March Madness has been wonderful and troubling at the same time
To all of those basketball fans out there, hasn’t this year at the NCAA Basketball tournament been wonderful? Not only has some Cinderellas emerged to knock off top programs like NC State but also women's basketball has received more attention as well.
This year has been so much more interesting than most years however a new element is emerging that could cause the demise of future tournaments.
With the legalization of online gambling this has caused concern that the integrity of the game is at risk and that gamblers are getting too close to players.
For example, Armando Bacot got over 100 messages from upset gamblers after the loss against Alabama including several death threats. With the point shaving investigation underway in the NBA by a Toronto player who obviously strived not to score during two games and the discovery that big bets were made on his non production, the concern that players will be influenced by gamblers may ruin the integrity of future games. Once the purity of the game is tainted, the joy of watching players win and lose will be lost in the quest for more to cash in.
Last night I watched several young adults at dinner intensely playing with their phones while gambling online. I asked them if they like online gambling and their response was troubling. They revealed that they gamble on 5 different sports book agencies and that doing this is much better than working.
At a time when NC employers are desperately looking for new talent, is online gambling going to poison the interest of future candidates and are new employees going to be distracted as they monitor their online bets?
Going forward, what is going to be done to protect the game, athletes and society from the temptation of influencing outcomes of future competitions?
How do we get our youth who are tempted by the get rich quick options to also invest time and energy into skill development that our industries need?
Although this year has been wonderful to watch the game, if point shaving and outcomes become too corrupted by outside influence, what we just enjoyed may become tainted and the games integrity forever lost and people will lose interest.
