Thursday, November 20, 2014
Fantasy Sports: A Problem For Athletes
In 1989 Pete Rose was suspended for betting on baseball, this was the most recent time a member of the Big 4 American Sports was suspended for gambling on their sport. Unfortunately many athletes gamble every day through fantasy sports and they have a direct outcome in the result because they are playing in a game. Right now the leagues have been focusing on domestic abuse, which is a very big and very important problem that needs to be eliminated, but I am surprised that none of the commisioners have acknowledged that this is an issue. The NCAA has already banned fantasy sports for collegiate athletes, even though collegiate fantasy sports isn't very popular it's good to see the NCAA has actually made a productive rule. The reason fantasy sports for athletes is so big of an issue is that there is a conflict of interest because they are playing in the game they are gambling on. Athletes make a lot of money, so most of them would probably play in a league which you would win money in because they can afford it. An example of a problem that this could cause is let's say that Matt Holliday the outfielder for the Cardinals who is a known fantasy sports player goes 0-4. An 0-4 usually happens to everyone, but what if Matt Holliday's 0-4 game is on the last day of the season and he is in the final week of the fantasy baseball season and his opponent is starting Matt Holliday. Matt Holliday could go 0-4 and prevent his opponent from winning so he could win money. Athletes playing fantasy sports is definitely a problem, and I hope it is solved very soon.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I highly disagree with this as I feel players care more about success in a real game which could affect their future rather a few bucks they could make online. The money they could make in fantasy sports is pocket change compared to how much they make yearly. Matt Holliday made about 16 million last season and you mean to tell me that he would have a bad game on purpose to win maybe a few hundred bucks?? Thousand bucks? Even a few thousand dollars wouldn't even help him at all so to me this piece has no relevance what so ever.
ReplyDeleteThank you for commenting on my article. This is exactly why nothing has been done with this problem. We want "to feel" like players care more about their successes on the field more than gambling but in reality we don't know how they feel. Even if Matt Holliday only won a few hundred or thousand dollars from playing fantasy sports it would still be gambling and nobody would know and it would not hurt him in the slightest because the team would know that everyone has an 0-4 today once in a while and he wouldn't receive less than the 16 million he would be paid, so there would be nothing that would stop him from doing it.
ReplyDelete