In his first public comments since the Supreme Court paved the way for states to legalize sports betting, MLB commissioner Rob Manfred renewed calls for a so-called “integrity fee.” He said he felt the league should get a slice of the sportsbooks’ handle from all money wagered on games, although he lessened the prior demand for one percent.
During a panel at the Leaders Sport Business Summit in New York City and in an interview with a small group of reporters afterwards, Manfred said sports betting presented both “a fan engagement opportunity” and “a huge integrity risk.”
MLB and the NBA have been lobbying for a one percent cut, although Manfred acknowledged on Tuesday that the exact amount is “a negotiable number.” State bills would vary, but he hoped a precedent would be set creating some uniformity.
“We spend the money to produce the product. Gambling, sports betting operations are free-riding on that product. It’s our intellectual property at the end of the day,” Manfred said, adding:
“Even worse, they’re presenting a threat to the integrity of that product that will require us to spend money in order to protect that integrity. I just think it’s important to keep those fundamentals in mind.”
MLB hired Genius Sports in 2015 to provide its integrity monitoring services to scour through vast arrays of game and gambling data to detect untoward actions or trends. That company’s SportIM product also partners with the English Premier League, among other sports leagues and federations.
While NBA commissioner Adam Silver has suggested that a gambling platform theoretically could be integrated within an OTT service providing live game content, Manfred demurred on that front.
“Fan engagement is the big upside in this,” he said. “I don’t see our sport—and I can only speak for our sport—[having] direct participation in gambling activity at any point, but everyone recognizes that sports betting can be a source of fan engagement. And we’re going to try and capitalize on that opportunity.”
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Baseball’s history with gambling is checkered. Several members of the 1919 White Sox accepted money in order to throw that year’s World Series. Eighty years later, the league handed a lifetime ban to career hits leader and then Reds manager Pete Rose due to bets he had placed on baseball.
The very role of the commissioner was created in the aftermath of the 1919 scandal. That fact isn’t lost on Manfred, who will oversee the implementation of new guidance for players and clubs prior to the 2019 season. For now, MLB prohibits all gambling-related advertising, a policy Manfred said could be reconsidered but “with limits.”
Manfred had not personally weighed in on sports betting since the Supreme Court decision, with only the league’s official statement coming from the commissioner’s office.