Quote:
Originally Posted by thaskalos
You are not giving enough credit to the leagues for thinking things through, IMO. You will NEVER hear the leagues publicly admit that they are in favor of sport betting...didn't you see that they, along with president Trump, publicly DENOUNCED the Supreme Court's decision on this? The leagues will continue saying that widespread sports betting will undermine the integrity of their respective sports...even as they secretly smile ear-to-ear at the thought of having their fans so emotionally attached to the outcomes of these games. The hypocritical stance that the leagues have taken on this issue hasn't been without a motive; they want to distance themselves as far as they can from the gambling "evils" that you mention above.
Yes...the fans will boo when the home team puts in the scrubs late in the game, and fails to cover the spread. And, when the criticism gets loud enough, the leagues will remind us that they were against sports betting all along...and they will criticize the Supreme Court's decision all over again...and again. "We are not, and we'll never be in the gambling business", the leagues will publicly declare...while reminding us that the Supreme Court twisted their arm in this matter.
Who has ever given a rat's ass for the gambler's plight as he wagers hard-earned money on his game of choice? You seriously expect the sports "authorities" to change their ways NOW? The gambler is on his OWN out there...and there is no sympathetic ear for him to turn to when he loses. "Let the customer beware"...and all that. IMO...this is a can't-lose situation for the leagues. And, as far as the gamblers are concerned, they've gotten used to losing, so...what's the big deal?
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NCAA, NFL, I don't know if you will ever see them publicly on board, but they sure will not hesitate to get their piece of the pie. But NBA is on board and they will be promoting this. Here is Adam Silver being interviewed on the subject.
https://www.wsj.com/video/nba-adam-s...1375620A2.html
I really do not care. NBA is doing just fine and they go are going to make huge money with all of this as will the others. I just find it an interesting topic of discussion, because I know how many of these games come down to something, like whether a player decides to foul with 3.1 seconds to go or decided not to foul and let the clock run out or whether the ref decides to call it or not.
I do think incorporating pointspread record into a teams seeding as I mentioned in my prior post will eliminate a lot of this. If a team is motivated to cover a spread it will go hand in hand with sports betting and it will make for more interesting games in general. The closing line is a very good indicator of the relative abilities of the teams, so why not give a team extra credit for covering the spread and less credit if they do not. It is a way of rewarding and penalizing performance beyond win/loss (basically a handicap).
