SPORTS

redstatewatcher.com/article.asp?id=98038

B-B-B-Boom! Look how many viewers the NFL lost since opening weekend

10/5/17
The NFL has lost 2.5 million viewers since opening weekend.

NEW YORK (AP) — The National Football League is continuing a steady decline in audience, with its fourth week of games having the smallest audience on a weekend when some conservatives called for a boycott because some of its players used the national anthem to protest against police treatment of minorities.

The Nielsen company said Tuesday the weekend’s nationally televised games averaged 13.8 million viewers, down from 14.8 million the week before. Opening week registered 16.3 million viewers and the second week had 15.8 million.

These anthem protests could very well be a big smokescreen, to ultimately usher in legalizing sports gambling. Declining tv ratings, potential future declining attendance at games...the land is becoming desolate...

www.nj.com/politics/index.ssf/2017/06/supreme_court_agrees_to_hear_nj_sports_betting_case.html
U.S. Supreme Court agrees to hear N.J. sports betting case
Updated on June 28, 2017 at 12:10 PM Posted on June 27, 2017 at 10:01 AM
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By Brent Johnson and Jonathan D. Salant

NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Supreme Court agreed Tuesday to hear arguments on whether sports betting should be legalized at racetracks and casinos in New Jersey.

The justices, as is custom, gave no reason for agreeing to hear the appeal of a court decision that threw out the state's latest effort to legalize wagering on sports games. The case would be argued during the court term that begins in October.

The court in January had delayed a ruling on the case, saying it first wanted to hear what President Donald Trump had to say on the issue. His acting solicitor general, Jeffrey B. Wall, urged the justices in May not to take the case.

Wall said that New Jersey's efforts to get around the federal ban on sports betting by repealing state laws and allowing such wagering to proceed without regulation "is no different than a positive enactment authorizing such gambling."

The nation's highest court could make its announcement Monday.

Daniel Wallach, a sports gaming expert, said getting the nation's highest court to hear the case was the "No. 1 obstacle blocking New Jersey's path" because the court grants fewer than 2 percent of petitions.

"This is the closest New Jersey has ever been to legalized sports betting," said Wallach, a gaming and sports law attorney with Becker & Poliakoff in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. "This is a sea change in the whole movement surrounding sports betting in the U.S."

Wallach said if the court sides with New Jersey, sports betting could open at racetracks and casinos by next June, in time for the 2018 NFL season.

State officials have sought since 2011 to legalize sports betting to help revive the state's struggling racetracks and Atlantic City's struggling casinos. Estimates show $150 billion is illegally bet on sports games each year in the U.S.

But the National Collegiate Athletic Association and the four major professional sports leagues -- Major League Baseball, National Football League, National Basketball Association and the National Hockey League -- have sued to stop them, even as some of the leagues have partnered with daily fantasy sports operations.

At issue is a 1992 law that banned sports betting in all but four states, Delaware, Montana, Nevada and Oregon.

New Jersey's latest setback came in August 2016, when the U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia ruled in a 10-2 decision that sports betting is "clearly and completely legally prohibited" under federal law.

State Sen. Raymond Lesniak (D-Union), the lawmaker who has led New Jersey's fight, said he now is "very confident" of the state's chances of prevailing.

"I've been knocked down five or six times," said Lesniak, a 40-year legislator who is set to retire from the state Legislmature in January. "You get a little groggy. But I never give up. And I expect to win."

State Assemblyman Ralph Caputo (D-Essex), who has worked with Lesniak on the matter, said the fact the court accepted the case bodes well for the state.

"If they had denied it, there would be no discussion at all," Caputo said. "This is very promising."

State Sen. Joseph Kyrillos (R-Monmouth), another sponsor of the sports betting legislation, said legalizing such wagering would "spur economic growth and bolster our long beleaguered equine industry."

"These decisions should be made at the state level," Kyrillos added. "That's why this is an important case not only for New Jersey, but for every state in the nation."

Indeed, experts say a ruling in favor of the Garden State could open the door for states across the country to pass laws allowing such wagering.

Arizona, Louisiana, Mississippi, West Virginia and Wisconsin have all joined New Jersey's effort to have the case heard by the Supreme Court.

The casino industry earlier this month announced a new American Sports Betting Coalition to try to get Congress to repeal the 1992 law and leave it up each individual state to decide whether to allow such sports betting.

In addition, U.S. Reps. Frank LoBiondo (R-2nd Dist.) and Frank Pallone Jr. (D-6th Dist.) have introduced legislation to allow New Jersey to have sports betting.

"The citizens of New Jersey overwhelmingly support legalized sports betting and acted in a referendum to show that support," Pallone said. "Both Congress and the Supreme Court should respect these actions."

LoBiondo called Tuesday's court action "a long time coming."

"I have long argued that legal sports betting will have a significant and positive impact on South Jersey, bringing tourism and tax revenue to the state and reinvigorating Atlantic City," he said.

The casino industry's trade group also welcomed the court action. Geoff Freeman, president and chief executive of the American Gaming Association, which has launched a national campaign to legalize sports betting, said he hoped it would "provide further encouragement for Congress to take the steps to create a regulated sports betting marketplace."

The cases are 16-476, Christie et al v. National Collegiate Athletic Association et al, and 16-477, N.J. Thoroughbred Horsemens Association v. National Collegiate Athletic Association et al. They will be consolidated before the high court.

www.washingtonpost.com/sports/poll-for-first-time-majority-of-americans-approve-of-legalizing-sports-betting/2017/09/26/a18b97ca-a226-11e7-b14f-f41773cd5a14_story.html?utm_term=.31dca5b1edc2
Poll: For first time, majority of Americans approve of legalizing sports betting
9/26/17

With the U.S. Supreme Court expected to hear arguments soon on a case that could upend the country’s sports gambling laws, for the first time most Americans support making wagering on professional sports legal, according to new poll conducted by The Washington Post and the University of Massachusetts Lowell.

A 55-percent majority approve of legalizing betting on pro sporting events, a flip from almost a quarter century ago, when a federal law went into effect banning the practice in most of the country and 56 percent of Americans disapproved of legalization in a Gallup/CNN/USA Today poll.

While the issue has been debated for decades, the coming months figure to be pivotal for sports gambling in the United States. With the Supreme Court agreeing to hear arguments on the state of New Jersey’s efforts to legalize sports wagering, major stakeholders from the professional sports world increasingly have showed an openness to the idea, and some see a growing sense of inevitably surrounding an issue that was contentious and divisive not long ago.

“Literally, we’re at the 1-yard line, and it’s first-and-goal,” said Daniel Wallach, a sports gaming law expert and attorney at Becker & Poliakoff in Fort Lauderdale. “That’s how close it is.”

The American Gaming Association is scheduled to hold a briefing on Capitol Hill on Wednesday, and public sentiment appears to have moved in a direction that could make it easier for the courts or lawmakers — or both — to reconsider federal legislation that largely limits sports betting to Las Vegas. According to the new poll, the increase in support is broad-based and cuts across most demographics, with support among men and women, young and old and those from lower- and higher-income households.

According to the Post-UMass Lowell poll, just more than 1 in 5 sports fans (21 percent) have bet on professional sporting events in the past five years, and they’re more likely to be avid sports fans, men, pro football fans, nonwhites, and under 40 years old.

Support for legalization is highest among the those who’ve placed a sports bet in the past five years (84 percent), and is nearly as high among fans who have played in a fantasy sports league (79 percent), avid sports fans (70 percent), men (63 percent), people with household incomes of $100,000 or more (61 percent) and pro football fans (60 percent).There’s little partisan difference on the issue, with 52 percent of Republicans and 57 percent of Democrats in support of legalizing sports gambling.

Opposition to sports gambling appears to be fading with older generations. In 1993, 29 percent of Americans ages 50 and older supported legalizing sports gambling, as did 48 percent of adults below that age. Today, 46 percent of those over age 50 support legalization, rising to 62 percent of people ages 18 to 49.

The evolution in public sentiment reflects a similar shift from many of the major decision-makers throughout the sports world, an industry in which gambling was once considered a cardinal sin. Professional leagues have either pivoted on the issue or at least made moves to acknowledge change could be afoot. The NHL will open its next season with a franchise based in Las Vegas, and the NFL’s Oakland Raiders will be relocating there as early as 2019. NBA Commissioner Adam Silver has openly discussed legalizing gambling, as has Major League Baseball, which has partnered with Genius Sports, an integrity company that monitors baseball wagering.

“We’re in the process of talking to our owners and figuring out where we want to be in the event that there is in fact a significant change coming,” MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred said in July.

The evolving fan sentiment signifies a remarkable shift. Historic Gallup polling from 1951 found 38 percent favored national legalization of gambling on “horse races, lotteries and numbers,” and gambling overall has gained public support in the decades since then. A 1994 Public Perspective examination of public opinion found that while gambling grew in support, support for sports betting did not. By the end of the 1980s, in fact, fewer accepted sports gambling than they did at the beginning of the decade — coinciding with Pete Rose’s lifetime ban from baseball in August 1989 after it was found he gambled on the sport.

In 1992, Congress passed the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA), which banned sports betting in all but a handful of places. But gambling proponents say hundreds of billions of dollars are wagered on sports illegally each year in an unregulated market, and in the 25 years since PASPA was signed into law, outlets for gambling have become only more accessible.

“As our industry expanded, we confronted a lot of fears, a lot of concerns, and what time has shown is that those fears and concerns were often misplaced,” said Geoff Freeman, the president and CEO of the American Gaming Association.

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truthfeednews.com/its-official-the-nfl-is-the-most-unpopular-sport-in-america/

IT’S OFFICIAL! The NFL is the Most Unpopular Sport in America
Culture By Eren Moreno October 7, 2017

According to a new poll, the NFL has gone from America’s number one sport to the least liked of top professional and college sports.

This is all thanks to NFL players, coaches, and owners constantly protesting the National Anthem, despite their fans telling the league to protest on their own time.

From the Washington Examiner

From the end of August to the end of September, the favorable ratings for the NFL have dropped from 57 percent to 44 percent, and it has the highest unfavorable rating — 40 percent — of any big sport, according to the Winston Group survey provided exclusively to Secrets.

Worse for football, which was already seeing lower TV ratings and empty stadium seats, the month of protests and complaints about them from President Trump drove core fans, men 34-54, away, the most significant indicator that NFL brass aren’t in touch with their base.

The Winston Poll from the Washington-based Winston Group found that the attitude of those fans went from an August rating of 73 percent favorable and 19 percent unfavorable to 42 percent favorable and 47 percent unfavorable, a remarkable turn against the sport.

According to the poll analysis, “more critically for the NFL, the fall off in favorables occurred among important audiences. Among males, NFL favorables fell 23 percent, going from 68 percent to 45 percent. In looking at a more specific audience, males 34-54, NFL favorables fell 31 percent, going from 73 percent to 42 percent. Among this group the NFL has a surprising negative image, as it went from +54 percent in August to -5 percent in September.”

The Winston Poll was of brand images for the NFL, Major League Baseball, the National Basketball Association, and college football and basketball. It was of 1,000 registered voters and taken August 29-30 and then again September 28-29.

In August, baseball had the highest favorables, just a few points above the NFL.