Written by David Purdum at ESPN.com
Former Major League Baseball commissioner Fay Vincent believes that legalized sports betting in the United States would be one of the biggest developments in sports since the introduction of television.
And he thinks it’s coming soon.
In July, Vincent wrote a letter to the editor in The New York Times, responding to a story about the ongoing effort to sell the Miami Marlins. He noted that the story “doesn’t report the possibility that legal betting on all major sports is not far off. The anticipated flood of revenue to baseball team owners may explain the price being asked, $1.2 billion.”
Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria, who put the team up for sale earlier this year, originally asked for $1.6 billion, but the price has been cut to an estimated $1.2 billion, according to The New York Times. Even at the reduced price, the value of the Marlins — along with most pro sports franchises — has skyrocketed in the past 15 years. Loria purchased the team for $158 million in 2002. He’s now asking eight times as much.
“I know that [gambling] is precisely why these prices are going up,” Vincent told ESPN in a phone interview this week. “I’ve been really astonished and can’t believe, with the amount of money that’s going to flow to sports if gambling is permitted, that it’s not a subject of interest. And no one seems to be paying attention.”
Vincent said the Supreme Court’s decision in June to hear New Jersey’s appeal to legalize sports betting at the state’s casinos and racetracks is a “very big” case. He believes that New Jersey has a good chance of prevailing over the NCAA and four major professional leagues, which sued Gov. Chris Christie in 2012 to stop the state’s efforts.
Oral arguments are expected in the late fall or early winter, with a decision coming in the spring of 2018.
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