Fans, Betting & Integrity: The New Crisis in Sports

GPAs, 401(k)s, and everything in between are destroyed by online sports betting. Athletes of every stripe complain that it’s affected their relationship with fans and led to threatening behavior.

The one place where betting on sports hasn’t been ruinous on a grand scale? the actual sports.

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Even the several concurrent federal prosecutions involving suspected gambling infractions by current players and coaches didn’t stop the NBA season from beginning with its best ratings in eight years. Even though Shohei Ohtani was on the verge of becoming the face of a betting scandal rather than the face of his sport, MLB has announced year-over-year audience and attendance growth in the double digits. The pattern is similar for leagues that aren’t dealing with the more well-known betting accusations: the NFL is the biggest thing on live television, but women’s basketball and soccer are struggling.

A person’s decision to turn on a game is influenced by a number of confounding factors, and they cite the evidence to back up their claims. The never-ending debate over whether “wokeness” harmed the NBA’s profitability ultimately came to a standstill. The studies that purport to indicate that betting boosts fan involvement are ambiguous at best.

Depending on how you define it, gambling may or may not be ruining sports, as Pablo Torre and a recent New York Times opinion piece have claimed. Some fans don’t give a damn about the business; they just want to play the game without questioning whether the integrity of the competition was compromised.

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