A brave new world: US college sports' burgeoning relationship with betting

When I was a student at Oxford University in the 1970s, the only big-time sporting event was the annual Oxford and Cambridge boat race. There was sports betting on this race, but for the most part, sports betting did not permeate the ivory towers of Oxford, Cambridge or any other university.

Contrast that to the US today where betting on college sports is legal in more than 30 states and growing rapidly. For example, an estimated $3bn (£2.3bn) was bet on this year’s NCAA March Madness tournament. The patchwork of state laws has also led to varied regulations on college sports betting, where some states are more restrictive than others.

As such, the US is the only country in the world with substantial legalised sports betting on college campuses. With such activity, comes increased potential liabilities for colleges and universities.

Other recent changes in college sports, such as the NCAA relaxing its long-time restrictions on name, image, and likeness (NIL) rules, underscore some of the new ways that sports betting may exist on college campuses.

On that front, Northwest Quest Resort & Casino recently signed Gonzaga men’s basketball forward Drew Timme to an NIL agreement that includes gambling ads. MaximBet also recently offered NIL contracts to every female college athlete in the state of Colorado over the age of 21.

Athletics departments, such as LSU and Maryland, both recently agreed to partnerships with sportsbooks. The MAC conference recently announced an agreement with Genius Sports to pool its schools’ data rights and distribute them to media companies, including sportsbooks. It is only inevitable that more and more institutions and conferences will follow-suit with similar agreements.

Accordingly, athletics departments and college athletes are now faced with many new liabilities associated with legalised sports betting.

In July 2020, Heather Lyke, director of athletics at the University of Pittsburgh, testified before the US Senate Judiciary Committee on the practical implications of legalised sports betting. Lyke described the temptations that college athletes face due to intense community pressures, which are exacerbated if wagering takes place.

Lyke also argued that college athletes may be susceptible to corruption and other abuses by gambling interests, particularly with the advent of prop betting or a bet on an individual occurrence within a game. She also argued that social media’s impact on college athlete mental health and well-being, such as messages to and about athletes, could create further pressures.

Since Lyke’s testimony, there is even more potential exposure for college athletes with boosters and other third parties having more freedom to operate with NIL collectives. Other big issues also need to be worked out such as the reporting of information about college athlete’s unavailability to participate in games due to injury, disciplinary action or academic reasons.

To prevent the underhanded flow of information from staff, friends and fans, who may have knowledge of their playing status in an open campus environment, it would seem to make sense to have some form of standardised reporting, but the issue is complicated with applicable student privacy laws.

So, the brave new world of sports betting is upon us. One thing we know is that a sports betting scandal at a university would be catastrophic. We have heard the clarion call. It is incumbent upon the college sports enterprise to educate college athletes and other relevant stakeholders about sports wagering and its possible unintended effects. Our colleges and universities will need the resources to protect themselves.

Tom McMillen is a former Olympian, Rhodes Scholar, professional basketball player, congressman, author and businessman. McMillen currently serves as CEO and president of LEAD1, founded in 1986 and formerly the Division 1A Athletic Directors Association, represents the athletics directors of the 130 member universities of the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS), that encompasses 42 states, 55,000 student athletes and more than 25,000 athletic administrators