Every now and then I come across a news article that just cracks me up. You know, those ones where you can tell the reporter is tackling an issue they really have no idea about, and so you read along waiting for the inevitable unintentionally funny moments?

Well, the Politico published a story today that crossed that line.

The story's focus is about the lobbyists hired by sports leagues and the issues they are paid to target. It's really a well-intentioned puff piece that seems to be trying to take the angle of "lobbyists are people too", but somehow starts wading into issues and doesn't know how to escape.

The issues are the sports leagues' lobby efforts regarding steriods and online gambling, and they have definitely put in the effort. According to the article, the four major leagues combined to spend $2.6M lobbying Congress last year alone.

And you can not argue with the results. Maybe it's a nice spin-move by the lobbyists, but the NFL definitely feels it played a big part in getting the UIGEA enacted in 2006, and they are spending a lot of money trying to keep that law in place.

In fact, given the momentum that Barney Frank's regulation bill has been gaining and the fact that the financial industry is also lining up against the UIGEA, it could safely be said that should the UIGEA not get repealed, it will probably be because of the behind-the-scenes lobby effort by the NFL and other sports leagues.

But let's get to the funny parts, shall we?

One of the quotes I enjoyed comes from Joe Browne, executive VP of public affairs for the NFL, who says, "We don’t want to be used as a betting vehicle. We don’t want our games to be used that way."

Really?

That kind of talk makes me laugh out loud.

If nobody gambled on the NFL, not only would the ratings drop down to NHL-levels in America, but the league probably wouldn't exist at all.

But the part of the Politico story that made me snort coffee out my nose was the part discussing the NHL's stance on online gambling...

"On Internet gambling, hockey is taking its lead from the NFL because football has been 'aggressively following that issue'".

Now, that is funny. This is coming from a league that not only watched a prominent ex-player and assistant coach, Rick Tocchet, get implicated and convicted in a nationwide gambling ring that included NHL players, but then allowed him to return to the bench again as a coach.

Yup, that's strong anti-gambling leadership coming from the NHL right there.

Anybody who watches the NHL in Canada knows that one of advertisers of CBC's Hockey Night In Canada is PartyPoker, and anybody with a PartyPoker account can bet at its sister-site, PartyBets.

If the NHL really had any interest in stamping out online gambling, they could have a big effect right there. It's not like Hockey Night in Canada, the highest rated show on Canadian TV, could not find another advertiser to fill the slot. No, the NHL just doesn't care enough about the issue to make a stink about it.

The fact of the matter is that Canadian sports teams are slowly starting to take their cue from the European soccer leagues, which openly accept the idea of sports gambling.

Even the CFL, which features players that quite often have to find real jobs during the off-season, has a strategic advertising deal with Bowmans.com, one of the oldest and yet strangely least-relevant sportsbooks on the Internet.

I can't believe I'm saying this, but this is an issue where the NHL actually appears to be ahead of the times, and I applaud them for this.

Sure, the NHL appears to be playing both sides of the field here by taking a quiet political stance against gambling, while tacitly endorsing it every other chance they get, but in my opinion that is at least more realistic and less outrageous than the NFL's position of being stridently anti-gambling even while it earns major profits chiefly due to being the most gambled-on sport in America.

You know what would really be interesting? If Canada legalized gambling, and the NHL took a stand by embracing gambling much in the way European soccer clubs do. Not only would it be a great short-term promotional move by the NHL, but it would also drive longterm ratings.

Tuesday, March 25, 2008 10:37 AM
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