NCAA athletes are being subjected to widespread public abuse on social media, reports the college athletics association, with much of the vituperation coming from “angry sports bettors.”
In an extensive study published on Thursday in partnership with Signify Group, the NCAA reported that it found more than 5,000 public social media posts sending abuse directly to college athletes, coaches or officials over the space of a few months.
In particular, the report found that around 12% (743) of the messages were directly tied to sports betting based on the language used in the posts. However, the report added that, “deeper analysis suggests that much of the abuse in other categories (e.g., sexism, racism, etc.) was influenced by sports-betting behaviors, creating overlapping abuse targeting student-athletes and officials.”
The study’s timeframe encompassed the College Football Playoff, the March Madness men’s and women’s basketball tournaments, baseball and softball’s College World Series and various other athletics competitions. March Madness, often cited as one of the busiest times for online sports betting, accounted for more than seven in 10 of the comments that were attributed to “angry sports bettors” by the research authors.
The study defined “angry sports bettors” as those who “engage in problematic and intrusive communications due to match events and results contradicting bettors’ predictions.”
Women received 59% more abusive messages than men. The abuse on sites and apps including X, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok included sexual, racist and homophobic comments as well as allegations of match-fixing and cheating. Signify’s research on social media harassment in global sports found that “angry sports bettors” fuel as much as 45% of all abuse surrounding some major tournaments.
Signify Co-Founder and CEO Jonathan Hirshler told ESPN that sports betting-related messages make up significantly more abuse directly towards athletes than it did several years ago when the company first started monitoring social media.
“I think it’s important for all of us to work together to try to find ways to mitigate this,” he said. “I’m not naive enough to think we’re going to make this all go away, but I think we should be willing to work together to come up with ways to help.”
Report only looked at abusive public posts, not DMs
The NCAA even shared some of the messages the report had reviewed.
In one, an X user posted, “Yo no big deal but if you don’t get 22 points and 12 boards [rebounds] everyone you know and love will be dead.”
“Just bet on women’s basketball for the first time,” read another message that had a player or team’s social media handle tagged. “Let’s go [redacted name], f*** you piece of s***.”
“I am in Cleveland and I’m gonna wait for you outside the arena to beat the f*** out of your knees with a spiked baseball bat [redacted tagged user] b***&*,” posted another X user.
Other messages included calls for college athletes to send bettors money as perceived recompense for their losses.
It’s worth bearing in mind that these, and all of the messages reviewed by the study, were only posts and comments that were sent into the public domain on social media. The study does not account for direct messages, where Signify suggested the abuse would likely be worse.
The company said that even among the public posts, some were deemed serious enough to warrant the involvement of law enforcement.
NCAA looking to take action
The NCAA is continuing its call for stronger action to be taken.
NCAA President Charlie Baker said last year, at the time that this pilot study was announced, that it was just “the start of much broader online protection measures the NCAA will put in place to guide our longer-term strategy in this crucial space.”
Baker has been a vocal proponent of restrictions relating to betting on college sports. He notably called for all legal betting states to implement bans on individual college player props, a call which was heeded by regulators in states such as Ohio, Maryland, Vermont and Louisana.
The NCAA chief told ESPN that the NCAA is talking with sportsbooks about limiting individual prop bets on college athletes and is working toward other solutions.
