The NFL’s stance on its players dabbling in legal sports betting is straightforward, according to the league’s commissioner: wager on our games and reap the whirlwind.
“It's pretty simple,” Roger Goodell told NBC Sports before Thursday Night Football, the first game of the National Football League’s regular season. “If you bet on the NFL and you're a part of the NFL, you've got a problem.”
Roger Goodell has the 2023 #NFL script...????
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The commissioner’s comments followed a rocky offseason for the league, as 10 players were suspended for violating its gambling policy. Some punishments were handed down for wagering on NFL games, while others were merely for using sports betting sites at a team facility.
At any rate, the gambling crackdown came amid the NFL’s ongoing embrace of sports betting. Perhaps nothing sums up that evolved attitude better than a team setting up shop in Las Vegas, which will also host next year’s Super Bowl.
Moreover, the NFL and its teams have struck several partnerships with sportsbook operators, putting owners and executives in business with entities they want players to avoid while on the job. This has created some awkward optics for the league, as it warns players not to bet on games while hoping the public will do so to increase their interest.
A matter of integrity
Goodell was asked by NBC Sports’ Mike Tirico before the Thursday nighter if the commissioner is comfortable with how the league is reconciling its sports betting-related interests with ensuring the integrity of the game.
The response was essentially that the integrity concerns prompted the league to oppose the spread of legal sports betting in the first place, but once the U.S. Supreme Court paved the way for its expansion, the NFL had to get in the game.
The commissioner then issued his warning to players about wagering on NFL games, saying the league would not allow that to become a problem. In other words, the NFL isn’t planning on cutting ties with the legal gambling world anytime soon, so players had best get with the program and study the rulebook and their playbooks.
"It's one of the reasons we opposed legalized sports betting, because of the risk to the integrity of the game,” Goodell said. “And so that's always going to be our number one priority. When the Supreme Court overruled that, we have to be in that space. And it's actually helped us with trying to educate our fans, educate our personnel. This isn't just about players. It affects every league employee, every club employee.”
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