Sports betting is as popular as ever, largely due to how easy it becomes. Being able to place bets right on your phone has made wagering on players and teams as seamless as a fan could ever want.
Networks have picked up on that and have integrated betting into their programming accordingly. Shows have entire segments dedicated to hosts’ favorite bets and sponsored by the biggest sports booking and betting platforms in the world.
When ESPN introduced their own sportsbook, ESPN Bet, it was exciting – avid bettors like to have some variety when searching for the best odds and this was another path. But there’s some ethics calculus to it.
Keeping Credibility While Balancing Sports And Entertainment
ESPN, in theory, is a journalist-first platform. One that, like any other website or newspaper, has ethical standards that they need to prioritize. That means displaying information accurately, and that includes when it comes to sports gambling. On-screen personalities have always blended pure reporting with analysis and opinion – it’s a reality we’ve learned to accept and have adjusted to when deciding how much stake to put in those voices.
But in order for these betting segments to exist effectively and ethically within a show, you have separate analyzing the game and analyzing the value of props. It has to be a clearly stated difference between thinking a team is going to win and whether or not they’ll cover the spread. People who watch sports, bettors or not, want to learn about the product they’re watching. Some of the analysis for making good bets or just predictions of a game can have some overlap – using precise language, especially on a journalistic platform like ESPN, is essential.
ESPN’s daytime programming, pre-game, and post-game are designed to compliment the written part of their platform. The company’s involvement in the betting space effects not just their television product, but their broadcasting and website. Many of the most avid bettors will conduct research when trying to find what the best bets for a game are. Some websites are specialized to give exclusively betting, but sites like ESPN will usually find their way into research as well, either independently by the consumer or as part of the research done by betting-exclusive sites.
When straight-line reporting and analysis are blended together, it can make information harder to navigate. But when that entire platform makes its own sportsbook, taking an extra step beyond just betting segments and prop gimmicks, that dynamic becomes even more saturated. And potentially harmful.
Opinion based copy from ESPN could influence bettors to make irrational bets in a ways that profits the very platform they’re getting the information from. People love the added layer of entertainment placing bets add to their sports-viewing experience but many feel more comfortable with that aspect being separate from their journalism, especially when the money they’re wagering is going to the same place.
Written by Anders Pryor