I’ve spent the past 14 years reporting in the sports industry and during that time, I’ve become really interested in the way money shapes the experience of sports fans. I’ve seen a lot of industry changes during my career — the collapse of the cable bundle, the rise of private equity and the ambitions for global expansion. But as I write in my guest essay this week, I’ve never seen a change as all-consuming as gambling. When I started reporting, sports were still a part of the culture where people gathered around something larger than themselves. I felt that unity celebrating the Boston sports championships of the Red Sox, Patriots, Celtics and Bruins during my childhood. You could feel that unity in a stadium crowd or on a city street after a victory. Now, the shared space feels owned — not by fans or players, but by the people running gambling. It didn’t happen all at once. When sports leagues began embracing gambling in the last decade, they described it as a way to reverse falling television ratings and counter the rise of entertainment options like Netflix and social media. In The New York Times, N.B.A. Commissioner Adam Silver framed legalization as an opportunity to catch shady operators. League executives told me this was a way to meet fans where they were. But over time, the language of gambling became the language of fandom itself. We started talking about players like assets, games like investments and our emotions like bets to be hedged. I realized how much had changed when I walked through Manhattan the other day and saw a billboard flashing live odds for the New York City mayor’s race — updating in real time, as if democracy itself had become a casino. This isn’t just a sports story anymore. The culture of betting has escaped the arena. It’s in our politics, our entertainment and our daily conversations. I can’t help wondering what we lose when everything — even joy, even connection — becomes something to gamble on.
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