Roger Goodell's Comments on Sports Betting & NFL Integrity
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00:00 (upbeat music)
00:02 - All right, so Roger Goodell,
00:04 Commissioner of the National Football League,
00:06 it's the first game of the season,
00:08 so naturally he's gonna get asked a lot of questions.
00:11 There's a few times in the year
00:12 where the Commissioner speaks,
00:13 usually in the off season at the Super Bowl,
00:15 and then another time is the opening of the NFL season.
00:18 He was asked his comments about sports betting
00:21 and the rise of it, and without stealing the thunder,
00:24 I'll turn it over to you, Mike.
00:25 What do you make of his comments?
00:26 And let's dive into them here a little bit.
00:29 - Yeah, Craig, so it just was interesting,
00:31 even before we get into that,
00:32 just Calvin Ridley, right?
00:33 He was suspended for all of last season
00:35 for gambling violations,
00:36 violating the NFL's gambling policy,
00:38 and he has a phenomenal game
00:39 in his debut with the Jaguars, his new team,
00:42 over 100 yards, receiving and a touchdown.
00:44 So that was kind of incredible
00:46 and kind of encompasses what we're gonna discuss here.
00:48 So yeah, Mike Tirico sat down with Roger Goodell
00:51 before the first NFL game, the Chiefs and Lions,
00:55 and was asked about kind of where things stand.
00:57 Are you comfortable with everything?
00:59 Goodell sort of sidestepped the question.
01:01 His answer was sort of disappointing
01:03 given 10 players suspended.
01:04 He basically said, "It's not just about the players."
01:07 And once the Supreme Court overturned PASPO,
01:10 we had to be in this.
01:12 And Craig, I think that kind of gets
01:13 to what you were talking about, right?
01:14 What you always say is,
01:16 how much is the league invested in this integrity issue
01:19 versus, hey, they've got this billion dollars
01:21 coming in from these three major sports books
01:23 and these partnerships, right?
01:24 Is the NFL just in this for money?
01:25 Do they actually care about the integrity of the league,
01:27 all that stuff that Roger Goodell had talked about
01:29 for so many years?
01:30 We can't get into sports betting.
01:31 We can't mess with the integrity of the league.
01:32 Now, obviously, they're in, they're invested,
01:35 and they're making, whether it's their best partnership,
01:38 I don't know, but it certainly is a significant number,
01:40 billion dollars, any way you slice it,
01:43 is a huge number for the league.
01:45 And so what he said was basically,
01:47 if you're working for the NFL and you bet on the NFL,
01:50 you've got a problem,
01:51 and that's something we're not gonna tolerate.
01:53 And we've obviously seen 10 players suspended,
01:55 various numbers of games,
01:57 whether it's six games for non-NFL bets
02:00 at the team facility,
02:01 which is certainly a controversial issue.
02:03 And then we've got the season-long suspensions
02:05 for betting on the NFL,
02:06 and guys sort of in limbo, their careers in limbo.
02:09 We've seen Isaiah Rogers sign a futures contract
02:11 with the Eagles, was released by the Colts because of this.
02:14 And so this is something, an issue the NFL's gonna continue
02:17 to try to hammer down on.
02:18 We've seen some positive things with some education,
02:22 some new player policies that they've had.
02:25 But again, this is an issue that a lot of the players
02:27 have said, you didn't educate us properly,
02:29 we didn't understand the rules.
02:31 Why can't we bet at the team facility
02:33 when we go out to the parking lot and bet?
02:34 These are all things the league is still gonna have to
02:37 worry about, and hopefully they don't have these suspensions.
02:39 Hopefully they can get that real-time solution
02:41 so guys aren't being suspended in 2023
02:44 for issues that happened in 2022,
02:46 which is what we're seeing now.
02:47 I mean, this is something you wanna get these guys
02:49 in real time if they're doing it,
02:50 or potentially cut them off,
02:51 where in the app, you can't bet.
02:53 If you're an NFL player on that prohibited list,
02:54 you can't bet, you can't even place that bet.
02:56 Maybe the league can come down on you for it,
03:00 but that bet won't get placed
03:01 because you're on this prohibited list.
03:02 So yeah, I think we're still in the early stage
03:04 of this thing, but I think the league hopes,
03:06 obviously by next summer,
03:07 they're not gonna have to suspend 10 more players.
03:09 That's just a black eye for the league,
03:11 something they can't have,
03:12 and they can't have a mass manipulation scandal,
03:14 and hopefully that doesn't happen either, Craig.
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