College sports eye gambling funds amid safeguard concerns

The NCAA stance against gambling on sports by its athletes and those who work in college athletics is summed up simply by the slogan on the posters the association provides to its member schools: “Don’t Bet On It.“

The rules have been unambiguous for decades, part of the bedrock guidance in place for a half-million amateur athletes. But with sports betting now legal in more than half the states and millions flowing to once-apprehensive professional sports leagues, college conferences are starting to explore ways to cash in, too.

The Mid-American Conference was the first to jump in, licensing the rights to its data and statistics to a company called Genius Sports, which will in turn sell it to sportsbooks.

Expect others to follow, but the additional revenue will come with increased responsibility. And at a time of sweeping change in college sports, with athletes now able to earn money on their fame and the viability and necessity of the NCAA in question, legalized and easily accessible gambling represents more new terrain to navigate.

While the NCAA isn’t standing in the way of these sorts of business deals, actual sports betting remains a violation for those involved in college sports.

“They were able to turn the other way before and say, ‘Oh, that’s all happening over here.’ But the second you’re directly getting paid from sports betting, it also comes with some responsibilities,” said Matthew Holt of U.S. Integrity, a company that works with professional sports leagues and college conferences to monitor for gambling improprieties.

Holt said college sports is uniquely ripe for potential scandals due to a lack of transparency when it comes to player availability, the explosion of endorsement deals for athletes involving boosters and the potential for unpaid players to essentially bet on themselves with ease.

Holt said regulated sports betting in the U.S. was on track to take in $125 billion this year.

While all the major professional sports leagues have financial agreements with online sportsbooks, college conferences have been slow to get in the game. MAC Commissioner Jon Steinbrecher said it is impossible to ignore the changing reality.

“What we’ve done, in fact, is brought sports wagering out of the dark corners and put sunshine on it and more transparency on it. And more eyes on it. That’s a positive, that’s not a negative,” he said.

As soon as this coming season, those weeknight MAC football games could be more alluring than ever for gamblers, with Genius’ help.

The MAC and Genius declined to reveal financial terms of the deal. Navigate, a Chicago-based firm that does research and data analysis for professional sports leagues and college conferences, estimated that the agreement to tap into legal sports wagering could be worth between $1 million to $1.5 million per year.

Using publicly available information on legal sports wagering and data licensing agreements made by professional sports leagues, Navigate projected the Southeastern Conference could make $15 million to $20 million annually with a deal similar to the MAC’s.

The projection for the Big Ten is between $13 million to $15 million, and between $5 million and $10 million for the other Power Five conferences.