Per ESPN’s David Purdum and Jeff Passan, the Major League Baseball Players Association is proposing a few sports betting-related measures in the ongoing collective bargaining negotiations with the MLB.
First, the union wants to ban player props to reduce harassment from butt-hurt gamblers. Second, the MLBPA is asking the league for clarity on obtaining endorsement and sponsorship deals with legal sportsbooks and prediction markets. Third, the players are pushing the MLB to adjust how sports betting investigations and punishments are dealt with.
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I have pushback for the first two proposals, with the last being a nonstarter, and that’s coming from someone who almost always sides with the players. In fact, I’d understand if the MLBPA went on strike over the owners’ salary cap proposal. As my colleague, Ian Miller, wrote earlier this month:
Owners do not care about competitive balance. Many are using baseball teams as real estate developments, then do not count that ancillary income towards baseball spending … It’s a way [the proposed salary cap] for owners to limit spending, not to actually compress an imaginary competitive gap.
Anyway, the player props thing is pretty straightforward; players are sick of getting sh– from the fans for losing their bets.
Unfortunately, there are several instances of bettors harassing players lately. Last year, I wrote about Houston Astros pitcher Lance McCullers Jr., his wife and their two daughters receiving death threats after Lance’s bad outing.
There is just no defending that behavior, and the harasser/scumbag should walk the plank, so to speak. Period. End of discussion.
Also, there is a credible argument for reducing the surface area of fixing these player props by removing them altogether. Cleveland Guardians pitchers Emmanuel Clase and Luis Ortiz are on unpaid leave while awaiting trial for allegedly rigging pitches.
However, seeing if sportsbooks and prediction markets can use their name, image, likeness, and jersey number, aka “asking for clarity,” while urging them to worsen their product by banning player props is shrewd negotiating on the union’s part.
I agree that the players should get a cut of the money the MLB gets from partnering with sportsbooks and prediction markets. Like, obviously. Yet, being endorsed by those companies while pushing for fewer betting markets just feels wrong. Doesn’t it?
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Maybe I’m being insensitive and cruel, but part of playing professional sports is dealing with fans booing. Whether it’s related to playing against their favorite teams or going Under their scoring prop.
Now, if that fan crosses the line with death threats and extreme profanity, by all means, kick them out of the ballpark. “Back in my day,” that didn’t happen often, but it seems like players get fans red-carded all the time nowadays. So, it can be done. Especially in the NBA.
I’m taking a hardline stance against the MLBPA’s third proposal. According to ESPN, “the union asked that players punished for sports betting violations be allowed to go on a 15-day unpaid rehabilitation assignment in the minor leagues near the end of their suspension.”
That said, any player who bets on or against the team they play for should be permanently banned by that league. No “suspension”; excommunicated. Nothing tarnishes a league’s integrity more than a player or coach of that league gambling on it.
Ultimately, the union’s demands cross into hypocrisy. Asking for sportsbook revenue while simultaneously watering down the product and coddling rule-breakers with minor-league rehab is a terrible look. Protecting players from extreme abuse is vital, but compromising baseball’s integrity is a swing and a massive miss.
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