Despite benefits, NCAA claims gambling hurts sports' integrity

This column is also award-winning writer Frank Deford's weekly sports commentary on NPR. For those dearly devoted of you who paid attention to me in

Frank Deford | Jan 2, 2013

Despite benefits, NCAA claims gambling hurts sports' integrity /

As Kentucky won the NCAA basketball tournament in 2012, many raked in cash prizes for winning tournament betting pools. — As Kentucky won the NCAA basketball tournament in 2012, many raked in cash prizes for winning tournament betting pools :: John Korduner/Icon SMI

This column is also award-winning writer Frank Deford's weekly sports commentary on NPR.

For those dearly devoted of you who paid attention to me in September, I noted that the best bet in the NFL had proven to be whenever a West Coast team played an East Coast team at night, because the Pacific players had their clocks better set. There would be two such night games this year, and sure enough, both times the West Coast team beat the point spread. Not only that, but the first game of the World Series also fit that formula, and sure enough the underdog San Francisco Giants routed arguably the best pitcher in baseball, Justin Verlander of Detroit, and went onto sweep the Series.

Unfortunately, since all you SI.com readers are, I'm sure, law-abiding citizens, only those relatively few of you living in the great Silver State of Nevada could have legally gotten bets down on my wise circadian tip. Thanks to a bizarre 1992 federal law, Nevada is blessed to be the only state that can allow gamblers to bet legally on a single game... and thereby help fill the state coffers with a cut for facilitating the bets -- what's called "vigorish" in the trade (and "easy money" otherwise).

New Jersey seeks to buck the law and allow Nevada-style sports books. Predictably the four major team sports and the NCAA have sued the Garden State to stop its effort to be as equal before the law as Nevada, and in a baffling decision, a U.S. district judge has somehow concluded that it's fair to argue that legal gambling in states other than Nevada would create a negative image about games. That's like the feds saying nobody but Georgia can legally grow peaches without damaging American peach taste buds.

Now consider. The NCAA, that noble bastion of hypocrisy, makes virtually all its money from its basketball championship -- March Madness -- which derives most of its popularity (and hence its TV bonanza) from illegal office pools. And of course, the professional leagues -- wink, wink -- publicize fantasy leagues, which are nothing but betting vehicles. Altogether in the United States, betting on real games with illegal bookmakers is estimated at $380 billion a year. People bet sports everywhere. Gambling, in fact, promotes interest in sports. The NFL in particular is essentially America's casino. But the sanctimonious commissioners and the blowhard who runs the NCAA maintain, nonsensically, that legal gambling hurts the integrity of sports... while somehow illegal bookmaking remains beneficial for their games.

Also, if I were Chris Christie and Bruce Springsteen and Cory Booker and Bon Jovi and Snooki, I'd want to know why the federal government gives preferencial treatment to one state over the other 49. I don't think those are fair constitutional odds.

Published Jan 2, 2013

FRANK DEFORD

Frank Deford is among the most versatile of American writers. His work has appeared in virtually every medium, including print, where he has written eloquently for Sports Illustrated since 1962. Deford is currently the magazine's Senior Contributing Writer and contributes a weekly column to SI.com. Deford can be heard as a commentator each week on Morning Edition. On television he is a regular correspondent on the HBO show Real Sports With Bryant Gumbel. He is the author of 15 books, and his latest,The Enitled, a novel about celebrity, sex and baseball, was published in 2007 to exceptional reviews. He and Red Smith are the only writers with multiple features in The Best American Sports Writing of the Century. Editor David Halberstam selected Deford's 1981 Sports Illustrated profile on Bobby Knight (The Rabbit Hunter) and his 1985 SI profile of boxer Billy Conn (The Boxer and the Blonde) for that prestigious anthology. For Deford the comparison is meaningful. "Red Smith was the finest columnist, and I mean not just sports columnist," Deford told Powell's Books in 2007. "I've always said that Red is like Vermeer, with those tiny, priceless pieces. Five hundred words, perfectly chosen, crafted. Best literary columnist, in any newspaper, that I've ever seen." Deford was elected to the National Association of Sportscasters and Sportswriters Hall of Fame. Six times at Sports Illustrated Deford was voted by his peers as U.S. Sportswriter of The Year. The American Journalism Review has likewise cited him as the nation's finest sportswriter, and twice he was voted Magazine Writer of The Year by the Washington Journalism Review. Deford has also been presented with the National Magazine Award for profiles; a Christopher Award; and journalism honor awards from the University of Missouri and Northeastern University; and he has received many honorary degrees. The Sporting News has described Deford as "the most influential sports voice among members of the print media," and the magazine GQ has called him, simply, "The world's greatest sportswriter." In broadcast, Deford has won a Cable Ace award, an Emmy and a George Foster Peabody Award for his television work. In 2005 ESPN presented a television biography of Deford's life and work, You Write Better Than You Play. Deford has spoken at well over a hundred colleges, as well as at forums, conventions and on cruise ships around the world. He served as the editor-in-chief of The National Sports Daily in its brief but celebrated existence. Deford also wrote Sports Illustrated's first Point After column, in 1986. Two of Deford's books, the novel, Everybody's All-American, and Alex: The Life Of A Child, his memoir about his daughter who died of cystic fibrosis, have been made into movies. Two of his original screenplays have also been filmed. For 16 years Deford served as national chairman of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, and he remains chairman emeritus. He resides in Westport, CT, with his wife, Carol. They have two grown children – a son, Christian, and a daughter, Scarlet. A native of Baltimore, Deford is a graduate of Princeton University, where he has taught American Studies.