Clock is ticking ahead of NCAA’s decision on proposed gambling rule
By Dana O’Neil, CNN
(CNN) — As sports gambling accusations spread through Major League Baseball, the NBA and college basketball, the NCAA has one week to decide whether to adopt a proposed rule change that would allow college athletes and staff to bet on professional sports.
The presumption from many in college athletics can be best summed up by one coach, who asked not to be named – “There’s no way that happens, right?”
And yet, to rescind the proposal that would OK betting on professional sports, two-thirds of the Division I member schools must submit paperwork by 5 p.m. ET on Friday, November 21.
A source tells CNN that “as of right now, we are not meeting that threshold.’’
If the needed 241 (out of 361) D1 schools do not respond, the change will go into effect on November 22.
For years, college athletes, coaches and staff members were prohibited from betting on any sport in which the NCAA crowns a champion. Horse racing, for example, was OK; baseball, football, basketball and hockey were not.
But as sports betting becomes legal in more and more states and readily available to regular college students, the NCAA argued, that although it was not encouraging athletes to bet, prohibiting them from gambling on pro sports no longer made sense.
Betting on college sports will remain a no-no.
“This change recognizes the realities of today’s sports environment without compromising our commitment to protecting the integrity of college competition or the well-being of student-athletes,’’ Roberta Page, director of athletics at Slippery Rock and chair of the Division II Management Council, said in an NCAA statement.
The change was initially meant to go into effect on November 1.
A week earlier, the feds unsealed an indictment alleging two separate sports gambling schemes – one involving rigged poker games, the other point shaving – that included members of three New York crime families, two NBA players and an NBA head coach.
The timing created immediate blowback at the NCAA’s proposal.
Southeastern Conference commissioner Greg Sankey wrote to NCAA president Charlie Baker, urging him to reconsider.
“On behalf of our universities, I write to urge action by the NCAA Division I Board of Directors to rescind this change and reaffirm the Association’s commitment to maintaining strong standards that keep college participants separated from sports wagering at every level,’’ Sankey wrote in a letter obtained by ESPN.
Three days later, the NCAA announced it was delaying its decision, but not because of public outrage. It was because less than 75 percent of the cabinet member votes were in favor of the change, prompting an automatic 30-day rescission process.
It is worth noting that, of the 20 cabinet members who voted, and despite their commissioner’s protests, the two representing the SEC – Jeremiah Donati, the athletic director at South Carolina, and Matt Boyer, the SEC’s assistant commissioner for compliance – both voted in favor of the proposal per the NCAA committee’s report.
Of the eight people representing the four power conferences (each of whose votes is weighted: 2.75 versus 1), both ACC representatives voted against the initial proposal, the Big Ten and SEC voted in favor, and the Big 12 split its vote.
In the three weeks since the NCAA implemented its rescission period, two MLB pitchers have been indicted for rigging games and six college basketball players from three separate schools have been permanently banned from NCAA competition for game fixing.
On Thursday, the New Jersey Attorney General’s office announced 14 people, including student athletes, were charged for running an illegal online sports betting scheme in conjunction with members of the Lucchese crime family.
The-CNN-Wire
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