The NHL embracing sports gambling was a major mistake

JPT

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The "fiduciary responsibility" argument is always the escape route for the finance world any time business decisions that can or will have negative societable impacts are questioned on ethical grounds. In this particular case, NHL revenues were steadily rising for years without gambling ads. You'd have to establish that the league was on the verge of financially retracting but for gambling advertisements coming in to save the day for that argument to make sense.
 
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Derailed75

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Jan 5, 2021
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They advertise deodorant while the game is being played?
Don’t give a crap about the 3 commercials each period, or a commercial during intermission.
You’ve misread the room, it’s while the game is being played, that’s super annoying, not the commercials,
Board ads.
 

njdevils1982

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Sep 8, 2006
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imagine alcohol companies turning hockey into a drinking game, telling you to drink a shot of their brand to match each shot on net, and two shots each time your team scores. That's a rough idea of what gambling ads seem like to me.


i actually thought of trying this experiment the last couple of seasons but never went through with it
 
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Derailed75

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The "fiduciary responsibility" argument is always the escape route for the finance world any time business decisions that can or will have negative societable impacts are questioned on ethical grounds. In this particular case, NHL revenues were steadily rising for years without gambling ads. You'd have to establish that the league was on the verge of financially retracting but for gambling advertisements coming in to save the day for that argument to make sense.
I live in a small town in VA Ceasers just opened a casino last year. The influx of money into this community is damn near unbelievable. Are there same people who cant control themselves falling into hard ship? Maybe I don't really know. What I do know is the tax revenue and the money that Ceasers is putting back into this small town of 40,000 is 20 years worth of revenue before they opened.

Exactly who should they be "responsible to?"
 

Brent Burns Beard

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There is a gulf of difference between "ban all gambling period" and "stop shoving gambling ads down our throats every four minutes during broadcasts and displaying odds and spreads prominently on the screen at all times." It's deeply disingenuous to read something talking about the latter and claim they're arguing for the former and want to "take away your freedom."

Legalize gambling, whatever. But it doesn't need to be talked about before we even discuss who the goaltenders are in a game, nor do multiple minutes every pregame, intermission report, and postgame need to be dedicated to bets in Whatever Sportsbook like the progress on a trifecta of "Jack Hughes goal, 2+ points for Mercer, no goals against Schmid."
they serve their clients ... you can vote with your eyeballs but until enough people decline to participate, their customers are going to continue to pay them to run their ads.

oh wait, you think the viewer is the customer? the viewer is what they deliver to their customer. you can change it though, just stop watching until they find different clients who pay them to broadcast content you will watch.
 
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Lshap

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That sounds like an amazing drinking game. If I were 20 years younger I would definitely try it.

Agree to disagree. I am fundamentally classical liberal bordering on libertarian. You are not. We will not likely come to agreement.
I know this subject touches on individual freedom and personal choices – that's a valid but separate debate. My issue is how gambling ads have compromised the viewing experience of watching hockey. Personally, I find the constant gambling ads annoying and tacky. I'd be equally annoyed by in-game ads for energy drinks or hockey sticks, items being sold based on what's happening on the ice. Save the ads for commercial breaks while the game is stopped; keep them out of the game itself.

For me, it's a problem of content, not morals.
 

JPT

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I live in a small town in VA Ceasers just opened a casino last year. The influx of money into this community is damn near unbelievable. Are there same people who cant control themselves falling into hard ship? Maybe I don't really know. What I do know is the tax revenue and the money that Ceasers is putting back into this small town of 40,000 is 20 years worth of revenue before they opened.

Exactly who should they be "responsible to?"
What does this have to do with what I posted?
 

Brent Burns Beard

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I know this subject touches on individual freedom and personal choices – that's a valid but separate debate. My issue is how gambling ads have compromised the viewing experience of watching hockey. Personally, I find the constant gambling ads annoying and tacky. I'd be equally annoyed by in-game ads for energy drinks or hockey sticks, items being sold based on what's happening on the ice. Save the ads for commercial breaks while the game is stopped; keep them out of the game itself.

For me, it's a problem of content, not morals.
Vote with your eyeballs then. They are simply bringing content people are willing to pay for.
 
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Golden_Jet

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Sep 21, 2005
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Board ads.
Stop being obtuse and moving goalposts each time you reply, makes your points utterly useless.

board ads aren’t commercials, and showing video on boards ads is annoying as well, but nos as bad as in game.
Board ads that don’t change are fine.

We’re talking about IN GAME, do what they want during commercials.

Yet you seem to ignore that, constantly.
 

Golden_Jet

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Sep 21, 2005
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they serve their clients ... you can vote with your eyeballs but until enough people decline to participate, their customers are going to continue to pay them to run their ads.

oh wait, you think the viewer is the customer? the viewer is what they deliver to their customer. you can change it though, just stop watching until they find different clients who pay them to broadcast content you will watch.
Lmao, tell fans to stop watching

What does this have to do with what I posted?
Absolutely nothing, that’s all poster keeps doing,
Replies with nothing to do with what you said
 

digmor crusher

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Jul 11, 2009
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The only thing that may ever get me to stop watching hockey is advertising. Commercials, ads during play, board ads, ice ads, obnoxious gambling ads, everywhere you look during a game you are bombarded by advertising, its sickening.
 

Brent Burns Beard

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Lmao, tell fans to stop watching
Ya man. We live in a consumer driven world. Be a victim or not, consumers control company behaviour by their consumption choices.

Keep consuming the nhl product and they will keep delivering it. Your choice.
 

Lshap

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They do. Whats the vodka commercial where a bunch of friend are watch a game and "their team" scores and they all solute? Its the same thing.
I don't see it the same at all. Yes, the commercial you mention generates a positive association between booze and hockey, but the friends are watching an imaginary game and the commercial airs during a break, when the real hockey game has stopped. The commercial is creating a positive culture around alcohol, but it's not creating a sense of urgency that'll make you run to the nearest liquor store right now.

Online casino ads create an urgency because they're connected to the game in real-time – like that drinking game example I mentioned. You have to act right now, otherwise you'll miss an opportunity. There's an insidious side to that, but it might simply be a function of how effective phone apps have become. I'll leave morality for another discussion. My problem, as I've mentioned, is how online casinos have hijacked hockey broadcasts and have attempted to masquerade their product as part of the game. It makes the viewing experience worse.

Vote with your eyeballs then. They are simply bringing content people are willing to pay for.
Agreed. I realize plenty of people respond positively to the ads. I'm just hoping enough people dislike them to have an opposite effect.
 

Silky Johnson

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Mar 9, 2015
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I don't think you're going to get very far with the "don't tell me what do do" when the conversation at hand is almost entirely about advertising, versus gambling itself. Advertising is by both design and nature, intrusive. It is beamed directly into my living room while I am as close to a captive audience as possible, especially if it's happening during the play. People gambling on their own time doesn't effect me, media that I'm consuming does. I think most liberal-minded people will agree that people can gamble if they want to, but only the more hardened libertarians are going to agree that restricting advertising is stepping on the snake. The rest of us are willing to trade some freedoms for security, and the freedom of our nations' businesses for some security in terms of shielding from an overwhelming quantity of vices being advertised, is a trade long since completed. There's absolutely an order of magnitude that goes along with this, nobody ever cared about casino or lottery ads for the last few decades.

I also think you are mistakenly assuming that such a reduction would necessarily come from legal action or law enforcement. Consumers voicing their displeasure, which my post would certainly count as, is intended to let the business entities concerned know that I am upset with the current state of affairs. Do I not have some form of recourse in between outright ignoring the issue and a boycott? Can I tell the NHL that I hate their new stupid advertising strategy because it's intrusive, distracting, repetitive, and irrelevant to me? I'm not even concerned about the morality here, that's an entirely separate argument, which I make in other posts, the post you quoted is entirely about how the NHL's short term business strategy will lead to long term failure. I'd figure the libertarians would appreciate that sort of post. According to the law they can advertise all the gambling want, I think it will bite the NHL in the ass in the end and I have my own streaming cancellation emails to prove it.

So when I write a post saying that this advertising strategy is a sign that the NHL has made a terrible business choice, and that a strategy involving the money from gambling ads will devour the league, I don't think "don't tell me what to do" is an effective counter. By all means, the NHL can alienate its non-libertarian fans all it likes, but if enough eventually leave the gambling dollars will go chase them somewhere else and then the NHL will be left with no revenue whatsoever. No fans, no advertisers, just a husk and everybody loses. This is a business case and I'm just a free consultant. Consumers are within their own liberties to ask for their products to not come with externalities that they find objectionable for any reason.



I'm inclined towards this side of the moral argument, but at the end of the day, I just do not think the freedom to advertise is all that important, mostly because advertising is in and of itself intrusive. Your right to be intrusive is in direct conflict with my right to be left alone, and I just want to be left alone to watch the dang hockey game, Jesse Pinkman.
Freedom to advertise is essentially freedom of speech.
 
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tarheelhockey

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Ok, but the first point and the premise of this thread has to do with Jeff Marek and his ethics.
Are we actually drawing a direct line between Jeff Marek's cause and effect. Like normally he would never do anything unethical, but gambling made him do it?

Unless I’m misunderstanding, gambling ethics weren’t a factor at all in the Marek situation. He was leaking info for years (arguably unethical, though he did it in a victimless fashion) and the infrastructure around gambling was what brought it to the surface as an issue. But Marek’s actions and motives had nothing to do with gambling.
 
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tarheelhockey

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No argument on the measurable negative outcomes of gambling. Of course there are other things to argue over: How much advertising space do we allocate to a product that's legal but potentially harmful? What language are they allowed to use? What's their liability for addictions and related harm caused by their product (does the disclaimer "Gamble responsibly" count for anything)?

EDIT: I recognize we've entered new territory with online gambling. It's unlike other products advertised during hockey games. You don't need to move from your couch or worry about budget – anyone can get the product immediately with a click. That's what makes it so insidious. But how do you impose limits? Would you be okay with an outright ban?

I don’t think there would be complaints if it were just a matter of advertising in the traditional sense. It’s the full-scale takeover of the game that people are kicking back against — some because they’re annoyed with the erosion of the game presentation, others because it’s actively pushing people to become gamblers. The latter is different than traditional passive ads like commercials or board stickers or whatever.

Speaking for myself — I’m not a huge fan of state lotteries because I think they’re a scam on the working class taxpayer, but I do occasionally buy a ticket for fun and was not annoyed by the “It’s a Powerball power play!” type of advertising that goes along with them. I have a much bigger problem with my kids watching a game and ending up learning how sports betting lines work because Wayne Gretzky told them it would be a good time to take the under. One is just an ad, the other is social engineering.
 

LeafGrief

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Apr 10, 2015
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Freedom to advertise is essentially freedom of speech.
"Essentially" is doing an awful lot of lifting in that sentence. I can understand the perspective that advertising is a business's right to speak of its products, but advertising in the case of the NHL is a business transaction between two entities whereby one grants the other access to an audience. Freedom of speech does not include an audience, the advertising we are talking about is quite literally buying access to said audience. Therefore, the reaction and liberties of the audience are relevant to the discussion, which is what the rest of my long-ass post was about. This is why, "Don't tread on me" isn't much of a response when said audience is yelling at the NHL and gambling companies to give it a rest already. Getting in a huff about the right to advertise means missing the entire lesson on consumer fatigue.
 

JPT

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Jul 4, 2024
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"Essentially" is doing an awful lot of lifting in that sentence. I can understand the perspective that advertising is a business's right to speak of its products, but advertising in the case of the NHL is a business transaction between two entities whereby one grants the other access to an audience. Freedom of speech does not include an audience, the advertising we are talking about is quite literally buying access to said audience. Therefore, the reaction and liberties of the audience are relevant to the discussion, which is what the rest of my long-ass post was about. This is why, "Don't tread on me" isn't much of a response when said audience is yelling at the NHL and gambling companies to give it a rest already. Getting in a huff about the right to advertise means missing the entire lesson on consumer fatigue.
In the United States, at least, commercial speech is protected under the 1st amendment, but it is less protected than other kinds of speech. However, advertising being protected to some degree is beside the point of whether or not the NHL should allow gambling advertising to permeate a game broadcast.
 

Nick Lang

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May 14, 2015
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I don't really care. Just drumming up advertising revenue. Good money for the league. If it's not one thing it's another. We must teach our children how dumb it is and financially detrimental to get hooked on gambling. Just like anything else. I like that it's more in the public spere. People should be be educated.

I actually like it to some extent. I play small stakes every year and usually break even or win like $20 - $100 every year. I like numbers and those associated with sports so I like hearing the lines and odds. It's another way of saying which team is expected to win and which players to watch for. I find it thought provoking and adds to the experience.

Imo too many people like to get mad at all kind's of stuff. If you pay attention to the hockey portion it's no different than a broadcaster making a stupid analogy or relating some other useless tidbit of info. If it doesn't jive for you disregard it and watch the rest of the sport you tuned in for. Talk about first world problems.
 
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biturbo19

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Jul 13, 2010
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I despise every aspect the integration of gambling brings to the sport i enjoy.


It's bad on absolutely every single level of analysis other than "profit". And even that is potentially just a short term cash grab.
 

edog37

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Jan 21, 2007
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I will admit, when the NHL first started partnering with these gambling sites, I was excited about it because I liked sports gambling at the time. But as more time has gone on, I think it has become abundantly clear that it has caused massive detriments towards fans, players and the game itself. And this isn't just a NHL thing, it's all NA pro sports that are guilty of this.

Just a couple of examples:

1. The Jeff Marek situation was covered in another thread, but for a quick write-up of what happened, Marek was leaking draft picks in the 2024 draft and was fired for it. This kind of stuff has been done for years, but he was fired this time because of the gambling impacts of his leaks. The Nevada Game Control Board has questioned him for if he was using insider information to help people make money, which could result in him going to jail. He was doing what insiders have done for years, but now since the NHL is in bed with gambling, it could result in him getting arrested.

2. There is a large segment of fans who have become addicted to sports gambling and often harass players if their bets lose due to players. The most recent example (that prompted me to make this thread) was this situation with the Mariners:


This isn't a new thing either. I can't remember the exact player, but I remember a player had a clear path for a TD but went down to burn out the clock rather than score the TD. This caused the over/under to not be hit, so that player received a ton of death threats on social media because of it. It's disgusting behavior that is being fueled by addiction.

3. On a similar topic to the previous one, both players and fans are ruining their lives by getting addicted to sports gambling. You've had numerous players in all sports getting suspended, with some guys getting lifetime bans from the sport and losing their livelihoods. You can say "play stupid games, win stupid prizes" all you want, but these sports are actively encouraging people to gamble on their games. I have a friend whose brother has lost thousands to gambling and is in Gambler's Anonymous to get help now.

Nothing will ever change in these sports because they're getting a ton of money to get in bed with sports gambling, but I really feel like it's a massive detriment both towards the sport and to the fans/players of the sport as well. I used to love sports gambling like 5 years ago, but the oversaturation of it and the clear detriments of it make me wish these leagues never would have embraced it in the first place.
You do get people have been gambling on sports for as long as sports have been around. And if all the leagues pulled out of it today, it would still happen at the same level.
 

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