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Sports betting has not only made things complicated for athletes and professional sports franchises — see; Ohtani, Shohei and Porter, Jontay — but for broadcasters, as well, as ESPN (and formerly Fox Sports) now has its own sportsbook.
The issues with a platform as high profile as ESPN having its own sportsbook is obvious, as it allows for them to sway markets and sucker in bettors by using their paid experts and viewership reach.
That potential issue was highlighted on ESPN’s daily morning show Get Up! on Wednesday, as Adam Schefter, the network’s leading NFL insider, called ESPN Bet’s odds for the Chargers to trade up to select University of Michigan quarterback JJ McCarthy a gimmick.
“I looked into this a month ago and asked, ‘Could this be? Would anybody in Los Angeles consider taking JJ McCarthy with Jim Harbaugh saying he’s the best quarterback in this draft, the best quarterback in Michigan history, the best pro day he’s ever seen any player have.’ You couldn’t be any more effusive in a player in the way that Jim Harbaugh has spoke about JJ McCarthy,” Schefter told hosts Mike Greenberg, Ryan Clark, and Damien Woody.
“And the way it was told to me a month ago is that no new money in Justin Herbert’s contract has kicked in, to trade him would cost well over $100 million, which would be the largest cap charge in history. You’d be absorbing the largest cap charge in NFL history to trade one of the elite young quarterback talents. It doesn’t make sense for as much as you would get back. And I don’t understand how those odds have gone up like that. Is this some sort of gimmick?”
Adam Schefter throws cold water on Mike Greenberg using ESPN BET odds to push the idea that the Chargers could use their first-round pick on J.J. McCarthy and trade Justin Herbert.
“You’d be absorbing the largest cap charge in NFL history to trade one of the elite young… pic.twitter.com/a5x5KHncyF
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) April 24, 2024
This isn’t the first time that ESPN has found itself in a sticky situation thanks to its betting platform as college football and basketball host Rece Davis found himself under fire in March for saying one of their promoted bets was like a “risk-free investment.”
“You know what? Some would call this wagering, gambling; the way you’ve sold this, I think what it is, is a risk-free investment,” Davis said after an ESPN Bet segment with Erin Dolan.
ESPN Bet was created in partnership with PENN Entertainment following the company’s split with Barstool Sports.