It’s an old Wall Street truism: “Bulls make money, bears make money, pigs get slaughtered.”
Two months ago, TV was drowned in ads for FanDuel and DraftKings, obnoxious, can’t-lose, get-rich-fast sports betting come-ons starring young men.
That avalanche coincided with a gold rush of multimillion-dollar investors — pro sports leagues, their partner TV networks, teams and team owners, even the NFL players’ union — who didn’t seem to have a practical sense of what these operations were or how they worked. All they knew — or perhaps chose to know — is their profits would be based on fans betting and losing lots of money on their sports, specifically individual players.
They didn’t seem to know or care whether these online operations were legal, could be manipulated from the inside or were reliant on sucker-bettors. In fact, MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred and NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell had the colossal gall to declare that such “fantasy sports” operations are “not gambling.”
They left it at that, not explaining why, if not from taking their cut of bets placed by their sports’ fans, they would make and/or allow such large financial buy-ins.
Since then, the unregulated, blind-faith fantasy sports gambling industry has been, as Clyde might say, swaying, fraying and decaying from a steady gust of bad news and logical suspicions.
Saturday, the New York Times reported Vantiv Entertainment Solutions, a large firm that serves as DraftKings’ and FanDuel’s — and gambling casinos’ — bills collector and payments processor, wants out of the fantasy sports biz and, at the end of this month, will be.
A Vantiv statement made it clear FanDuel’s, DraftKings’ and their big-time investors’ repeated insistence they’re not gambling enterprises, thus legal, can’t any longer be indulged as the truth.
Think the folks at Vantiv might know a thing or two to have voluntarily dropped such hot-to-trot clients and their top-shelf partners?
To that pathetic, disgraceful end, New York state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, among the first to blow a whistle and ask good questions about FanDuel and DraftKings, has better served as a sports commissioner than sports’ commissioners, who now rarely serve as guardians of their games, certainly not on behalf of those with no formal representation or protections, i.e., fans, the sports’ customers and lifeblood. They’re treated as taken-for-granted, empty-all-your-pockets dupes.
More recently, Schneiderman’s office did what sports’ commissioners should have, years ago: It’s investigating the sports and entertainment ticketing industry, including highly dubious, price-swelling tack-on fees.
In the diminished-overhead computer age, maybe Schneiderman soon will tell us exactly what is a “convenience fee,” a “processing fee” and a “facility fee.” Why does a $70 face-value ticket cost $100?
After all, it’s not as if we can rely on sports’ commissioners to serve as commissioners, let alone honestly answer such questions.
No gold star for Scott’s silly antics
As for John Scott, winger/enforcer for the AHL’s St. John’s Ice Caps and the top vote-getter to Sunday’s NHL All-Star Game …
Let’s say, as a gag, the school voted one of its worst students “Scholar of the Year.” The “winner” gets it. He smiles, cracks a few jokes, then allows a deserving student to be honored.
But Scott began to take the vote seriously, as if he deserved to be the NHL’s star among stars. He apparently felt entitled because, after all, he won it fairly and squarely.
NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman claimed to be happy at Scott’s presence, pleased by his stature. I don’t believe Bettman, do you? I think he was just populist pandering. Either that, or he supports bestowing a bogus honor.
Meanwhile, Scott says he was appalled that an NHL rep asked him if his kids would be “proud” to someday know what went down and how he allowed it. The nerve of the NHL!
But it was a question worth asking. Too bad Scott missed the right answer.
He scored twice and won the MVP. Irrelevant; he didn’t belong on the ice.
Since the dawn of ESPN, it has analyzed, overanalyzed, compared and otherwise beaten to death the Super Bowls’ starting quarterbacks. It’s the ESPN way!
But Charles Barkley, fast to thunder on social rights versus wrongs despite his criminal past, last week accused ESPN of blatant racism in comparing Peyton Manning with Cam Newton, telling NBCSN’s Dan Patrick that ESPN has made it a “good versus evil, black versus white” Super Bowl.
Barkley’s Molotov cocktail toss is doubly absurd as those who have closely followed and/or experienced the longtime hiring, firing, censuring and suspension practices at ESPN know that there’s a double standard at work that clearly favors minority employees.
As for those who find Newton’s rehearsed and excessive on-field immodesty — his “I’m Superman” performances — as distasteful as they are unnecessary — why distract from his talent? — Newton says they’re preoccupied with his race.
Yep, if you had or have problems with the all-about-me conduct of a Mark Gastineau, Jeremy Shockey and Johnny Manziel, that’s cool. But be warned: If you apply the same standard to a black player, you risk being branded a racist.
Stunner: ESPN misses the point
ESPN remains a bad joke. No business spends more money, time and energy examining sports, yet understands so little about them.
Saturday on ESPN, No. 9 West Virginia lost to Florida. No surprise. First, the game was at Florida. Next, West Virginia had just suspended starter Jonathan Holton, a 10-points-, eight-rebounds-per man. Finally, Florida was favored by two.
But ESPN declared the result “A stunner!” Graphics read, “Gators Upset No. 9 West Virginia.”
Incidentally, not that ESPN saw fit to mention it, but Holton was recruited to WVU after being tossed from Rhode Island for possession of students’ stolen goods and a conviction for recording and distributing on Facebook a sexual encounter he had with a female student. URI had recruited Holton claiming it was unaware he had an armed-robbery warrant in Florida.
Mark Wise, analyst on ESPN’s Houston-East Carolina game on Saturday, said the issue he was raising had just become “a mute point.” Too late to hit the moot button.
Yes, that was the Phoenix Suns — the Suns, for crying out loud — in all-black jerseys versus the Knicks. Total eclipse of the Suns.
Australian Open champ Novak Djokovic makes a good point: If tennis wants to rid the realities and suspicions of fixed matches, start by losing the on-site, TV-capturing commercial sponsorships of gambling operations. After all, the less gambling money at stake …
Poor Andre Drummond. The Pistons’ center is the NBA’s worst — .347 — free-thrower. It’s not as if he doesn’t get in the practice. Over the weekend, he was 3-for-17.
