So, this Shohei Ohtani story is pretty crazy, huh? I will likely address it in a full post at some point, but right now I’m waiting until we have slightly more information. For now, though, I’m wondering if the real important gambling scandal from last month was over in the NBA, with Jontay Porter. In some ways, it’s like the complete inverse of the Ohtani story:
While Ohtani is the biggest baseball star in the world, Porter is a fringe NBA player. He was undrafted in 2019 and spent the last two seasons in the G League — before this story broke, he was best known as Michael Porter, Jr.’s brother.
Ohtani just signed a $700 million contract; Porter is on a two-way deal with the Toronto Raptors for $415,000.
Unlike the Ohtani scandal, which involves a federal investigation into an illegal bookmaker, the Porter scandal involves a private investigation initiated by proprietary information from the DraftKings Sportsbook, which is an official NBA partner.
The Ohtani the story involves his translator placing “at least $4.5 million” worth of bets on sports ranging from international soccer, the NFL, the NBA, and college football; the Porter story involves bets of a few thousand dollars on player props involving a reserve on a team that has already been eliminated from playoff contention.
In other words, everything about the Ohtani story feels like a major, attention-grabbing scandal. Millions of dollars in wire transfers! A strikingly personal alleged betrayal! An international superstar! And everything about the Porter story feels incredibly niche. I mean, how degenerate of a gambler do you have to be to bet on Jontay Porter three-pointer unders?
And yet, if you told me before this month that a major gambling scandal would hit American pro sports, I would assume it would have looked like the Porter scandal. I would assumed it would have involved obscure bets placed on some relatively anonymous player.
The Ohtani story actually feels like something that could have predated the recent rise in sports gambling, since it involves a federal investigation into an illegal bookie. But the Porter scandal is exactly the kind of thing that you have to worry about with the rise of gambling apps and leagues partnering with sportsbooks. We don’t have all the facts about either of these stories yet, and the Ohtani thing will certainly consume more attention in the coming weeks just because of how big a star he is, but I suspect Porter’s story may have a greater long-term impact on pro sports.
Alright, here’s everything from Undrafted this month:
AUDIO
The podcast came back! We had two March Madness preview episodes, one with co-host James and the second with special guest Tim Britton:
We also had an interview with Kevin Baker, author of the new book, The New York Game: Baseball and the Rise of a New City
WRITING
The fact that so many people can plausibly claim the title of “Worst Owner in Sports” should make us question the utility of private ownership in the first place…
A leftist critique of the Obama Administration, through the lens of his bracket strategy.
Is wage labor really so much better than phony amateurism? I guess, but neither seems like a great deal to me!
VIDEO
If you’re not already subscribing to the Undrafted YouTube page, you’re missing out on some new content there, specifically a series on baseball myths (sort of a continuation of these two pieces from last year). Here’s one of those videos, on the legacy of Brady Anderson:
That’s all for now… See you all in April!