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NFL frets as gaming gets closer

By GREG AUMAN

© St. Petersburg Times,
published August 31, 2001

The NFL has been steadfast in its desire to distance itself from any link to sports gambling, however indirect, but two new online contests are treading awfully close.

Sportsline.com, which produces the NFL's official site, unveiled a $1-million Office Pool Challenge this week. Fans pick winners of NFL games with a chance to win a cool million at the end of the season.

"We are recently aware of it, and we are looking into it," Brian McCarthy, the league's director of corporate communications, said Thursday. "We only saw this after it was released."

Beginning today, the contest has fans not only selecting winners, but picking against spreads commonly seen in betting lines, benignly referred to here as "winning margins."

There are loopholes that keep this from legally being deemed gambling: While entrants must pay $17 ($1 a week) to enter online, officially they are paying for "access to statistics and expert analysis," both of which are readily available online at no cost. Fans have the option of playing for free by visiting the site, copying the games in exact order and mailing an entry to the Fort Lauderdale company each week.

Sportsline spokesperson Alex Riethmiller said the two sides were discussing the matter and that the site would work to "do right by the NFL."

"As a partner with the NFL, this is something we are sensitive to," Riethmiller said. "We have worked with them in the past with this and will continue to work with them on it."

Sportsline's fantasy football page also offers a free "Office Pool Manager," which lets fans "say goodbye to the weekly headache of collecting picks, distributing reports and calculating finances."

Another contest, "King of the Hill," again makes use of point spreads and NFL games. The contest, also free by regular mail, is commonly called a "suicide pool" -- for $10 (again, to access stats and analysis), fans can pick one game each week in which they think a team will cover the spread. A miss means elimination. The remaining participant wins $5,000.

It sounds like sports gambling, something the NFL has shown little tolerance for any associations with. In December, the league asked Yahoo.com, which had provided live audio broadcasts of NFL games, to remove gambling-related advertising from its NFL page.

"We wouldn't want any situation where a fan could perceive any affiliation between us and gambling," McCarthy said at the time.

Sportsline also operates vegasinsider.com, a handicapping site that runs advertising for online wagering sites and offers "odds and analysis regarding sporting events."

With the number of fantasy football leagues increasing exponentially online, there's a blurring line between what is entertainment and what is gambling. Two years ago one study estimated $6-billion was wagered in workplace football pools each year.

It could be argued that Sportsline's contests do no more to encourage illegal activity than many sites do each March by posting printable brackets before the NCAA basketball tournament. Even an expert picker faces long odds to win the $1-million -- the fans who pick the most games correctly each week are entered in a drawing at the year's end.

TID-BYTES: Look for a newtampabaylightning.com to be unveiled Tuesday, with upgrades that include a daily behind-the-scenes video update. ... Ten "double-wobble bobblehead" dolls of Raymond, the Rays mascot, have sold at eBay.com since the giveaway on Aug. 12, all drawing at least $30. ... Only 13 percent of 65,000 voters in an ESPN.com poll on Thursday believed that San Francisco's Barry Bonds will break Mark McGwire's record of 70 home runs this season.

-- If you have a question or comment about the Internet or a site to suggest, e-mail staff writer Greg Auman at auman@sptimes.com.

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