Sports associations looking to adapt to sports betting

The Big Ten conference commissioner urged the NCAA to set a mandatory national weekly injury report to favour transparency.

US.- The imminent legalisation of sports betting in several states across the US has sports organisations concerned, especially at the collegiate level. That’s why the Big Ten (a conference in the NCAA) commissioner Jim Delany has urged the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) to take measures in order to favour transparency and sports integrity.

“I don’t have the model code, but I do think it’s something that we should do and probably should have done it before, but certainly should do it now,” Mr Delany said as he proposed a weekly “player availability” report for all NCAA sports. “I don’t call it an injury report as much as I think about it as player availability,” he explained and added: “Whether that comes out of an injury or comes out of eligibility or comes out of some transgression at one time or another, I think we need to do that. I think we need to do that nationally.”

According to the Big Ten commissioner, “availability of personnel is critical” for gamblers and stated: “When players are unavailable, we should know that – that they’re probable or likely (to play).”

Mr Delany even pushed farther from just an injury report and said he believes college sport should be omitted at the state level but said: “If that’s not possible, that there be some standardization of framework so that college sports, high school sports, Olympic sports, that those categories of sports receive some additional protection.”