Is Sports Gambling Ruining Sports’ Reputation?
If you have watched any sports games in the past five years, you have likely seen a commercial or sponsorship on your television promoting you to use apps like FanDuel, DraftKings, BetMGM—among a plethora of other choices.
These choices, however, are ruining the experience of watching sports. Better yet, sports leagues are hurting their own reputations by promoting these gambling apps on their broadcasts over real competitive integrity. It is slowly leading fans to question whether the game they are watching is authentic and real or whether it is being manipulated by players, coaches, and officials.
Cleveland Guardians’ pitchers Emmanuel Clase and Luis Ortiz were suspended in November last year on a betting scheme to rig bets on pitches thrown during games. Recent reports suggest that Clase intentionally threw a pitch in the dirt during the 2024 Major League Baseball (MLB) playoffs, the most competitive atmosphere in all of MLB.
In an NBC News poll, 70% of respondents agreed that sports gambling is “lessening the integrity of the game,” with 34% saying they strongly agree. These suspensions in MLB, as well as in the National Basketball Association (NBA), two of the most popular sports leagues in the United States, create a perception among viewers that corruption is spreading and growing out of control.
With the sponsorships teams are acquiring from these sportsbooks, leagues are profiting even more than they already do from advertising and in-stadium sponsorships. Per sports gambling rules, players and employees may gamble on other sports, not their own.
If teams are putting in so much effort to promote sports gambling, the fans should, too, with that reasoning. Fans will care more about the money they put down on an athlete to score a goal or strike out the next batter, rather than see their team win a crucial game to put them ahead in the standings.
When things don’t go your way, anger starts to rise. Athletes, who are legally not supposed to gamble on their own sport, are now receiving punishment from fans for their bets not hitting. Morally, that is not okay.
Sports will only be successful if fans feel what they are watching is genuine, and the leagues are undermining that trust by giving more importance to gambling revenue. If they continue to do this, the reputation of these leagues and the authenticity of these games may become irreparable.
