It wasn’t that long ago that sportsbooks were making everyone in the sports media rich. Every talent on local stations where gambling was legal had talent doing live reads for one company or another. Some even had so many books looking to advertise that they were securing endorsement deals for producers or in a few cases, launching brand new shows.
On television, every network was hiring a gambling expert. They were including odds information on the ticker at the bottom of their screens and creating segments in pregame shows brought to you by FanDuel and DraftKings. The books had money to burn and the media was happy to build the fire for them.
But I noticed something with the start of the 2025 NCAA Tournament that seemed to indicate we are in a new era of sports gambling money.
Remember, it’s not just the media. Leagues, teams, and schools used to take the very public position that if people were allowed to bet on their games, their entire enterprise would be in jeopardy, but the second they could, a lot of them signed sponsorship deals with sportsbooks and were quick to justify the change in position by saying that in the digital age, games would be harder to fix and problem gambling would be easier to snuff out. Ask the NBA how accurate those statements were.
“Don’t Be a Loser“
The NCAA’s new “Don’t be a Loser” is a very public declaration by the organization that gambling has changed the public’s relationship with sports and that maybe letting the industry run roughshod over the way we watch games has not been a good thing.
Athletes have a history of calling out fan harassment. They will publicly declare that they do not care about how our fantasy teams perform. They will remind us that their kids see when fans burn their jerseys in effigy. They may be very skilled and in some cases, very rich, but they are human beings too.
The Don’t be a Loser campaign puts the spotlight on a very different type of harassment – people sliding into athletes’ DMs and making threats because they lost on a parlay.
It’s a fine line to walk. The NCAA knows that gambling is a key component to the success of its postseason basketball tournaments. The ads even say that betting on games is okay. It’s even fun! But stories of bettors bullying and even threatening to harm players have become too prevalent to ignore.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I think the NCAA is doing the right thing with this ad campaign. Shame can be very effective, and nothing is more shameful than being called a “loser”.
But I can’t help but wonder if the message is only being given this much exposure because sports gambling money ain’t what it used to be.
Spending Less and Losing Control
Sportsbooks used to throw money around like they were on a float in a Mardi Gras parade. Local radio stations and TV networks were happy to show a little metaphorical skin to have the beads (dollars – we’re still on the Mardi Gras metaphor) come there way. But every Fat Tuesday is followed by an Ash Wednesday.
All of that advertising was about getting new players to download the app and start playing, but once these new players burned through their promotional money, a lot of them never logged on again. The focus shifted from adding players to retaining them. That means the gambling industry was spending less on advertising.
It’s not just anecdotal evidence. A study released last year by the American Gaming Association confirms it. 2023 was the first year without the regular sports schedule being affected by the Covid-19 pandemic that advertising revenue from the sports gambling industry dropped from the previous year. In fact, since 2021, ad revenue from sportsbooks has dropped by 21%.
Just look at DraftKings! Not every sportsbook was benefiting from all that advertising. DraftKings was and still the company spun off VSiN, jettisoned Marie Donoghue and ended a lot of its original programming. Meadowlark Media now stands alone as the company’s major media investment and maybe it’s fair to wonder how long that lasts.
FOX couldn’t make FOX Bet work. ESPN seemingly can’t make ESPN Bet work. NBC sold its equity stake in PointsBet.
Media companies are learning the hard way that sportsbook money isn’t the guarantee it once seemed. That probably made it easier for ESPN and the fraternity of CBS and Warner Bros. Discovery to silence any objection when the NCAA told them that the 2025 basketball tournaments would include messages that encourage people to think twice about gambling.
Reassessing the Sports/Gambling Relationship
John Oliver did a great segment earlier this month on Last Week Tonight on how online sports gambling became such a big business in the United States and the problems that have come along with it. While gambling itself is not inherently bad, Oliver pointed out that it’s getting harder and harder to deny that a lot of bad can come with it, including losers thinking there is nothing wrong with harassing the players involved.
I gamble. I think it’s fun. I usually limit my betting to college football season, but I do have both a “head parlay” (Florida to win the men’s national championship and South Carolina to win the women’s) and a “heart parlay” (Alabama to win both) on March Madness.
At one point, on this very site, I advocated for moving all of the studio coverage of the NCAA Tournament to Las Vegas. I thought it reflected the way most of America followed the tournament, and look, maybe it still is, but I also think I was wrong.
Ads for gambling may be unavoidable but they don’t translate into people everywhere playing. If most people can’t be convinced to play, there is less reason for those sportsbooks to spend money advertising to potential new players. That reduces their influence on the networks and leagues and that is how you get to a place where no one bats an eye when the NCAA brings a commercial to the networks that tells gamblers in no unspecific terms “you have to stop”.
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Demetri Ravanos is a columnist and features writer for Barrett Media. He is also the creator of The Sports Podcast Festival, and a previous host on the Chewing Clock and Media Noise podcasts. He occasionally fills in on stations across the Carolinas in addition to hosting Panthers and College Football podcasts. His radio resume includes stops at WAVH and WZEW in Mobile, AL, WBPT in Birmingham, AL and WBBB, WPTK and WDNC in Raleigh, NC.
You can find him on Twitter @DemetriRavanos or reach him by email at DemetriTheGreek@gmail.com.
