Baseball Writers Looking To Formalize Rules To Address Growing Gambling Partnerships In MLB

As partnerships with the gaming industry continues to grow, and more websites catering to gambling emerge, the Baseball Writers Association of America (BBWAA) has formed a committee with designs on proactively updating their constitution to allow clear guidance on expectations for their members.

Tuesday at the Baseball Winter Meetings in Nashville the topic was discussed with the hopes of voting to accept the recommendations next year.

While not all facets of the proposed update have been finalized, the focus has been to remove conflicts of interest. One example would be a writer that has been assigned a vote for one of the major awards such as MVP or Cy Young would be required to recuse themselves from voting if they wished to wager on the same award.

Should the BBWAA adopt the changes they would become the first writers association for the North American major sports leagues to formalize rules for writers around the issue of content or wagering on the sport they cover.

Increasingly, how insiders present information has been used to move the betting lines. As reported in the Wall Street Journal, Joel Sherman of the New York Post, and a frequent analyst on MLB Network received an unsolicited text message from a number he did not recognize asking who he might select for the National League MVP. Sherman did not answer the text, when he pushed to find out who had sent the message, it was revealed that it was someone from a gambling website.

In doing a segment on Las Vegas radio at one point, I was asked by the host how I liked to bet on sports, something I had to respond to the host was something I viewed as unethical as a sportswriter, and refused to answer the question.

The first high profile case of a writer with a conflict of interest as it pertained to the gambling industry occurred when NBA insider Shams Charania of The Athletic tweeted that prospect Scoot Henderson was “gaining serious momentum at No. 2 with the Charlotte Hornets.”

The problem was, Charania is also a paid contributor for FanDuel. Within minutes of the tweet, the betting line on FanDuel moved dramatically. The Hornets instead selected Alabama’s Brandon Miller with the second pick, causing those that had wagered on Henderson going second, lost money.

Between these cases, the BBWAA is seeking to ensure that the public’s trust for the writers’ award selections remain void of how the gaming industry continues to partner with sports leagues, their clubs and in many cases, media outlets.

This month, ESPN BET launched. The new partnership between Penn Entertainment
PENN
, a gaming company, and ESPN. With it, the line between one of the largest media companies in the world and wagering will be blurred. The site designed for wagering, looks similar to the main ESPN design. It features images of on-air personalities like Scott Van Pelt. Sports catagories that would traditionally see breaking news feature betting lines and ways to bet through the site. And while ESPN may be the biggest outlet to jump into the sports betting pool, many others exist or are being started.

Baseball is not wagered on to the extent that basketball and football are. But founded in 1908, the BBWAA is the oldest association for sports writers in history. Having provisions that provide guidance and clear rules about what is and isn’t permissible to be a member needs to be in place. Football, basketball, and hockey, it’s your move.