The document discusses the issue of college sports sponsorships with online sports gambling companies. It notes that while such deals provide revenue for athletic departments, they present moral dilemmas around exploiting and harming students. Some universities have modified or ended sponsorship deals after public backlash over targeting students with promotional codes and access to personal information. Politicians have also expressed concerns that colleges are not adequately supporting students who may develop gambling addictions. The gaming industry argues alumni sponsorships are acceptable but their self-imposed code of conduct on college partnerships is not enforceable.

1. Critical Issues in Sports
JRN 589
College Sports & Gambling
Prof. Hanley

2. College Sports & Gambling

3. College Sports & Gambling
• Revenue-hungry athletic
departments found a Sugar
Daddy in online sports gambling
companies all too willing to pony
up for signage and sponsorship
agreements.

4. College Sports & Gambling
• For companies such as
DraftKings Sportsbook, collegiate
sports represented an
opportunity to acquire
customers in a key demographic:
college students.

5. College Sports & Gambling
• That presents a moral dilemma
that is only now reaching the
level of public debate on
whether the rise of sportsbook
sponsorships is harmful to
students and student-athletes.

6. College Sports & Gambling
• University of Colorado athletics
modified its $30 million
sponsorship deal with PointsBet
after a public outcry about using
promotional codes to target
students with deals in 2023.

7. College Sports & Gambling
• In Maryland, meanwhile, a
similar deal with PointsBet ran
into stout opposition in the state
legislature.
• A bill under review would
bar in-state colleges and
universities from with
sportsbooks that offer
promotional sign-up deals.

8. College Sports & Gambling
• Maryland legislator Jheanelle
Wilkins said in a published
report “that our Maryland
institutions of higher education
are not profiting from the sports
betting activities of our students.
We don't want our students to
be exploited or be harmed or get
addicted.”

9. College Sports & Gambling
• In Michigan, faculty at Michigan
State University petitioned the
university to end its sponsorship
with Caesars Sportsbook.
• The deal included exclusive
sports betting advertising rights
at MSU games and access to the
student body’s email database.
• About 300 faculty signed the
document.

10. College Sports & Gambling
• “Taking a page from the
stereotypical image of a drug
pusher, Caesars and the other
large online gambling companies
lure customers with free bets
worth hundreds of dollars.
Young men tend to be eager
recruits; being knowledgeable
about sports leads many of them
to assume they will be successful
gamblers,” the petition reads.

11. College Sports & Gambling
• U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal
from Connecticut sent letters to
66 institutions demanding
information on their sportsbook
sponsorships earlier in March
2023.

12. College Sports & Gambling
• “Universities with these
partnerships have done little to
set up the necessary support for
students who develop a
gambling addiction,” wrote
Blumenthal.
• The senator added that “certain
factors” make college students
vulnerable to gambling
addiction.

13. College Sports & Gambling
• The gaming industry has
countered via its trade
organization the American
Gaming Association (AGA).
• It updated its sports wagering
code in late March to ban
“college partnerships that
promote, market, or advertise
sports wagering activity” outside
of sponsorships that focus on
alumni networks.

14. College Sports & Gambling
• The AGA’s code, however, is not
enforceable as sportsbooks are
not bound to the code by any
legal or other mechanism.