'Sports executives ushered a fox into the henhouse'

Shohei Ohtani exits the field after pitching practice after he addressed allegations against ex-interpreter at Dodger Stadium on Monday, March 25

(Image credit: Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)

By Harold Maass, The Week US

published 28 March 2024

'Online gambling has swallowed professional sports'

Dave Zirin at The Nation

Sports leagues plagued by an "aging and fragmenting television audience" partnered with legal gambling operations to refill their pockets, says Dave Zirin. They're finding out they "ushered a fox into the henhouse." In the last month alone, "players have allegedly used inside information to place bets, allegedly fixed individual and team outcomes, and not-so-allegedly damaged the credibility of their sports." These scandals, "once incredibly rare," are now part of the game.

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Harold Maass is a contributing editor at The Week. He has been writing for The Week since the 2001 debut of the U.S. print edition and served as editor of TheWeek.com when it launched in 2008. Harold started his career as a newspaper reporter in South Florida and Haiti. He has previously worked for a variety of news outlets, including The Miami Herald, ABC News and Fox News, and for several years wrote a daily roundup of financial news for The Week and Yahoo Finance.