Transformations

In the 2020s, two major Supreme Court decisions turned American sports upside down. The first decision vastly expanded legalized sports gambling. The second made it clear that NCAA restrictions on athlete compensation violated antitrust laws. The gambling decision, which left decisions about sports gambling up to individual states, led to an expansion of in-person sports gambling and an explosion in online betting, including a new form of wagering called “prop” betting. Consequences included the growth of gambling addiction, a spike in harassment of athletes regarding lost bets and convictions of athletes for colluding with bettors or betting on their own teams. The end of curbs on athletic compensation produced a free-for-all around paying for the use of college athletes’ Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL), as well as the option for colleges to pay players directly out of athletic department revenues. Huge compensation packages, outside advertising interests and the rapid movement of athletes from team to team created chaos. While coaches, colleges, the NCAA, Congress, and the White House began to search for ways to establish some kind of equilibrium, the way forward remained far from clear.