In legalized sports wagering era, college sports is 'blurring a lot of lines'

DALLAS – As much-needed attention is being paid to hot-button college sports issues like NIL and potential employee status for athletes, industry stakeholders say another topic is hovering on the horizon like ominous storm clouds: the increasing intersection between sports wagering and college athletics, and the many ramifications that stem from it.

Weeks after Tom McMillen, the former U.S. Congressman and current LEAD1 Association CEO, told On3 that sports betting is his No. 1 issue in all of college sports because the implications could be “catastrophic,” McMillen asked new NCAA President Charlie Baker to characterize his level of concern about the issue during a 45-minute Q&A at LEAD1’s annual spring meeting.

McMillen, whose association advocates on policy issues for all FBS schools, cited integrity firm U.S. Integrity saying that there is a 100% probability of a betting scandal on a campus in the next few years. Additionally, McMillen reminded Baker that the NCAA has not conducted a national study on the betting habits of student-athletes since 2003. Since then, 30-plus states have legalized sports gambling, a handful of colleges have secured partnerships with sports books and student-athletes are being inundated with sports wagering commercials and promotions.

Baker said the NCAA is currently conducting general polling related to the gambling habits of all college-aged students. He also said this fall it will “do something that is much more particular and specific to student-athletes.” Baker drilled down on the pressure student-athletes feel because of widespread reaction to their play on social media, fan reaction that could often be triggered by betting outcomes. 

“If 100 people come at you on social media – I don’t care who you are – that’s a beatdown,” Baker said. “So imagine having thousands, a few thousand come at you – and you’re 20 years old – because you missed the penalty kick and cost your team the game or whatever it might be. And you hear these stories, and you start thinking about what’s going to happen to some of these kids when they make the shot, miss the shot, whatever it is, that changes the [betting] line at a sporting event.” 

‘The intersections are becoming more blurred’

Concerns regarding sports wagering run the gamut from athlete mental health and protecting the integrity of games to sports books emerging as controversial potential partners to help schools and leagues drive revenue. During a panel with four conference commissioners, Sun Belt Commissioner Keith Gill said his concerns are “everywhere” regarding the relationship between the two ecosystems because the college athletics space is “vulnerable.”

“The intersections are becoming more blurred,” Gill told panel moderator Bob Bowlsby, the former Big 12 commissioner, and a ballroom full of athletic directors. “And it’s hard to really make sure that you draw the line between what’s good and what’s not if you’re trying to educate your students, particularly when a lot of these relationships are formalized, whether it’s the official sports book of X college [or] X conference. So I just think we do have to be really careful because I think that we’re just blurring a lot of lines. It is really easy to get those crossed. And once the integrity of the game has been compromised, I think you’ve got some really serious problems for the enterprise. Because what we are really selling, at least on the game front, is an event where we don’t know what the outcomes are.”

In a recent conversation with one athletic director, McMillen asked, “How many of your student-athletes have bet on games?” The athletic director said, “I don’t know. I have no idea. I almost don’t want to know.”

That’s why another comprehensive NCAA national study on the gambling habits of student-athletes is “essential,” said Michelle Malkin, an assistant professor of criminal justice at East Carolina who has done extensive research and spoken at numerous conferences and symposiums on gambling’s connection to crime. 

“I believe that, at the very least, there will be attempts [to entice athletes to sway the outcome of games], and that is concerning, to begin with,” Malkin said. “But I do believe somebody, somewhere is going to approach an athlete with a substantial amount of money. And that athlete – young brain not fully formed yet [and] looking at their options in life – will say, ‘Sure, I’ll just throw my free throws. I can make it look good. Or I’ll fake an injury.’ It’s going to be something that won’t be obvious, but will really impact them and/or their family. Athletes come from many backgrounds, and sometimes money can be a factor in terms of supporting family.”

What are a school’s moral obligations?

Gill also painted a clear picture of the delicate dance schools and/or conferences need to engage in with sports books if they do enter any type of partnership with them. Because of revenue potential, schools and/or leagues may feel they need to get close to them, but perhaps not too intimately intertwined.

Gill said that’s important to keep in mind amid new potential revenue opportunities linked to the sports wagering world. For instance, the NCAA Division I Interpretations Committee last April determined that a school or conference can provide statistics to sports wagering companies if that data is also available to the general public, Sportico reported. It could lead to lucrative official data deals for leagues. 

“It is really expensive to run these programs, and trying to identify ways to find revenue is really important,” Gill said. “The data piece is important because it’s all data that someone is already selling and managing it. Okay, how can I take advantage of something that is already a commodity, that has already been activated by third parties, and get some of that revenue? [That] seems like a question that makes sense. 

“As we answer it, there are some moral obligations that we have to evaluate to see, ‘Hey, who are we aligning with in what type of relationships? How do these relationships manifest themselves on campus? Are we giving away our mailing lists to all of our students? … I do think we are not trying to create a culture of folks that have the adverse impact that gambling can produce.”