Was lurking a bit at the old place, and there was a thread asking who had never bet on CFB*, but the discussion went more into how legalized sports betting has affected fans’ engagement with college football. I am in a weird place, as I can’t come up with a lot of good reasons to specifically ban it when so many other forms of gambling are legal. It can also of course be done to a healthy degree, and even if someone is enthusiastic and engages with the sport in a gambling-centered way, who am I to say that’s “wrong”?
That said, I do fucking hate it at a personal level when people care more about the lines and the spreads or how their fantasy roster is doing in contrast to the rivalries and the stories and the analysis as a competition. I feel like these people, and particularly the media catering to them, are nudging team sports closer to the liminal space currently occupied by boxing and horse racing, where there is a hardcore base dedicated to the sports themselves, but the broad appeal is for gamblers and the occasional looky-loo spectacle. I can’t argue for any particular measure to stop it, but I sure don’t have to like it.
So, for those of us still hanging around in the very stupid offseason we now have with no real transfer restrictions and plenty of NIL to push players to leverage that fact, how has the explosion of sports betting affected your relationship with CFB?
(* - One $10 bet, well before 2022, on TCU to win the natty while in Vegas for other reasons, and one very boring season of buy-in fantasy football, though now that I type it, I guess that was betting on the NFL)
None. But I don’t gamble. I downloaded fan duel because my buddy wanted the promo bets for the referral. I used those bets in an afternoon which was fun. After that I deleted the app.
I stopped watching sportscenter and other sports news shows close to 15 years ago. A small part of that was because they were starting to show odds and talk about betting which didn’t interest me.
I enjoy the game for the game. I primarily watch CFB, NFL, and MLS with some MLB here and there. I’ll get my dopamine hit elsewhere.
Maybe I’m overly sensitive to it, but I get an increasing sense that I’m being told I’m “doing it wrong” by not wanting to bet. It doesn’t make me want to bet though, just ponder the time investment I’m already making.
When cigarette advertising was legal they wanted you to feel cool if you smoked. When alcohol advertising was legal they wanted you to feel like you wanted a beer to enjoy a party. There’s nothing different with sports betting. They want you to feel like it’s part of the game, and you’re missing out if you’re not dropping a few bucks on every game. A lot of people are susceptible to this. Most people were fine without betting on sports prior to its legalization. Only difference now it’s the influence of the ads.
Sports betting shouldn’t be banned, but it definitely needs a lot more regulation than it has, especially when it comes to advertising. Think along the lines of tobacco industry regulations.
The current state of sports betting involves incredibly predatory marketing practices that are intentionally cultivating addictions, and literally profiting off of others’ misery. Vice bans never work, but when gambling interests have overrun sports so heavily that it’s becoming more important than the sport itself, something’s gotta give.
Yes, I think I could definitely go for drastically increased marketing restrictions and subsidized prevention and recovery programs. Kind of something where we’re not going to support “hobbies” that tend to be destructive at much higher rates than others, but we’re also going to be realistic and not tilt at windmills trying to micromanage people’s behavior.
Selfishly, this would also revert some of the media coverage back to the level of stupid that I’m more accustomed to.
I don’t gamble, I’m not good enough… yet… But seriously, I don’t think it’s changed my view on the sport as a whole. I don’t mind gambling and on reddit I would periodically engage on the faux gambling poll. I don’t think it’s bad, but I’m not sure that I’d want to invest the time to do any better than predict the over/under on a few big vols games each year. But what I do hate about gambling is how unbearably present it is in sports media now. Like I get it, some of us are allowed to gamble. But holy shit I don’t need the chyron giving me the odds on the game of the week 24/7. This is part of my greater sports media as a whole but especially college media has received some serious downgrades over the years thing, but I really do think the lines seem to be more prevalent than the scores sometimes.
I almost kind of feel like CFB was insulated from it for longer “becuz amateur!” but once the increasing number of legalized states made the dam break, it’s become very annoying.
My engagement with CFB has gone down since the advent of widespread legal sports gambling, but not because of it.
My interest has declined because I’m burned out on the sport. When I was still on spezdit, cfb was one of the communities I spent the most time in. I’m just honestly tired of reading teenagers and middle aged people talk about entire conferences as if they are all collectively the second coming of Christ. I don’t miss having satellite and flipping past the four letter network and hearing them talk about the latest trendy flashy cfb team like they’re middle school boys discussing the virtues of Taylor Swift and onanism.
I used to enjoy few things as much as I enjoyed a Saturday spent on the couch watching as many cfb games as possible. Now, that honestly sounds boring. I’d rather do laundry, read fanfiction, listen to a baseball game, walk in a park, or many other things.
I’d rather do laundry
Are you… okay? 🤣
More seriously, I can see that. The causes are more internal to the sport than yours, but I feel like my interest is more brittle than in years past and it won’t take much more to bump it lower. Not sure what that will look like in the fall though, especially if either of my teams starts well.
Am I okay?
In all honesty I may be clinically depressed. It’s something I’ve dealt with for much of my life.
Oversharing aside, I also don’t spend a heck of a lot of time at home, so I get antzy when I feel like my chances of keeping up with laundry needs are slipping.
Also, on the lack of cfb interest in particular, I went to a D3 school that didn’t have a football team while I was there. So it’s not a core part of my memory/identity like it might have been if I had instead gone to UT, Bama, Ohio State, or USC.
Fair enough, and best wishes to you. Take care of yourself.
Back to football, some of the biggest Georgia fans I know went to D3 schools for undergrad. No zealot like the convert, I suppose. I was myself a stranger in a strange land, bubbling up from the swamps of Florida to sojourn for a time among the child-barkers. Then I married a Horned Frog. This has been a particularly annoying era, LOL.
I don’t think my engagement has changed per se, but probably for a couple reasons.
- I’ve never bet on a game, and have no interest in doing so. I like making predictions, although I imagine betting on my hobby would be like when I play poker: I tend to beat my poker friends but find it more stressful than when there’s no money on the line.
- I didn’t follow cfb until I actually went to college so I think I missed the period cfb fans have the most nostalgia for. I have a hunch that if I had grown up with the SWC, I would be longing for that era. So the fan experience is probably degrading (probably moreso from other changes besides gaming), but its still good enough to keep me engaged.
What I have always hated is the spread. Why does it matter if a team reaches some fabricated number? You either win the game or you don’t. The ugly side is when degenerate gamblers harrass players that allowed the other team to “backdoor cover.”
Also, the XFL was egregious in its commentary last year, and I suspect eventually cfb broadcasts will openly talk about lines incessantly. When it gets to that point, I’ll mute the TV and find the local radio call instead.
When it gets to that point, I’ll mute the TV and find the local radio call instead.
You should do this anyway, honestly increases the quality of the broadcasts at least an order of magnitude. Bob Kesling isn’t even that great compared to the legend John Ward, but he’s miles better than the ESPN/CBS “A” teams that will only talk about the playoff and bama/tOSU and lightyears ahead of the B squads over on SECN.
The homer takes on the radio broadcast can be a bit much sometimes, but so many classic calls only work coming from the local legends and their passion.
I used to do that when I lived in Austin if the broadcast crew wasn’t great. They didn’t always sync up though.
My pipe dream is someday we’ll have something like F1TV: a good FBS-wide dedicated streaming platform where you can choose what camera to watch (A22 please!) and different commentary options. Would be cool to switch between both local calls for a neutral game. Although I imagine getting the licenses for all of those things would cost extraordinary amounts of money, and probably is not possible in the current media landscape. But with the way things are heading, that might be one good thing that could come out of superconferences. And I would pay top dollar for it. I wonder if the NFL is already doing something like that.
As Sports Betting has risen my interest in all televised Sport, not just CFB, has fallen. Bad Call / No Call that transitions to an advert for “Super Mega Ultra Gambling Palace!”…hmmm I wonder what just happened.
As an example how much money changed hands from this mess? That was far from the only one too, here’s a whole pile more of bewildering and game changing penalties in the NFL from the 2023 season.
I don’t think it’s any coincidence that this problem has gotten noticeably worse with the rise of Sports Betting and NCAA sport is definitely not immune.
Whether its real or not my perception is that these games are being fixed so that money can be made on the outcome and because of that I increasingly don’t want watch.
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