Tag: gambling

Notes: MLB commissioner, Royals’ stadium, media and sports gambling

You don’t want a better liar even if you think you do, what’s going on with the Royals’ stadium search, and when a reporter also partners with a gambling site.

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“Surely things will be different with a new commissioner,” you think. No, no they will not. Maybe you’d be a little less angry at a new commissioner’s general public attitude, but their job is to be the representative of MLB’s 30 owners, which is to say, the job is to lie. To you, to local, state, and federal governments, to the players, to anyone who needs to hear the lies that would benefit the owners if they’re heard.

I got into this at Baseball Prospectus last week, in the wake of Rob Manfred basically making fun of A’s fans for getting together for one last home game to tell John Fisher where he could shove the Las Vegas stadium legislation. People dislike Manfred very much, and think things would be better with a new commissioner, but that’s just not how it goes by design:

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Round-up: MLB gambling rules, crypto freefall

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The relationship between major sports leagues and sports booking keeps getting closer and closer, which means new rules are necessary to police said relationship. As coverage of the game, both written and in video and in the broadcasts themselves, sees gambling and a gambler’s mindset further fused with every existing atom, adjustments need to be made in order to keep some kind of equilibrium.

So, that’s how it was discovered earlier this week that MLB and the Players Association had a provision in the new collective bargaining agreement designed to address fans who take their gambling losses and desires out on the players just trying to play baseball. MLive’s Evan Woodberry tweeted about it prior to an Astros/Tigers game, saying:

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Rob Manfred is letting gambling decide MLB’s direction

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There is some concern out there that, because Rob Manfred seems intent on ruining the game of baseball as you know it, seven-inning games are going to eventually be the norm instead of what allows for regularly scheduled doubleheaders while MLB navigates a pandemic. With the modified extra innings rules, the minor leagues being used as a laboratory for pace of play and even more extra innings quirks and so on, it’s no wonder people feel like this about Manfred and his plans. Worry not, though: we probably won’t lose nine-inning games, because it would make the gamblers unhappy.

That’s right! The gamblers. Calling the intrusion of gambling on Major League Baseball “creeping” does not do what’s happening enough hasty justice—it’s been less subtle than that— but it’s still fitting since gambling’s influence is not becoming all-encompassing all at once. It is there, obvious to anyone who has seen the ways in which it has been introduced into even league broadcasts, but now we also have Manfred bringing it up in an interview with Sportico.

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