In the gale of issues surrounding the upcoming Supreme Court hearing regarding New Jersey’s attempt to circumvent PASPA, one of the most pressing, as well as sensitive, issues is the concern that the major American sports leagues have over the integrity of their games. Nearly a hundred years have passed since the Black Sox scandal, but the much more recent controversy around former NBA referee Tim Donaghy’s betting on games which he officiated – to say nothing of the ongoing probe into the potential fixing of Grand Slam tennis matches at Wimbledon and the French Open – make it clear that, at the very least, the leagues’ concerns aren’t outlandish. And, given that Nevada is on track to record its eighth straight record sports handle in 2017, with estimates of more than $8 billion being wagered by year’s end, it’s obvious that the market for sports betting is only growing.
Those concerns, and some potential ways to harness that growing market, were addressed in part at a panel at the Sports Betting USA conference in New York City on Tuesday afternoon. Titled “Envisioning a Sports Betting Model That Would Work for the Sports Industry,” the panel, chaired by Yahoo Finance columnist Daniel Roberts, featured Dan Spillane, Senior VP and Assistant General Counsel for the NBA; Michael McCann, head of the Sports and Entertainment Law Institute at UNH School of Law and legal analyst for NBATV; and Tom Russell, General Counsel for Genius Sports.
Opening with remarks pertaining directly to the Supreme Court case, McCann mentioned that the Court takes only one percent of potential cases, and “the fact that the Court took the case at all is a fairly significant point… at least four justices voted to hear the case.”
Roberts discussed the fact that, of the major sports leagues, only the NBA and MLS are in favor of regulated sports gambling. Spillane, speaking on behalf of the NBA, said that the reason the league is in the case is that “what is happening is illegal… New Jersey has admitted that it’s in violation of federal law… the dispute is about whether that law is constitutional.” The leagues, he said, would like to see change at the federal level, through legislation, not litigation.
“(This) isn’t the right way to start off legal sports betting in the U.S., under a cloud,” Spillane said.
Tom Russell of Sports Genius, speaking as a “non-American looking in,” said that the only way to create a successful sports betting model in the U.S. was to have sports at its center. The advantage that the leagues have is that “they control the data… Sports can get sustainable revenue, and the consumer knows that the data has integrity.”
Addressing the particularly complicated college betting situation, McCann said that he had a feeling that the Court would “carve out a different approach for college sports, at least giving some leeway to the NCAA.”
Spillane mentioned a common theme running through many of the panel discussions at SBUSA, which is that any organizations in position to be affected by the Court’s ruling need to be prepared for “a range of outcomes – federal approaches, state-based approaches – ready for anything.” He indicated that he doesn’t expect turbulence in the NBA, regardless of the court’s decision.
Speaking to the issue of “protecting the integrity” of sports, a phrase that Roberts mentioned has come up particularly often regarding the NFL, Spillane outlined the NBA’s built-in protection programs – education and monitoring of personnel, having “the strongest rules in the gaming area in the world,” and bet monitoring, which he said would likely “be strengthened by an order of magnitude” as the data and its uses became more transparent.
Russell pointed out that, due to the volume of illegal betting that occurs on U.S. sports, the integrity issues already exist.
McCann cited the need for trust between the players and the league, saying that the NBA’s relationship with its players’ union is cordial and collaborative, in contrast with the current “Cold War” occurring between the NFL and its players’ union.
“A lot of these (gaming) issues raise privacy concerns… I think there will be real problems (with the NFL),” McCann said. Furthermore, given that the leagues would presumably receive revenues from legalized gambling, McCann said that it’s likely that leagues and players unions would wind up at the negotiation table defining “the relationship between the league and an entity in the sports betting space.”
Addressing the recent statements to Yahoo by Major League Soccer Commissioner Don Garber that MLS “could lead this effort, because… soccer doesn’t have the same challenges that the NFL would,” Spillane said that he believes it’s going to be a “broad coalition… of leagues coming together… It’s not going to be one league.”
McCann agreed, saying that “if New Jersey wins, and there’s no federal prohibition… I imagine there would be lobbying efforts pretty quickly… to advocate for some kind of federal replacement for PASPA that permits sports betting in a way that comports with the Supreme Court’s ruling… and creates a landscape that’s predictable.”
And if the PASPA repeal fails, Roberts asked?
“What we’re (the NBA) is doing doesn’t change… it might change how we do it. It’s a slow process… but we’re continuing to make our position known on this… Let’s wait and see what happens,” Spillane said.
“So right after the NJ case, we’ll have to have this conference all over again,” Roberts said.
