A exceptional factor occurred in sports journalism in October.
The day after the newest sports gambling scandal broke — this one involving NBA head coach Chauncey Billups and participant Terry Rozier — among the protection’s most pointed critiques targeted on sports gambling as an establishment.
The New York Times, The Washington Post, ESPN, and The Athletic (which is owned by the Times) all had columns from long-time, revered voices in sports journalism that critiqued the best way that sports leagues had offered out to gambling in a approach that made scandals like this really feel inevitable. “All the major sports leagues eagerly hopped on that bus, cashing in one day and then cursing the evils of illegal betting the next,” Ian O’Connor wrote in The Athletic.
It was a welcome first step. And 2026 will see extra such steps. I feel that is the yr we begin to see some actual journalistic pushback to the behemoth that authorized and accessible gambling has turn out to be.
I do know what you’re pondering. The reply to most questions is “money,” and there’s far too much cash on this specific banana stand. And you’re most likely proper. But to say nothing will ever change due to cash is to resign oneself to nothing ever altering. So let’s take an optimistic view of the approaching yr.
The reality is, the mixture of the ubiquity of gambling adverts, a rising recognition of the societal risks of authorized and accessible gambling, and the variety of scandals involving coaches and athletes — ESPN tracks 29 such stories in the past three years alone — have led to a vibe shift round sports gambling because the Supreme Court allowed states to make it authorized in 2018.
Sports journalist Michael Weinreb wrote that we might have had a world the place sports gambling was legalized but additionally regulated with crucial guardrails. Instead, everybody concerned noticed the greenback indicators concerned and went full steam forward, particularly groups and leagues.
This contains sports media. ESPN, The Athletic, Gannett, CBS, NBC, and Fox all have multiyear partnerships with sports books like DraftKings, FanDuel, and BetMGM. And whereas these media organizations have firewalls established between their journalism and the gambling partnerships — that is particularly robust at ESPN, I’ve been advised — the notion of being a sports journalism outlet reporting on gambling scandals whereas concurrently selling gambling by way of partnerships is tough to beat. And in fact, in relation to journalism ethics, notion is actuality.
2026 would be the yr that begins to vary.
A small step occurred in November, when ESPN Bet ended after simply two years. ESPN ended its partnership with Penn Gaming, which had operated its sports e-book below the identify of the Worldwide Leader in Sports. Yes, on the identical day, ESPN introduced a brand new partnership, with DraftKings. But getting the identify ESPN Bet off our screens is an effective first step.
Sports journalists being vital of leagues and groups for being in gambling partnerships is one other step in the correct route. So is protecting the threats that athletes (particularly school athletes) obtain from gamblers. Being keen to name out your personal information group — or at the least acknowledge the potential inherent battle in reporting on a scandal whereas your employer companions with them — can be one other one, albeit a tough needle to string.
What I feel and hope we’ll see in sports journalism is protection of gambling that’s much less episodic, much less scandal-driven, much less targeted on the who-what-why of every particular person case. What I feel and hope we’ll see is extra systematic protection that critically examines authorized and accessible gambling’s present place within the sports world.
It’s straightforward to shrug this off as wishful pondering — to lean on the outdated Toy Department cliché about sports journalism or simply assume there’s too much cash concerned. But because the scandals turn out to be greater and extra widespread, the difficulty turns into too massive to disregard.
We’ve taken the primary steps. They have been exceptional to see. This would be the yr we take extra.
Brian Moritz is an affiliate professor at St. Bonaventure and the writer of Sports Media Guy.