Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. Gambling on sports is
Speaker 1: now legal in almost forty states in the US. The
Speaker 1: Supreme Court paved the way for this in twenty eighteen,
Speaker 1: and since then, betting has become a big business. Football
Speaker 1: is American's favorite sport to watch, and it has been
Speaker 1: by a wide margin for more than half a century now.
Speaker 1: On Thanksgiving in twenty twenty three, more than thirty four
Speaker 1: million people on average tuned into the NFL's three games.
Speaker 1: That was a record breaking audience. Tomorrow's slate of games
Speaker 1: is poised to break this record anew In recent years,
Speaker 1: the National Football League has gone all in on gambling
Speaker 1: on broadcasts, in stadiums and online. Jason Kelly, who hosts
Speaker 1: the Bloomberg podcast The Deal with Alex Rodriguez, says the
Speaker 1: NFL's embrace of betting and fantasy football is having a
Speaker 1: huge impact on the game.
Speaker 2: What is so interesting is it's changed the economics for
Speaker 2: literally everyone involved.
Speaker 1: It's a boon for the league and for sports betting sites.
Speaker 1: Many fans are following the game in a new way.
Speaker 1: Pregame shows have shifted their focus. They're about odds as
Speaker 1: much as wins and losses, and Jason says sports betting
Speaker 1: has changed the game itself in many ways and what
Speaker 1: life is like for players. They're the product.
Speaker 2: They're the product that's being bet on, you know, week
Speaker 2: after week, day, day by day, and in minutia that
Speaker 2: they probably never could have imagined.
Speaker 1: Was happening, and that, Jason says, is both a blessing
Speaker 1: and a curse.
Speaker 2: On the one hand, there's this massive opportunity for more
Speaker 2: revenue and more attention. On the other side, there's a
Speaker 2: dark side that we know about to sports betting, which
Speaker 2: can be very personal and potentially dangerous.
Speaker 1: Jason says he wanted to hear from pro football players
Speaker 1: themselves elves about this moment of transition to get a
Speaker 1: sense of how they feel being at the center of
Speaker 1: this new industry. So he sat down with several athletes
Speaker 1: who are trying to figure out where there's opportunity, what
Speaker 1: they can do, and what they can't. River Craycraft is
Speaker 1: a veteran wide receiver for the Miami Dolphins.
Speaker 3: It has struck fear into me when it comes to
Speaker 3: sports betting. I don't fully know the ins and outs
Speaker 3: of what I am and what I am not allowed
Speaker 3: to do.
Speaker 1: I'm David Gera, and this is the big take from
Speaker 1: Bloomberg News today. On the show, how the normalization of
Speaker 1: betting culture is impacting pro football and the athletes who
Speaker 1: play it. Bloomberg's Jason Kelly knew he wanted to hear
Speaker 1: from a range of NFL players about the impact sports
Speaker 1: betting is having on professional football, so he reached out
Speaker 1: to some who are newly pro, others who are mid career,
Speaker 1: who have played for two or three teams, and who's
Speaker 1: recently retired. But Jason says lining them up wasn't easy.
Speaker 2: Well, what's interesting, David, is not everybody wanted to talk
Speaker 2: about this. In fact, there are a bunch of players
Speaker 2: and reps that I called or like, yeah, my guy's
Speaker 2: not going to go anywhere near talking about sports betting.
Speaker 1: What makes this a sensitive subject is how much is
Speaker 1: at stake. One misstep and an NFL player could be suspended.
Speaker 2: The basics are, if you're an NFL player, if you're
Speaker 2: an active NFL player or associated with an NFL team,
Speaker 2: you cannot bet on football. You certainly can't bet on
Speaker 2: your own team, full stop. And so they're hyper aware
Speaker 2: of what they can and can't say and what they
Speaker 2: can say is actually very limited.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 2: One of the people we interviewed, River Craycraft, who's a
Speaker 2: wide receiver for the Dolphins, was talking about sort of
Speaker 2: the written rules and the unwritten rules. You know, the
Speaker 2: written rules are very clear.
Speaker 3: Some of the things around gambling are you don't want
Speaker 3: to do it in the facility, you don't want to
Speaker 3: do it at any team functions or anywhere. Basically that
Speaker 3: includes the NFL. For example, being at your house by
Speaker 3: would be a place that you could do it. So
Speaker 3: those are some of the written rules versus the unwritten rules,
Speaker 3: which is kind of like speaking out on so and
Speaker 3: so I was going to do this this week to
Speaker 3: the media. Perhaps.
Speaker 1: Jason says the growth of sports betting is making life
Speaker 1: tricky for pro players like Greatkraft. It's posing all kinds
Speaker 1: of new challenges.
Speaker 2: He's getting text messages and calls and he sort of
Speaker 2: has to say to people, It's like, come on, man.
Speaker 3: I have friends all the time who we'll reach out
Speaker 3: who are placing bets and stuff and asking me questions
Speaker 3: about you know, who's scoring this week and who's scoring
Speaker 3: that week, And like I said, I'm so scared. I
Speaker 3: can't respond to these guys. And some of these guys
Speaker 3: are my best friends, and I just got to tell them, like, hey,
Speaker 3: you know the deal.
Speaker 1: Jason also spoke with Julius Thomas, recently retired All Pro
Speaker 1: tight end who played for the Denver Broncos, the Jacksonville Jaguars,
Speaker 1: and the Miami Dolphins.
Speaker 5: I think about all the friends and all the people
Speaker 5: in my life that would send me a text like,
Speaker 5: you know, blunt, hey are you playing? I need to know?
Speaker 5: And you had to think about what can I say?
Speaker 5: How can I be coy about this? How do I
Speaker 5: create these boundaries.
Speaker 1: It's a mix of the ambiguity of how a player
Speaker 1: is supposed to operate in this new environment where betting
Speaker 1: is so clearly such a big deal, and the potential
Speaker 1: penalties that can be stressful for NFL players.
Speaker 2: The punishment is severe enough for these guys, and many
Speaker 2: of them said it that it is just not worth
Speaker 2: going near it at all because of the loss of
Speaker 2: wages and the loss of opportunity.
Speaker 1: Jason says to keep in mind that careers in the
Speaker 1: NFL are generally pretty short. The average career is just
Speaker 1: about three and a half years long in twenty twenty two,
Speaker 1: Calvin Ridley, a star wide receiver, was suspended for a
Speaker 1: year for betting on NFL games. He's now back playing
Speaker 1: for the Tennessee Titans. Dolphins player to Ron Armstead says
Speaker 1: punishments like that loom large as players navigate their limits.
Speaker 4: You see a great player going for a year, not
Speaker 4: anything injury related, not anything health related. It's a shock
Speaker 4: and it's scary.
Speaker 1: Sports betting's large scale normalization has led to a cultural
Speaker 1: sea change in professional sports, especially football, and aside from
Speaker 1: the risks it poses for players, Armstead says, it's also
Speaker 1: shifting the way fans engaged with the game with downsides
Speaker 1: and benefits.
Speaker 4: People are getting more and more invested and kind of
Speaker 4: getting away from teams and favorite players. They're going where
Speaker 4: you know their advantages are, and I get it. But
Speaker 4: I like the fact that it gives you something to
Speaker 4: watch and you're hoping for and you're staying an entire
Speaker 4: game and hopes for you coming out positive on your bet.
Speaker 4: So I love that aspect of it for sure. I
Speaker 4: love the attraction that it brings.
Speaker 1: Coming up the challenges NFL players face in the new
Speaker 1: world of pro football. Julius Thomas was a tight end
Speaker 1: who played for the Denver Bronco and the Jacksonville Jaguars.
Speaker 1: He moved to the Miami Dolphins before he retired in
Speaker 1: twenty eighteen. Now, Thomas is getting his doctorate at Nova
Speaker 1: Southeastern University. As the world of sports betting grows, Thomas
Speaker 1: says he thinks most people don't understand how the industry
Speaker 1: has shifted fans relationships to players.
Speaker 5: When fantasy football started to take off and so many
Speaker 5: people started to be individually invested in your job performance
Speaker 5: on a week and week out basis, it was really
Speaker 5: challenging for me. And you have people coming up to
Speaker 5: you at restaurants at grocery stores and saying, oh, why
Speaker 5: didn't you guys throw the ball enough? Or why didn't
Speaker 5: you catch more passes? Why don't you have more touchdowns?
Speaker 5: To the point where I started to even isolate myself.
Speaker 5: I would only go to the grocery store at night.
Speaker 5: I didn't want to go spend time in the local
Speaker 5: downtowns because I knew I was going to be bombarded
Speaker 5: and I was going to be having to deal with
Speaker 5: that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: Today, you can bet on almost every aspect of the game.
Speaker 1: Sports betting sites like draft can encourage parlays, a cumulative
Speaker 1: series of bets in which gamblers can potentially win big
Speaker 1: even while betting small. This leads to fans, particularly ones
Speaker 1: on social media, taking issue with moments that are small
Speaker 1: bordering on insignificant, that have little to no impact on
Speaker 1: the final score. Jason says. The players he talked to
Speaker 1: resent any implication they're not giving it there all during
Speaker 1: a game.
Speaker 2: So this notion that someone could say they were not
Speaker 2: working as hard as they could it really sort of
Speaker 2: cuts to the heart of I think their pride and
Speaker 2: sense of self.
Speaker 1: Jason says. Players noted how social media is littered with rude, crass,
Speaker 1: and downright mean spirited messages directed at them, and how
Speaker 1: much they're costing gamblers.
Speaker 2: I don't know if anyone has really figured out, including
Speaker 2: the NFL or these individual teams, how to truly protect players.
Speaker 1: The pros Jason talk to recognize that now that betting
Speaker 1: is legal, it's not going anywhere.
Speaker 2: They seem to be pretty convinced that this is here
Speaker 2: to stay.
Speaker 1: The collective bargaining agreement between the NFL and the NFL
Speaker 1: Players Association doesn't expire until twenty thirty, but Jason expects
Speaker 1: betting will be front and center when that contract gets
Speaker 1: negotiated in a few years.
Speaker 2: Listen, today's players are much more aware than they were
Speaker 2: twenty thirty, certainly forty fifty years ago, of the massive
Speaker 2: economics underneath this game, especially this game the NFL. I mean,
Speaker 2: this is the big daddy of them all in terms
Speaker 2: of professional leagues. They read the same headlines, they know
Speaker 2: the billions and billions that are going in, and they're
Speaker 2: going to continue to argue to get their fair share
Speaker 2: of it.
Speaker 1: Something that could change is what kind of relationship pro
Speaker 1: football players are allowed to have with the betting industry.
Speaker 1: Right now, it's limited.
Speaker 2: They in the NFL, unlike in other leagues, are prohibited
Speaker 2: from having business relationships with the bet companies, which is
Speaker 2: not the case in some of the other leagues. So,
Speaker 2: for instance, Lebron James is an ambassador for DraftKings. That's
Speaker 2: totally allowed in the NBA, not allowed in the NFL.
Speaker 1: The league, proponents of sports betting, and the players recognize
Speaker 1: that there is an upside to all this money changing hands.
Speaker 2: One of the things that is very clear about what
Speaker 2: betting has done, Betting and fantasy have done, is it
Speaker 2: has raised the level of interest in games that you
Speaker 2: or I, as a fan of a certain team, might
Speaker 2: not have been interested in before.
Speaker 1: But the notion of fandom is changing as a result,
Speaker 1: some fans who are betting on football are more interested
Speaker 1: in individual performance than in the game itself.
Speaker 2: And so it does create sort of a different kind
Speaker 2: of tension, and it takes away arguably some of the
Speaker 2: spirit of why we love sports so much, which is
Speaker 2: we want our team to win. It does sort of
Speaker 2: take away some of the romance to some extent of
Speaker 2: a march to the playoffs if you're really just rooting
Speaker 2: for a team, because all of a sudden you're sort
Speaker 2: of rooting for your fantasy team or your betting portfolio.
Speaker 2: I don't know, maybe I'm being like old man nostalgic here,
Speaker 2: but like I remember a day where you just wanted
Speaker 2: your team to win.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to the Big Take from Bloomberg News.
Speaker 1: I'm David Gura. This episode was produced by Alex Sigura,
Speaker 1: who also mixed in. It was edited by Stacy Vanick
Speaker 1: Smith and Aaron Edwards. It was fact checked by Adriana Tapia.
Speaker 1: Naomi shaven Is our senior producer, Elizabeth Ponso is our
Speaker 1: senior editor. Nicole Beamster bor is our executive producer. Sage
Speaker 1: Bauman is Bloomberg's head of podcasts. Please follow and review
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