Emptying my notebook from NACDA: on gambling, big data and more

Good morning, and thanks for spending part of your day with Extra Points.

Thanks for being patient with me over the last few days. We faced a little adversity out there (a five-hour weather delay, jet lag, the constant sensory assault that is Las Vegas), but I am back in Chicago after NACDA…the biggest annual conference for folks who work in the college sports industry.

I love these events. They give me a chance to catch up in-person with friends and sources all over the country, get connected to new folks, and to remind all of my readers that I am, in fact, a real person who owns real pants and isn’t just a disembodied voice who sents emails early in the morning.

But when you’re going from meeting to meeting for 14 hours a day, you don’t have a whole lot of time to actually think.

Heaven knows I’ve got a stack of “to-do” emails a mile high, but before I dig into all of those, let me try to empty the notebook with a few of the general themes and takeaways I had from bugging people over the last few days…

The last time I was in Vegas for NACDA, I remember NCAA President Charlie Baker, preaching about the evils of college sports prop betting and the threats to athlete well-being…from a casino.

And then this time, of course, the huge news was the Texas Tech/Brendan Sorsby eligibility story.

Yes, I understand that there’s a huge difference between adults legally betting on blackjack, slots and Korean Baseball games or whatever, and current college athletes placing bets on their own team. But certainly we can all agree that it feels stupid to try to preach about moral high ground and guardrails right behind an actual sports book?

I asked around, and I was told that there’s a legitimate logistical reason for this, optics be damned. The NACDA convention is huge, and event organizers want a space that includes hotels and a connected convention center that can host the expos, breakout sessions, and everything else that goes with the event. The only two cities with multiple facilities that can support the event, I’m told, are Orlando and Las Vegas. The convention currently alternates between those two.

Personally, I think any city that can handle the NCAA Convention (like Phoenix, Indy, San Antonio, etc) could handle a massive gathering of sports information professionals, consultants and vendors, but I understand the rationale. Hopefully, the next time we get together to talk shop in the Sin City, it isn’t on the heels of another embarassing gambling-related news story.