NBC’s Mike Florio has grown frustrated with the NFL and its response to questions about gambling and the integrity of the game.
On Pro Football Talk on Wednesday, Florio told co-host Chris Simms that he asked NFL executive vice president of communications, public affairs and policy Jeff Miller if the league office had been hearing all the talk in the media and by fans about games being rigged. But his question was shot down.
Florio prefaced the question using a quote from Commissioner Roger Goodell in 2012, where he said, “If gambling is permitted freely on sporting events, normal incidents of the game, such as bad snaps, dropped passes, turnovers, penalties and play calling, inevitably will fuel speculation, distrust and accusations of point shaving or game fixing.”
“My question for Jeff was, have you seen that kind of speculation and distrust, and what are you doing about it?” Florio said.
“The answer I got, and I don’t want to say word salad in a pejorative way, but it was a word salad of all the things we’re doing, and thank you for asking a difficult question, and yada, yada, yada,” he added. “But he never addressed the threshold question – are you witnessing it? Because Chris, we sure are.”
Florio felt like the legalization of sports betting at the state level has driven calls from fans that games are rigged. The league didn’t seem interested in having a conversation about it.
“It’s more than ever before because the legalized gambling gives people another layer to believe that people are fixing things,” he said. “And he never addressed it, and I’ve sent two emails since then. Because I tried to ask a follow-up and they shut me down before I could.”
“Regardless of what you’re doing to address it, is your fear coming to fruition?” Florio later asked.
Mike Florio was frustrated that the league won’t even entertain a simple question.
“Are they at least willing to address that what the commissioner said 12 years ago is happening?” he said. “You have to acknowledge that, because what you’re doing may not be working. That’s really the bottom line. Whatever they’re doing, it’s not working because the speculation and distrust is rampant right now, and we’re headed to Las Vegas, baby.”
