About the Guest:
Bill King is a senior writer for Sports Business Journal. He’s the publication’s lead contributor to In-Depth stories, Special Report coverage and profiles and has won numerous national and regional writing awards since joining SBJ in 1998.
Episode Transcript:
Matt Jordan: Transport yourself for a moment to the winter of 1988. The 49ers and the Vikings are facing off in a divisional round of the NFL playoffs. The 49ers are favored to win. But in a stunning upset, they are defeated by Minnesota. The headline in the Minneapolis Star Tribune read, "Vikings upset heavily favored 49ers in the 1987 divisional round, 36-24."
Cory Barker: Now, fast forward to January 2025. After the Eagles defeated the Packers in a wild card playoff game, one ESPN headline read "Eagles running back Saquon Barkley's late slide in playoff win stymies bettors." The contrast in these examples speaks to the seismic shift in sports reporting in recent years, with less and less attention given to the actual athletic endeavor itself and increasing emphasis on how outcomes impact those betting on the game.
Matt Jordan: When the Supreme Court struck down the Amateur Sports Protection Act in 2018, the decision's potential impact on journalism might not have been top of mind for many sports enthusiasts. But it's something on everybody's mind now. We're going to explore this impact with Bill King, a senior writer for Sports Business Journal. He's the publication's lead contributor to in-depth stories, special report coverage and profiles, and has won numerous national and regional writing awards since joining SBJ in 1998. Bill King, welcome to News Over Noise.
Bill King: Well, thank you. Thanks for having me.
Matt Jordan: So, sports journalism has long been the strongest leg that newspapers have to stand on. I mean, it's the thing that keeps a lot of local papers alive. It's the thing that is continuing to—even the hedge funds that are gutting newspapers, they keep the sports beat. But it's changed. A couple of weeks ago, Saquon Barkley, who's a Penn State grad, in case anybody doesn't realize that broke—he broke free at the end of a game. And instead of taking it to the house, he slid to the ground. And 10 years ago, the stories would have been about him doing the right thing. And this is a disciplined guy who understands the game and didn't want to rub it in their face. A couple or five years ago, it might have been about what are the fantasy implications? But now, there was a fleet of stories from ESPN and everybody else about the millions of dollars that were going to be lost by him. So how has gambling changed sports journalism?
Bill King: Yeah, and even more recently, just the other night in the national championship game, I mean, that, quote unquote, "meaningless" field goal was not at all meaningless for a lot of people. I mean, that field goal was the difference in the spread for most people who bet that game one way or the other. And so yeah, it has a much higher profile. But I got to tell you, I mean, 30 years ago, people were betting on those games and hanging on that field goal. 50 years ago, people were betting on those games and hanging on that field goal. I mean, and even honestly, when you think about coverage, I think we think of it now as if this is all some sort of a new phenomenon. I mean, 30 years ago—10 years ago was before sports betting, right? But even 30 or 40 years ago, if you were in a newspaper, and you wrote sports, and you covered the NFL, there's a very good chance that you did a picks column on Sunday or on Sunday's games. And you often picked against the spread. In many cases, writers picked against the spread. So, we were doing that for a reason. It wasn't just—I don't think because it was interesting. It's what the readers wanted. And so, I think, again, now, it has a much—there's much more of a focus on it.
But you think about years ago, Brent Musburger, with his little nudge and wink line about that. Well, that field goal really is going to make a difference for a lot of people out there and that kind of thing. It's just out there now. It's more front and center. And certainly, without question, as much as people want to say, well, people have always bet, far more people are betting now that it's legal. We're talking about multiples. And so, it's certainly, I think, taken on a higher profile. But is it new? No, but you're absolutely right. I mean, when he went and slid, I'm not sure 10 years ago, if that would have been top of mind for me. And it was now.
Cory Barker: Does it seem like, from your vantage point, that the growing profile of this sort of coverage is mostly a response to consumer demand, the fact that there are more people literally legally gambling on sports, and therefore your ESPNs of the world are covering the game or the results in that prism more? Is it just a matter of, hey, more people are doing this. We're trying to meet people where they are. Or are there other things going on here as well?
Bill King: I think there are other things going on here as well. I think you're right on the first point. I think it absolutely is the case. But the handcuffs are off now. Honestly, it wasn't even until I would say three years ago that the handcuffs started to loosen. And it wasn't until this year that they came up and came off not entirely, but pretty close for ESPN, right? There is now a broader acknowledgment that this is a legal activity. And oh, by the way, they're in the business of it, right? They're not in the betting business. But they spend a lot of money to put their brand on a sportsbook. And so, it wouldn't be great business.
And beyond that, it would be rather—honestly, I think their first year, and a lot of people felt like it was a little hypocritical that they were trying to somehow keep their distance. I mean, what did you get in this for? You got in this because this is, quote unquote, "engagement," right? And that's when we really think about the business of this from the sportsbook’s perspective, yeah, it's obviously about getting people to bet more and hopefully having them lose more, right? Over the long haul, anyway. But when you think about what's in this f or the networks, when you think about what's in this for the teams, the leagues, it's really about building that engagement. Think about that field goal in that Ohio State game. Less so on the Barkley thing, but very much so on that Ohio State game. That was not—that might have been time to go to bed for a lot of people. I mean, that might have been it. It might have been like, yeah, they got within 8, I guess maybe, but there's less than a minute left. However, for all those people who had a wager on that game, that game was very much in play down to the last 20 seconds. So, think about what that means for ratings, right? And that's what this has been about from the beginning for the leagues. Yes, they're thrilled to take the sportsbooks money. I don't want to say for a second that they're not. They love the advertising dollars, certainly. But they love even more the idea that in this age where they were worried, especially about younger viewers, who didn't want to sit through the 2 and 1/2, 3 and 1/2, 4-hour game, now there's a little bit more reason for somebody to hang around and watch that fourth quarter. And that really is—that's the big win for them along with—again, so what do you do to bite-size that? So, you don't want that just to happen in the fourth quarter. And so, the league's very much like anything that drives people to bet what's called in-play. So, all those bets that are offered and within a quarter of a game or within the next 20 points of an NBA game or by halftime or anything like that. Or oh, by the way, just on this drive, will this drive end in a touchdown, a field goal, or a punt? All those things are out there. All those things are offered. That's the stuff that the leagues and the teams—that's what they're excited about, right? That's the kind of stuff that they think will recapture in some cases and maybe even capture. I think about my 18-year-old sons who are big sports fans. I got twin boys who are freshmen in college. They are big sports fans. They don't watch as I would traditionally view you watch a game from beginning to end very often. Something like that gives them that little bit more reason to be interested throughout the duration of a game, throughout every moment of a game. I think that's what the leagues and the networks are really looking at.
Cory Barker: I'm wondering if we can step back for one second. Can you explain to our audience what a sportsbook is and how ESPN, for instance, has developed this relationship with a sportsbook that now we're seeing not only more advertising, but maybe betting-related reporting and content integrated into their multi-media product?
Bill King: Sure. And this is actually where if—I'm going to assume this is probably audio. So, the visual aid isn't going to help a lot. But for you guys, what I would always do is I pull this out, my mobile device. This is what changed, right? It's not just that it legalized, all right? It legalized in a couple of states initially retail only, which meant you had to walk into a sportsbook to place a bet. So, to get back to your original question, so sports betting used to be you walked into a sportsbook. And you said, I would like the Eagles to beat the Giants. And so, for someone who's not at all familiar with sports betting, you would think that would be a simple thing. I'm going to give them my money. And they're going to say if the Eagles win, you win. But that wouldn't be very sporting this year, for example, because there was no way in hell the Giants were going to beat the Eagles. And everybody knows it, right? So why would anybody bet on the Eagles? And so, this is why we have point spreads. And so, you don't bet on just that the Giants are going to—the Eagles are going to beat the Giants. You bet that the Eagles are going to beat the Giants by more than 9 points, 9 and 1/2, say. And so, if they do, you win. And if the Eagles win, but they only win by 3 or 5 or 8 or God forbid 9, if you bet 9 and 1/2, then you lose. So that's the whole history of this. And it chugged along for, I don't know, a century, probably more just that way, and to the point, in fact, that we had legal casinos in Nevada, where you could do that legally. But for many people, it meant you found somebody in a bar or a barber shop who took those bets. And that was sports betting. So, you had Nevada. And then you had online betting, which began in Europe. And then a lot were offshore of the United States and the Caribbean, a lot of those operators. And so, you could bet online until the government got a little tight about that and shut some of those down. But that was also for anyone who's under probably 40. They probably remember that as sports betting. Well, what changed when it legalized really was that it legalized on your mobile device, right? That's what the difference is. If it's legal in Pennsylvania, for example, and I have to go into a casino to bet, if I'm really motivated, I might do that. I certainly might enjoy sitting and watching a whole slate of NFL games on a Sunday and maybe have lunch and dinner. And that's my day. But how many people fit in a sports bar, right? Not that many. How many people's fitness sportsbook? Not that many. So, putting it on everybody's mobile device, not just their computer, but their mobile device, changes the world. Because now, I'm sitting at home, and the game is on. And all I have to do is take out the device and tap, right?
And it's quite easy to register. I do have to give an awful lot of personal information. I have to deposit some money. But after that, this is all pretty plug and play. And there are thousands of options really pretty much at any time of day or night on things you can bet on. I mean, if you really are desperate to find a bet at 11 o'clock in the morning, somebody is playing basketball in Asia, or somebody is playing a tennis match in Bulgaria. And you can bet on it. It's all out there, right? So that's the product that we have now. And that's a very different thing than the sports betting that I grew up with and even the sports betting that you grew up with up until the last, I would call it, 10 to 15 years, if you might have had an access to an online account. So, I don't know if that got back to your original question, but it certainly is very, very different than what a lot—even—I'm in North Carolina. And so, when sports betting legalized here, in the months leading up to that, I had so many friends, guys I coached little league with and just all kinds of things like that saying, they envisioned they were going to walk in.
Who's going to have this? Am I going to be able to do this in a restaurant? Am I going to have to go to a—what am I going to do? And it was like, oh, they're going to have sportsbooks in the stadium because they gave them licenses. No, they're not. Because even though they gave them licenses, that's not what the business is. And nobody really wants to operate those because it's very hard to make money. So no, this is not that. This is going to be in your pocket 24/7—very different thing.
Cory Barker: If you're just joining us, this is News Over Noise. I’m Cory Barker.
Matt Jordan: And I’m Matt Jordan.
Cory Barker: We’re talking with Bill King, a senior writer for Sports Business Journal, about the impact of legalized betting on sports journalism. And so, ESPN'S relationship then with the sportsbook is primarily a sort of branding marketing exercise.
Bill King: Absolutely. It's an advertising. And that's another interesting thing because I still remember the Gaming Commission in Massachusetts is pretty steadfast in—at least if you watch their hearings. They really wanted this button down. And so, when ESPN came in, there were a lot of questions about, well, wait a minute, you broadcast these games. You're going to be taking bets on these games that you broadcast. You might have access to information other people don't have access to, which is a whole other issue that we probably should get into because it does deal very much with the journalism side of this. But you're going to have access to information that others don't have access to. Maybe you're going to have that information first. And they really had to jump through some hoops to explain, no, no, no, the sportsbook is Penn Entertainment is the sportsbook. That's who takes the bets. We're paying them a ton of money to put our brand—or they're paying us. I'm sorry. They wouldn't want to get that one backwards. They're paying us a ton of money to put our brand on that sportsbook. And we will be marketing that. I mean, we will be trying to drive people to that sportsbook. And over time, they even got much more aggressive about the way they use on-air personalities to drive people to that sportsbook. But they don't own that sportsbook. They're not in the same building. They're not in the same state. They're not the same business. And so that was something that—but that does not at all, I think, reduce the responsibility or the risk that everyone has to keep in mind that, yes, there are people at ESPN and at every other media outlet, by the way, that do know things before the general public does. And it's our job to get that to the general public as quickly as we possibly can. But if somebody wanted to be of a bit of a bad actor, they could probably take advantage of that. And I will tell you, for 50 years, 70 years, probably 100 years, on occasion, there has been a bad actor certainly that took advantage of that. That was at practice and saw a player got hurt and maybe, maybe, maybe back in the old days called their bookie. That's not new entirely, but it's real. And it's something that anybody—that reporters should certainly be aware of. Remember when somebody is asking you a question, they might not just be because they're a fan, and they're interested.
Matt Jordan: So, I'm a media historian, so I spend a lot of time looking at the press and thinking about these historical trends. And certainly, you're right that betting is new. But there was—in 19th century America, gambling was an issue, but there was a huge pushback against it that journalists spent a lot of time storytelling and inveighing against this thing that was corrupting the youth, et cetera, et cetera.
Then, there was this moment. Let's call it pre-Black Sox Scandal where people started to worry about this perception of impropriety or corruption. And we certainly are in an era right now where out there in the ethos, everybody thinks everything is rigged. So, I mean, is it tilted toward normalizing it in a way that worries you? Given what we know about the potential for harm that is real now as it was 200 years ago, that it's become—we have fewer journalists who are pushing back on this, fewer journalists who were worried about the purity of the sport. That overcorrection that happened after the Black Sox and that kept Pete Rose out of the Hall of Fame, et cetera, et cetera. I mean, this is now becoming an issue again.
Bill King: You know, it's interesting. The money, certainly, at the highest level, has changed things to the point that it would be hard for the Black Sox thing to happen again. But there should not be a normalization of an idea that it's just—look, to this day, people argue that what Pete Rose did was relatively harmless. Well, what's the difference? He didn't bet on his team. He didn't bet against the team, right? Well, yeah, maybe he did. But even if he didn't, if you think about it, if you bet on your team, what you've told that bookie is that you who have control of the outcome of this game or fairly certain that you're going to win this b et, otherwise, you wouldn't be placing it. And so that bookie might act accordingly when they're taking other bets or even when they're placing their own bets. That all—none of that has changed. We just saw it with the Jontay Porter thing, which is the biggest scandal really so far that we've seen in these last few years. An NBA player who got in over his head with a bookie, not DraftKings, not FanDuel, a bookie, an old school bookie, got in over his head. And to make up that debt, he made a deal that he would go into a game and say that his eye was bothering him and take himself out. And so, if you wanted to make some money, just make sure that you bet the under on anything that Jontay Porter might do that night—under on points, under on rebounds, under on blocked shots, under on steals. He's not getting any of them. So, he has guaranteed he's taking himself out of this game. He did it a couple of times, actually. It would have been to the benefit of those bettors had they not been caught because the sportsbooks see a bunch of money coming in on Jontay Porter to not do something. And they get a little suspicious too. And so, an investigation was launched. And they got caught. And people are going to go to jail. But that's the NBA. And a guy who makes $400,000 and some odd a year and got in over his head with people who then tried to bet $100,000 up—actually, I think in total ended up being a million on a couple of games. That, honestly, I think, is really still going to be very, very rare, largely in part because there's not many players in the NBA who make in, quote unquote, "only $400,000," right? So, would you risk it? Probably not. What I worry about is the point guard at Duquesne, right? That, to me—and it's whack-a-mole. There's thousands of games. I don't know, 10,000, maybe there's hundreds of thousands of athletes involved. Tennis has had a big problem globally because, again, there's just so many matches, and you can bet on every point. And so, some lower-level match where the losing—OK, I may not have a chance to win $10,000 If I lose, but I'm going to get $2,000 if I lose. But I'm going to get $2,000 for losing. So, a pretty good deal. That's really to me, when I look at where the dangers are and where the concerns are, it's there. So, when I see there's a push now in a lot of states, in many states, in fact, to not allow sportsbooks to take prop bets, player prop bets, bets like we were just talking about on college players, I think that's smart.
Matt Jordan: NCAA has asked for that, right?
Bill King: And the NCAA has asked for that. And back to your point, where this all goes sideways is—look, there's a little part of me who saw that field goal in that Ohio State game where really they probably could have knelt it out, but they probably could have done something other than risk a field goal being blocked. But I mean, an awful lot of Ohio State fans and boosters had money on Ohio State and were pretty happy that they kicked that field goal. Now, I'm not suggesting that they made the decision to kick that field goal because of that, but it sure made a lot of the people that they rely on very, very happy. So, the fact that I even think about that bothers me.
Cory Barker: From a technical reporting standpoint, how are you seeing gambling and betting more integrated into sports coverage, whether that's in print or on broadcast and podcasts? I mean, from your vantage point, are there good ways to do this versus maybe not necessarily bad, but less productive or less informative ways? Just from a reporting standpoint, what are you seeing?
Bill King: Less so in print. But I will tell you, the sportsbooks, when you think about the way—the advertising and the promotion that they do, they really like it when it's the pregame show, and somebody in that broadcast says that same game parlay presented by FanDuel tonight. We like this guy, this guy, and this guy. And they feel like, and their data shows them that resonates with bettors. That gets people to take out the phone and see that bet. And they saw FanDuel. And even if they have three accounts, FanDuel was the one that they saw. And they know those are the odds on FanDuel. I guess I could look around on DraftKings and wherever else I have it. But I mean, why would I guess probably if you're a really heavy bettor? But for most fans that are just looking for one more reason to watch the game or watch it to the end anyway, that thing works. And so if you look at what FanDuel has done with their naming rights deal with Diamond Sports, where they've put their brand across regional sports networks across the country, along with the fact that FanDuel bug is going to be on screen every second of every minute of every game in that market, they do have it. And again, there's still deals to be sorted out with teams and things like that. And they have deals maybe with other sportsbooks, but that's valuable real estate. And so that's the kind of stuff that you see. I think ESPN on its pregame show, when you think about what they've started to do again, they've gotten much more aggressive without sticking it. See? This is the thing. I remember talking to the NFL when they first sort of crossed the threshold. They were the last of the leagues to come on board and embrace this and say the juice is worth the squeeze. This is a lot of money. But they had internal data going back to really even before the fall of PASPA, the Supreme Court case that turned all this around. Their internal data basically told them that they had, if I remember the numbers correctly, it's about 1/3, 1/3, and 1/3, who would really like to see this happen and would be excited and would want to bet. And then there was 1/3 or maybe a little less—if I recall correctly. I'd have to look back at the numbers, but it was somewhere in that range—who just were sort never, no, don't do this. This will ruin my game. And then there was that vast group in between that sort of said—and maybe it was 20 and 20 and then the group in between now that I think about it. But sort of said, I don't mind, and maybe I would do it. So that's what got them to move. But still, even with them moving and even when you talk to the networks, they don't want to stick this in anyone's face. They don't—there's that 20% out there. Maybe it's more than that. Whatever it is, they really don't want to alienate them. And so how can you do this? And one of the answers has been through digital media. So, you make it much more of a targeted to the consumer opt-in experience. That's why you don't hear it a lot still to this point during a game. You're still not hearing the commentators speak openly saying, well, it was 20. The spread was 18. And now it's down to 12. You don't hear that. You hear that promotion before the game. You might hear it at halftime, but it's not in people's faces. However, the leagues and the networks are all thinking about ways that can there be that parallel channel out there. Sort of can there be that feed on my phone, where if I want that, I get it? Now, the ones who've done it so far, who did—and you saw it in Pennsylvania, if I remember correctly, some of the teams, the Philadelphia teams did it where they did that. They did a broadcast where it was really targeted toward the bettor, right? It was a separate feed. And nobody's really doing them anymore. They've dropped off because they didn't work. It's not really what people want. Even if you bet, it's not really what you want to hear the whole game. You're still into the game. So that's, I think, where that is.
Cory Barker: What types of stories or what types of coverage has gambling coverage replaced? So, if there is more coverage of prop bets or lines, are we seeing things disappear from the way the NFL is covered or the way individual NBA games are covered? What's happening through that process that you've noticed?
Bill King: I don't think it's a zero-sum kind of thing. What I do think—what I think has changed is it's the lens. And so especially the networks that I feel like—when I look at it and I think, that probably is going to—what they really would like is something that's going to resonate with bettor than the non-bettor is not going to hate. And better yet, the non-bettor may like because if you can tell me that a wide receiver—you could tell me that a defense is particularly susceptible to tight ends. You can tell me that this defense—tight ends get the—and this goes back to fantasy days, right, for anyone who played fantasy? If you dug up that information that said that the Patriots just can't stop tight ends this year, and there's a good tight end on their opponent, you might want them in the lineup. Well, the lineup is now you might want to place a prop bet on them. So that's something that probably would have been discussed before. Maybe now, it's more likely to be discussed, I guess. I think that's—I guess you could argue that it has. I'm not on set, and so I don't know that. But I would think that it—and the other thing is there are dedicated segments now. So that might have been something that came up during the pregame show before. Now, there's a 3-minute window, and something's got to go in it. And so, they're going to try to make it something that's appealing to everybody. Because the reality is, especially when you think about the—and I was—not long after this, after legalization when—well, probably a few years after legalization, but it was when the networks started to do more. One of the things somebody told me at a sportsbook was the real professional bettor really doesn't care what those four guys think, right? Unless you're coming to the table with data. The fact that, yeah, I think that I like the Bears today. So those that you see where you'll have the five guys line up at the end of the game. And they'll do five games. And they'll put logos on the bottom. And they'll all do picks. To the bettor, probably, not real valuable. You'll notice you don't see those sponsored or promoted by the sportsbooks. The stuff you see is when somebody comes in and tells them, this is what I think is going to happen. And this is the data I have behind it.
Matt Jordan: Well, Bill, thanks so much for chatting with us.
Bill King: No, I enjoyed it. Thanks so much, guys. Thanks for taking the time.
Matt Jordan: Cory, that was really interesting. And as a longtime sports fan and who's become more aware of this, it's really eye-opening. So, what are some of the things that strike you as being pressing issues for the day?
Cory Barker: I think Bill did a really great job, actually, of reinforcing that a lot of what was on our mind, as far as how this is playing out with people's betting habits and how it's being reported on, is actually maybe not as new as we thought coming into this episode, that it's just more prevalent and maybe a little bit more pronounced. So, I think it's important to always remember the historical context for some of these things. So that's one of the biggest things that came to mind for me. What about you?
Matt Jordan: Just that we think of sports, especially big market sports and NFL, et cetera, as being like the last big mass media, right? These are the last things that are pulling in the huge 10 million, 20 million, 40 million audiences. But at the same time, you have the same things that we see in the rest of the media sphere, these very targeted streams of information along with that. And that combination reminds me about a media ecology question that I'm struggling with always. It's like, what do we call mass media today? That's it for this episode of News Over Noise. Our guest was Bill King, a senior writer for Sports Business Journal. To learn more and to hear an extended version of this interview with additional content, download the podcast at wherever you subscribe to podcasts or at news over noise dot org. I'm Matt Jordan.
Cory Barker: And I'm Cory Barker.
Matt Jordan: Until next time, stay well and well informed. News Over Noise is produced by the Penn State Donald P. Bellisario, College of Communications and WPSU. This program has been funded by the Office of the Executive Vice President and Provost at Penn State and is part of the Penn State News Literacy Initiative.
[END OF TRANSCRIPT]
Episode Credits:
Producer: Lindsey Whissel Fenton
Audio Engineers: Mickey Klein, Scott Gros, Clint Yoder
News Over Noise is a co-production of WPSU and Penn State’s Bellisario College of Communications. This program has been funded by the office of the Executive Vice President and Provost at Penn State and is part of the Penn State News Literacy Initiative.
