Spotify and FanDuel will let you take on Bill Simmons in fantasy sports

Igor Bonifacic | May 3, 2021 | Engadget

Two centuries after the first proper bookie betting’s future is no banker

Greg Wood | April 20, 2019 | The Guardian

Are lotteries a tax on the poor?

The Week Staff | October 25, 2018 | The Week

Sports betting legalization: How we got here

David Purdum | May 22, 2018 | ESPN

18 Signs That The Lottery Is Preying On America's Poor

Dina Spector, Gus Lubin and Michael Kelley | April 6, 2012 | Business Insider

The History Behind Sports Betting

Alan Smithee | August 2, 2022 | Unwinnable

Timeline: 932 Years of British Gambling Law

Daniel Smyth | July 6, 2022 | CardsChat

Medieval Gambling

Susan Higginbotham | October 20, 2009 | History Refreshed: New Perspectives on Old Times

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Transcript

A full transcript of this interview is available here. In the meantime, you can find transcripts of past episodes, live shows, Beg-a-Thons, Interviews and News Briefs here.

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