Gambling won’t ruin sports world
The value of sports franchises will double, Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban said.
The contracts for athletes will move north accordingly, agent Drew Rosenhaus said.
And the chance of sitting beside some lunatic fan going crazy after a meaningless free throw in the final second of a nine-point game will rise off the charts, I fear.
That’s my only concern about the Supreme Court’s decision on Monday to allow every state to become Nevada, minus the stage shows, when it comes to sports betting.
That meaningless free throw will affect margins of victory, which affects whether bets are won or lost, which means the volume of fans’ wailing will go up exponentially at games due to this ruling. Are you ready for that?
New Jersey was the plaintiff, and its horse tracks say they’ll be taking sports bets within two weeks. That’s enough to make some fans shout with joy — or to pound the Dolphins’ over-under line at 5.5 wins this year.
My bet: Two-to-one it all feels normalized fairly quickly. At least, if by normalized you allow for money increasing tremendously in our sports leagues, betting parlors in corner coffee shops and tout sheets sprouting in newspapers (all in the name of higher journalism, of course).
You know, like how it is in Europe right now. You can’t walk down a street in London without a LadsBroke betting parlor beckon-
ing for bets on anything from first goals in Premier League games to point spreads in NFL games.
They’ve somehow survived it, at least if you overlook the occasional warm beer.
This is neither a step toward the apocalypse nor toward some sporting paradise as much as one toward the real world. Sports betting is among us. This just legalizes what’s now offshore, internet-based or completely in the dark.
It is telling that unregulated sports betting estimates are at between $113 billion and $247 billion annually in the United States. The higher figure means it’s more than the combined value of every professional football, basketball, baseball and hockey franchise.
No wonder Cuban told CNBC that sports franchises will double in value. That just makes for a bigger pie for everyone, of course. Starting with the players.
“I don’t know any specifics yet, but it obviously means the NFL will have a new revenue stream,’’ Rosenhaus said. “That will in turn lead to more money for the players.”
Ideas changed with betting. Technology changed them. Or maybe just money did, too. Just look around the altered logic and bottom-line conclusions of those leading our sports leagues.
In 2012, NBA commissioner David Stern was against New Jersey’s proposal, saying, “All it’s interested in is making a buck or two, and they don’t care that it’s at our potential loss.”
Four years later, Stern’s successor, Adam Silver, wants sports betting out in the open so it can be regulated. His statement Monday included: “We remain in favor of a federal framework that would provide a uniform approach to sports gambling in states that choose to permit it.”
Yep, a billion dollars in new revenue will make you change your mind, as just 1 percent of the betting on pro sports could mean.
The entertainment in this court decision will come from the twists of logic and leaps of faith that might come from the NCAA. The only thing its institutions of higher learning would dislike more than gambling would be missing out on easy billions. Especially if they still don’t pay players.
There’s a ways to go before you can walk into a coffee shop and bet on games. Florida doesn’t have anything on the books right now, like some states do. And local owners? Well, Dolphins owner Steve Ross said he doesn’t want to comment on his thoughts, as the NFL hasn’t discussed it at a league meeting.
The only sure thing is the sports world will look back at this day as Money Monday. Everyone on the inside just got richer. The owners. The players. Maybe even the states, depending on the taxes involved.
I’ll bet on all that. And the Dolphins over 5.5 wins, too.