And now some choice words. Okay, look, we need to talk about the new national pastime,
sports betting. I'm old enough to remember lo the many years ago when Pete Rose was banned for life
from Major League Baseball for placing bets on his own team. I remember when sports leagues
said they would never put a team in Las Vegas because of the very physical proximity to legal
gambling. I remember when the official line was that the integrity of the game and placing bets
could not even exist in the same zip code. Well, fast forward a few decades, hell a few years, and
it's remarkable how much has changed. Now gambling is as much a part of sports as beer commercials.
Smartphones have opened the door to sports betting apps, and the leagues have embraced the lucrative
bounty created and generated by smartphone gambling. They've jumped on this with the wanton
shamelessness of a puppy licking its bowl. It's dizzying how quickly the commissioners
have made this turn from gambling is evil, to selling it to fans is all fun and Americana.
I won't insult your intelligence by explaining this radical shift. It's money. A ton of it.
But it's not just the league owners panting with their puppy bowls out. Sports media like
the trendsetter, ESPN Sports Center and its tall, smoothly bald host, Scott Van Pelt,
are always ready with the special sports betting segment. Also, the most esteemed commentators in
the sports media world like TNT's studio hoops team led by Charles Barkley and
Kenny Smith now do their own giggly gambling bits. In other words, a massive portion of
the economic lifeblood of pro sports, from the leagues to the top of the media food chain, is
being underwritten by sports gambling. Actually, that's not quite right. It's being underwritten
by fans making bets they overwhelmingly lose. It's a regressive tax on fans. Sort of like
the lottery, except with one vital difference. It's privatized. So instead of money going to
build roads or schools, it goes into the pockets of billionaires. Now, I know some, clearly most,
will say it's all good, clean fun. But this isn't just about sports betting. It's about access to
betting and it's about the apps. Yes, anyone, especially in the digital age, can gamble when
everyone likes. But there's something called a hassle cost that has been eliminated by the
apps. Now if anyone wants to lay down some money, there is no need to find a bookie or even navigate
a casino website. Just swipe your finger and as quickly as checking text messages, you are done.
They have taken the most dangerous part of gambling, and I do speak from experience here,
and that's that it's addictive, and they've combined it with that other great
modern addiction, the smartphone. And for the leagues, it's been like cracking open Fort Knox.
Now, the phone app giants do have a warning label for gambling addicts, but it's about as sincere
as a lung cancer warning on a pack of smokes. The leagues do not care. And as long as the
sweet dough trickles down to players and the now compromised media, no one else is going to raise a
stink about this either. But as Neil Young wrote, the devil fools with the best laid plans and wow,
is old Satan fooled with the plans here because something incredibly predictable has taken place.
The players are deciding in every violation of every league rule to place their own bets.
As a result, the NFL has just suspended four more players for gambling. And they didn't get any slap
on the wrist either. These players are suspended for the entire 2023 season. It's an incredibly
harsh punishment for doing what everyone in the sports world is promoting, from the boss to the
media interviewing these players after the game. The sports owners, let's be clear about this,
are terrified that if fans think players are operating in a way that compromises the alleged
integrity of the games, the financial hit could be catastrophic. That makes referees as well,
who make a fraction of the players' salaries particularly vulnerable to the allure of
gambling and players know it. The ugliest scene from the NBA season on the court was for me when
Dallas Mavericks Superstar, Luca Doncic, late in a close game, started to make dollar signs with
his fingers in the ref's face to indicate that he thought the fix was in. Expect more of that.
So it's Vegas for the fans, owners and media and the Vatican for the players and the refs. And this
is a recipe for future disasters. Players will gamble. The commissioner's office will hand out
year long suspensions. And the media will get in deeper with gambling companies they should
be covering instead of profiting from. The early sports organizers way back in the late
19th century, were terrified of sports betting, fearful that fans would leave in droves if they
felt like the outcomes were manipulated. A little more healthy fear, a little more introspection,
a little more critical thinking, and a little less blind devotion to taxing fans
would be a step in the right direction. But until there is a massive scandal,
and that day is coming, we can only sit back and watch gambling swallow the sports world whole.