What A Mistake
Since I don’t watch college football, I was only tangentially aware of the Brendan Sorsby thing until this past week when he declared for the supplemental draft. Once it entered my zone of interest and thus compelled me to have a take on the matter, I finally bothered to look into it.
Here’s the crib notes for you readers who are also coming from a place of general ignorance:
-Texas Tech QB Brendan Sorsby was an expected top QB prospect for the 2027 draft.
-Sorsby checked himself into rehab in April for a gambling addiction right as an investigation is opened into him, where it is revealed he has placed thousands of bets on sports over the past several years, including many bets on his own team. You know, the ultimate DONT FUCKING DO THAT of sports betting. Otherwise known as The Pete Rose Special.
-The NCAA bans him.
-Sorsby files an injunction against the NCAA’s ruling in an attempt to remain eligible to play.
-In a surprising result, he wins. A local Texas court judge grants Sorsby eligibility and plops a wee little wrist slap 2-game suspension on him. The Ray Rice special.
-The rest of the college football world revolts against Texas Tech. Other schools begin to boycott Tech from their schedules. Tech stands by Sorsby. The rest of the Big 12 makes threats and makes moves to take action against Tech.
-The uproar becomes overbearing enough that Sorsby and Tech throw in the towel. Sorsby announces he is leaving for the NFL supplemental draft, making the entire fight irrelevant.
-Now Sosrby is the NFL’s problem. Well, if he gets picked. Which he probably will. Place your bets on when and where he goes!
There is a common relationship drama story where a cheating partner eventually decides to leave their loving family and permanently pick the affair partner, and everything goes horribly for them. It is hard to not wonder if sports officially shacking up with gambling instead of having them as a down-low side piece was an astronomical mistake that we may not be able to actually come back from.
Betting on games, your own games, was a permanent ban until this. We’ve crossed the Rubicon. I cannot see how any of this gets better. Sorsby is not an anomaly. He’s probably one of many. Many who are better at hiding it. People have commended him for admitting to his gambling problem but it’s clear from the timing that he used rehab as his pre-emptive shield to get out ahead of the investigation.
What I found especially infuriating was how hard it was to actually find a good timeline explanation of the case. If you search Sorsby right now, most of the hits you will get are fucking scouting reports trying to figure out what NFL team could use him and what his QB profile is like. This guy shouldn’t even be playing football anymore, and instead, we have draft dorks flocking to their computers to give us detailed looks into how he fits into the NFL.
We used to live in an era where joking about how games are rigged were just…jokes. A fun Buffalo Wild Wings ad campaign. The guy who sincerely believed it and ranted about it was considered a nutjob.The occasional real scandal a massive event. Now we are entering an era where more and more players are getting caught, the punishments are being cut back, and the leagues are trying to pretend they have integrity before cutting to a commercial break with 5 different sportsbooks. It feels disgusting to see ESPN talking heads scold Sorsby on his decisions on a segment sponsored by Draftkings. They need to cut this off and ban it all again, but the cat is out of the bag. They are making too much money.
Sorsby is the current worst gambling scandal. There’s a strong feeling that he’s going to feel quaint within a few years. I hope Sorsby doesn’t get picked in the Supplemental draft and his career is done. If he ever plays football again, it has to be years from now, after proving he’s changed. Sorsby might in some ways be a victim of the gambling culture we have cultivated, but we have to hold the line somewhere.
I would be VERY surprised if we don’t get some story about one of the big 4’s top 2-3 stars (like Mahomes, Wemby, Shohei, etc.) get caught live on the live TV broadcast during their own playoff game betting on themselves to make a season ending mistake, then making said season ending mistake (like Mahomes throwing a pick six to a wide open DB).
Live during a game? No. They don’t even have their phones with them on the sidelines. Any player caught on camera looking at their phone during a game would be excoriated. Even if they were just looking at anime tiddies or checking their socials.
In general, yeah that’s probably an inevitability at this point. Michael Jordan would absolutely bet on himself to hit some parlays then contorted the game to make it happen.
When players manipulate games, it doesn’t just harm the sport. It could also spell trouble for sports betting companies. Do the companies manipulate the odds?
Cleveland Browns’ next QB incoming!
I went to TTU during the Welker/Kingsbury as a QB years and I’ve always been proud of my alma mater, but this whole thing has me feeling gross. It’s indefensible and I’m kind of ashamed of it even though I haven’t been back to Lubbock in 20 years. When you alienate the people who want to root for you then you do permanent and lasting harm to the brand.
This will not end well. One wonders if congress will get involved like they did when they almost shut down college basketball in the 50s. Probably not, doesn’t seem congress’ style these days, but we’re likely heading towards a scandal that will sink a number of people and organizations, perhaps even entire sports without some time of federal intervention.
I do appreciate the the collective will of pretty much the rest of college football to stand up to the Sorsby situation and to Texas Tech’s disingenuous shouts of martyrdom. I dunno if kudos are in order, but I am somewhat heartened that some things are too dirty even for folks who gladly play in the mud. The most baffling thing about this, I think, is the fact that a state court set the parameters of a player suspension. Maybe that’s not a first, but it sure feels like it.
The Draw Play turned into a full-time yaoi manga so gradually, I didn’t even notice.
So, I was following this story more or less from the beginning. Your timeline is pretty good, but the key piece you’re missing is the federal lawsuit the Big XII filed this Monday (at midnight). Until that moment, Tech was all-in on Sorsby and fighting this. As soon as that happened, everything changed. And we have Texas AG Paxton’s stupidity in siding with Tech to thank for this.
I don’t think the Rubicon was crossed here because the outcry was SO universal, and the suit filed on Monday was SO complete, I think any person or school considering doing what Tech did is going to choose otherwise.
In Tech’s case, you had the perfect storm of the Big Money Booster who paid millions for Sorsby ALSO having bought his way into being the Chairman of Tech’s Board of Regents; the inmates were running the asylum. Otherwise, there’s no way this gets even as far as it did. Anyone with a brain could see that this was going to end badly for Tech.
Except see here’s the problem. The Big XII filed suit, but it’s now going to be dismissed as moot. The previous precedent stands, and that previous precedent is that it’s okay to gamble on your own team as you’re actively affecting the game.
Until that changes by some other newer precedent, the rubicon is crossed. It’s not only legal to bet on yourself, you can’t be banned for doing it.
Add this to the pile of criminal charges placed on football players this off season.
The problem with allowing any player to get away with this is that it sets the precedence that ANYONE can get away with it, so long as they’re good at football. People look up to these players, you know? Children look up to these players. Children who eventually grow up to become the next generation of players. Telling them at a young age that this sort of behavior is acceptable or even encouraged is a very, very bad road to travel down.
Sorby is a third round prospect, the seventh best QB. He’s not a top prospect
Credibility that is worth hundreds of billions of dollars being placed at risk.
I think once players starting get caught throwing games is when the NFL will start more harshly fighting against player gambling again.
(though the sportsbetting ads won’t go away until those are actually legislated away)
I still stand solidly by the idea that there is absolutely nothing wrong with betting on yourself to win and punishing that is stupid. Betting on yourself to lose, though..? Obviously immoral.
Yea I’m sure players do little under the table bets on games all the time. Wouldn’t be shocked if it came out that WRs and CBs are betting thousands on individual routes, or edges and tackles betting for every time the edge hits the QB
The problem with betting on yourself to win is that bookies and betting houses track patterns. Okay, so you bet on yourself to win. Fine. But what about the days you don’t bet on yourself to win? Now you’re sending information that the betting houses don’t have. Extend that to a whole team of players who are betting on themselves to win or not betting on themselves at all for that game. Now put it on all the players. Suddenly you’ll have whole sets of teams betting on themselves to win.. or not betting on themselves if they think they’ll lose.
That looks a lot like rigging a game to me, and absolutely will to anyone watching the bets and the odds. At that point, congratulations. You’ve ruined the integrity of the sport by calling into question whether the sport is legit. And even if they don’t bet on themselves to lose, their family members might. Because, hey, if the entire team isn’t betting on themselves to win, why not pick up a few extra bucks?
For this to work you have to operate on the assumption that players won’t play as hard if there’s not money on the game, but their job is still to make plays and if they don’t they could get benched, cut or other. Dudes are still going to ball.
jh isn’t saying these players won’t play hard. He’s saying the oddsmakers will notice when a player (or team) who regularly bets on themselves skips a game. The book will assume there’s some reason they’re not betting this time – like, say, an undisclosed injury. The oddsmakers will then adjust their odds to take that into account, and if the team loses people will believe there’s collusion between the player(s) and the book.
Essentially, betting on yourself – even if you only bet to win – is a form of insider trading.
The problem is that you will have players in debt to bookies
“This comic brought to you by Draftkings. Go Further…..Into Debt.”
Now taking bets for which year Sorsby signs with the Browns.