by David Purdum, BETTING TALK
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell told CNBC last week that fantasy football wasn’t about wagering and was instead about family togetherness. He told a touching story about a father re-connecting with his distant daughter through fantasy football.
Everyone chuckled, before returning to reality in time to reload their daily fantasy accounts to bet on the Super Bowl. Goodell, meanwhile, went back to looking into expanding to London, where legal betting on the NFL skyrockets at UK sports books when games are played at Wembley Stadium.
The NFL and other American professional sports leagues’ public stance on sports betting has become a tired shtick, filled with hypocrisy and insincerity. In deposition testimony in the New Jersey sports betting case, NFL Labor Relations Counsel Lawrence Feranzi Jr. said he wasn’t aware some fans played fantasy football for money. Retiring MLB Commissioner Bud Selig testified that he “doesn’t know if fans are betting on baseball.” Roughly $700 million was bet on baseball at Nevada sports books in 2013, according to Gaming Control revenue numbers.
Retiring NBA commissioner David Stern has acknowledged publicly multiple times that sports betting may be a part of the league’s future. In November, he told WFAN New York that he believes sports betting will be legal in all 50 states “in the near future.” In 2009, when asked by Sports Illustrated if it is in the best interest of the NBA to seek legalization of sports betting, Stern said, “It has been a matter of league policy to answer that question, ‘No.’ But I think that league policy was formulated at a time when gambling was far less wide spread – even legally.”
But Stern also has scolded New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie for following voters’ wishes and pursuing sports betting to help his state’s struggling horse racing and casino industries.
“The one thing I’m certain of is New Jersey has no idea what it’s doing,” said Stern during deposition testimony in 2012.
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