1 week Ago
The NFL hated gambling until it loved it. And the NFL is still trying to reconcile its prior position on gambling with its current effort to grab every last dollar. The issue came up on Friday, when Commissioner Roger Goodell appeared with Pat McAfee and crew.
At one point, Darius Butler asked Goodell “ ” it’s gotten for 345 Park Avenue with sports betting being legalized and people complaining about officiating and games being scripted. (An excellent question.) “I haven’t felt that at all,” Goodell said.
If Goodell hasn’t felt it, he has kept his fingers buried deep in his pockets. The tinfoil-hat crowd has been energized by sports betting, with any and all irregularities being met with cries that “the fix is in.” We hear it ALL THE TIME.
And that’s exactly what the league feared. Here’s what Goodell said in 2012, when the NFL was fighting the fight against the legalization of sports betting: “If gambling is permitted freely on sporting events, normal incidents of the game such as bad snaps, dropped passes, turnovers, penalties, and play calling inevitably will fuel speculation, distrust, and accusations of point-shaving or game-fixing.” Goodell was with the league’s current sportsbook cash grab during his invitation-only/bring-me-the-broomstick-of-the-witch-of-the-west Super Bowl press conference.
He has since come up with a new talking point to justify the NFL’s embrace of legalized wagering, after hating it for so long. “We didn’t support.
