Nicole Noren: “I’m not going to have blood on my hands.”
www.cjr.org
Why Nicole Noren, a decorated ESPN producer, quit in protest.

An award-winning ESPN producer resigned after 24 years over the network’s embrace of sports betting: “I’m not going to have blood on my hands.”

  • criss_cross@lemmy.worldEnglish
    2·
    5 days ago

    I’m not opposed to sports betting on its own, but I am absolutely appalled at how much it’s bastardized everything.

    It’s one thing if it’s in small doses and you can sort of just ignore it. It’s another thing when EVERY FUCKING SITE AND PLATFORM has gambling odds, gambling ads, gambling sponsors. Etc. You can’t blink without these predators trying to siphon money from people.

    If I were a recovering gambling addict and sports fan id be heartbroken right now.

    • 4am@lemmy.zipEnglish
      3·
      5 days ago

      It ain’t even just sport anymore. Election coverage on CNN includes Kalshi odds like it’s a fucking scientific study. Gambling is everywhere online too? Games, livestreams. Crypto casinos where they can get kids hooked.

      Some of the initial friction between live streamers with the online left was when “gamba” became prevalent and they started calling it out.

      It used to be illegal to have online poker like 25 years ago and now there are DraftKings banners in metro train stations and LeBron got $15mil annually to stump for Polymarket. What are we even doing?

    • redjard@reddthat.comEnglish
      1·
      5 days ago

      Even more to it too. Once it gets big enough you start getting match fixing, so it ruins the sport and also endangers all players since fixing all but necessitates organized crime.
      The final outcome is a world where someone bets on a runner up, and goes out to shoot the champion, to steal money from the addicted masses.

      The same issues apply for betting on other real world things.

    • baggachipz@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      1·
      5 days ago

      Yeah I’m not some pearl-clutching puritan by any means, but all of this deeply embedded gambling (and “prediction market” bullshit) is not going to end well. The scandals, fixes, and chicanery will be off the charts and it’ll ruin sports.