Filed under: March Madness, Coaches, Gambling, Rumors, FanHouse Exclusive, NCAA Tournament, Sports Business and Media
Not long ago, the NCAA was strong-arming newspapers, and I use that word only because blackmail might be a legal term. The NCAA would go to newspaper offices demanding that the sports sections stop running betting lines. If not, their reporters might not get press passes to important games.That's how big of a scourge, how big a threat to the credibility of its games, the NCAA saw gambling to be.
Now, Ted Forstmann, CEO of IMG, is alleged in a lawsuit to have bet more than $170,000 on the 2007 NCAA men's basketball tournament alone. At the time, the IMG Coaches unit was serving as the agent for top college basketball coaches. Not only that, but also IMG was one month from announcing that it had purchased the company that would become known as IMG College, the biggest power player in licensing and marketing college sports.
Put it this way: Forstmann was allegedly gambling heavily on college sports at the same time he was negotiating to increase his role in the college sports world and become a major player.
Imagine what the NCAA higher-ups have to say about that. I asked them.
"The NCAA opposes all forms of legal and illegal sports wagering on college sports,'' Stacey Osburn, an NCAA PR person wrote in an e-mail. "Sports wagering has become a serious problem that threatens the well-being of student-athletes and integrity of college sports.''
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