Dave Zirin, the Nation’s and Progressive Magazine’s sports columnist who has delighted audiences at the Cap Times Idea Fest, isn’t shy about calling out professional sports for its hypocrisy.
In a recent column, he pointed to the National Basketball Association’s banning of Toronto Raptors forward Jontay Porter for life because he was found to be betting on games he played in and sharing insider information with other gamblers ahead of games.
“There is nothing more important than protecting the integrity of NBA competition for our fans, our teams, and everyone associated with our sport, which is why Jontay Porter’s blatant violations of our gaming rules are being met with the most severe punishment,” Zirin quoted NBA Commissioner Adam Silver.
The NBA’s Player Association also chimed in, pledging that it would “continue to provide all players with training materials to ensure they understand how to properly navigate the complex sports betting landscape.”
None of that impressed Zirin
“To be clear, there is no integrity in an operation that surrounds itself with legal gambling and then acts shocked when one of the players is sucked into that world,” Zirin wrote. “It’s hypocrisy of the highest order, like when Claude Rains is ‘shocked!’ to learn that gambling is occurring at Rick’s Café.”
The columnist has been clear about his disgust with professional sports — and now colleges — for getting in bed with gambling interests, something that both tiers of sports assiduously avoided through the years.
As I’ve pointed out several times in these pages, Zirin noted that a decade ago, sports betting was legal in only one state: Nevada.
“Today, 38 states allow the practice,” he wrote. “This means that in much of the country, we can access sports apps like FanDuel and DraftKings on our phones, turning every handheld device into a mini-casino.
“Gambling is branded on every inch of our screens during a typical broadcast, like catnip for humans. It particularly attracts young sports consumers, who are at the heart of a gambling epidemic spreading across the United States.”
He mused that Porter’s story appeared almost as an afterthought on ESPN.
“It was briefly discussed during a Denver Nuggets game because Porter’s brother Michael is a starting forward for that team,” he observed. “The announcers described the shocking news of the lifetime ban by saying only that Michael Porter was ‘playing with a heavy heart.’ On the basketball court at the time was an advertisement for a gambling app. Within minutes of the brief exchange, the discussion switched to betting lines and parlays.”
“This is madness,” he declared. “No one is minding the store in the world of sports media. No one is sounding the alarm that sports betting could, in fact, destroy sports. If fans start believing the games are fixed — or even just influenced by players or referees — the entire edifice of fair competition crumbles.”
Unfortunately, it looks like that’s where we’re headed.
Dave Zweifel is editor emeritus of The Capital Times. dzweifel@captimes.com, 608-252-6410 and on Twitter @DaveZweifel.
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