Ninth International Conference on Sport & Society

Abstract

Historically, moral and social concerns about gambling have been influenced primarily by the interests of powerful institutions like governments and religious organizations. However, with the success of fantasy football, powerful sports media companies such as ESPN have realized that it is in their economic interests to engage audiences through the proliferation of activities, usually in the form of games, that surround sports. One result of this has been a recent push to legitimate and normalize betting on sports across many of ESPN’s platforms: from explicit discussions of gambling on TV and radio shows, to coverage of various betting activities on the ESPN website and app, to the creation of an entire website focused on gambling. These numerous platforms generally serve ESPN’s avowed purpose of being a lifestyle and not just a sports channel, and in this case they are being mobilized to transform engagements with gambling into natural, everyday activities. This represents a change in the way that influential bodies have attempted to shape perceptions of gambling. Whereas governmental and religious institutions have done so mainly through top-down rules or prohibitions, ESPN is using people’s everyday and mundane connections to its channel and brand in order to shift values surrounding this controversial cultural practice.