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Major League Baseball is deeply disturbed that its players are receiving death threats online. That MLB partners with sportsbooks and casinos are aggressively promoting gambling on its games certainly can’t have anything to do with such outrageous behavior, can it?
This is a very bad look for a professional sport that generated a record $12 billion in revenues in 2024 alone. When multi-millionaires who are able to make even more money by encouraging working stiff fans to engage in social vices they may not be able to afford, then turn around and feign outrage over the unpleasant side effects known to arise from such activities, hypocrisy isn’t the correct term to describe it. Exploitation gets far closer to the mark.
Like all big-time professional sports in recent years, Major League Baseball has completely gotten into bed with legalized gambling. Fans can place bets at the ballpark in Washington, DC. The official MLB website offers betting tip sheets. Locally televised games licensed by MLB include “parlay of the day” segments encouraging fans to make a bet with the club’s official sponsor, a sportsbook.
“Under the agreement, BetMGM signage will be prominently featured at Minute Maid Park. This includes a permanent outfield wall sign and rotational promotional messaging behind home plate,” a statement released by the Astros gushed.
It doesn’t stop there.
“Astros fans will have the opportunity to participate in a variety of VIP experiences exclusive to BetMGM customers. These include throwing out the first pitch, on-field access to batting practice, and VIP getaways for away games, among others.”
The Washington Nationals took their working relationship with BetMGM to the next logical conclusion: actual betting windows abutting the stadium.
“The BetMGM Sportsbook at Nationals Park is now open,” a page on the Nationals’ team website at this very moment crows. “Catch all the action and bet on your favorite teams at our 4,000 sq. ft. sports bar. With wall-to-wall screens, 6 betting windows, 17 kiosks, and our 40 ft bar, you can party and parlay with BetMGM daily from 11am to 12 midnight!
“Just steps from center field at Nationals Park, come see what makes BetMGM the King of Sportsbooks!”
MLB, the entity that famously featured a team hosting Ten Cent Beer Night for fans in the 1970s only to become shocked to discover that a riot was taking place in the stands, has another ugly situation brewing with its heavy promotion of gambling. But, hey, why blame yourself when you can point a self-righteous finger at the everyday fan instead?
Lance McCullers, Jr. is a pitcher for the same Houston Astros team described above. In 2021, he signed a 5-year, $85 million contract that has been widely regarded as a disaster for the team due to injury. On May 10, he made his second start of the season and, in fact, only his second since 2022. He was shelled, giving up seven earned runs while recording only one out before being yanked from the game.
This is the kind of situation as a whole that historically will get a player booed. Here’s where it gets irksome.
After his awful outing, McCullers promptly threw the entire Astros fan base under the bus by “revealing” that he and his family had received death threats. “I understand people are very passionate and people love the Astros and love sports. But threatening to find my kids and murder them is a little bit tough to deal with,” McCullers said.
“There have been many threats over the years, aimed at me mostly,” he continued. “But I think bringing kids into the equation, threatening to find them, or next time they see us in public they’re going to stab my kids to death, things like that, is tough to hear as a dad.”
It sounds horrific, and indeed it is. But what McCullers without a doubt knows, and what MLB indisputably is fully aware of, is that irrationally irate losing gamblers spouting off on social media are behind almost all such threats.
It happens every night a public sporting event is held that has a posted gambling line attached to it. A message of “kill yourself” to a player who has struck out with the bases loaded or missed a free throw at the end of an NBA game is a rather mild response on X, usually accompanied by a whine about “the last leg on my parlay” or something similar.
Yet McCullers painted a narrative of truly vile behavior by everyday Astro fans who just can’t understand that, hey, it’s just a game. His claim immediately drew national attention. His manager and the team backed him up 100%. And Houston sports writers did little to challenge the extremely flawed storyline.
“Loser behavior. Don’t go after players and their families,” one writer who covers the team posted onto X along with a clip of McCullers’ remarks. “This sucks, man. Lance should not have to deal with this,” another posted.
On June 2, the not-so-great mystery was solved. A drunk gambler from “overseas” had posted something stupid onto social media in a moment of anger.
“Investigators from [the Houston Police Department’s] Major Offenders Division spoke with the suspect, who said he had lost money betting on the Astros’ game and was ‘frustrated and inebriated’ when he made threats toward McCullers over social media, the HPD spokesperson said,” The Houston Chronicle reports.
That’s the “incident” that McCullers, he of the deeply unpopular $85 million contract, stretched into an imminent threat in order to malign Astro fans. It’s totally absurd on its face. Why isn’t he being called out for it?
This is the state of modern professional sports in America. The bloated landscape is often said to resemble the Roman circuses of antiquity but in the age of $700 million players that comparison no longer suffices. Cheering for these elevated-class athletes feels for all the world like rooting for one perfumed French aristocrat over another at a croquet match on a sprawling lawn outside Versailles circa 1780.