00:00 (upbeat music)
00:02 - Okay, so bad news here, Roger Goodell
00:05 in his press conference earlier in the week
00:07 said 25 NFL employees have been terminated
00:10 for violating the betting policy.
00:12 Were there any more specifics with that
00:14 or that was just part of the press conference?
00:16 - Yeah, he didn't get into specifics.
00:20 NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell
00:21 held this press conference earlier this week
00:24 with sort of a select number of different press people
00:27 from different outlets.
00:29 Some people have been kind of vocal about who was left out
00:31 or maybe he was trying to handpick questions,
00:33 but it was pretty interesting that even with
00:35 all that kind of oversight or the kid gloves
00:38 on the press conference,
00:39 he did get into four gambling specific questions.
00:41 One of them, like you mentioned,
00:43 that there've been 25 employees now fired
00:46 for gambling related charges.
00:48 Obviously the biggest one is the Jaguars
00:50 daily fantasy sports case
00:52 where you have the guy working for the team
00:53 who took millions away from the team
00:55 to use on fantasy sports.
00:57 But we didn't really know about all these other ones
00:59 that have gone unreported.
01:00 It means one, that the NFL has been relatively buttoned up
01:04 with whatever these charges were.
01:06 And two, probably that they weren't super significant.
01:08 But again, we don't know.
01:10 The NFL has rules whether for employees
01:12 that go a little farther than the players.
01:14 Obviously, if you're a player, you can't bet on the games,
01:17 you can bet on other sports.
01:18 But if you're an employee,
01:19 you can't use a betting app at a facility.
01:22 You can't really bet in general
01:25 while you're working for the team.
01:27 So it's interesting that he actually came out
01:29 and revealed this information.
01:30 I don't know that we'll get more,
01:32 but it is kind of a sign that the NFL is trying
01:34 to be forward facing on this gambling stuff,
01:37 especially with it in Las Vegas.
01:39 And it's important to remember that these rules
01:41 have also always been in place.
01:42 It's not something new we're talking about where,
01:44 oh, the NFL is getting all this money from the betting apps.
01:47 Now they're being hypocrites
01:49 and preventing their people from gambling.
01:51 These rules have always been in place.
01:52 Andy Reid came out during his press conference this week
01:55 and said, "As soon as we got off the plane,
01:57 "we were kind of bombarded with an NFL exec
01:59 "explaining to us all the rules about gambling,
02:01 "what you can and can't do in Vegas.
02:03 "The players aren't allowed to go to casinos
02:04 "or anything like that
02:05 "and spend money at the sports books."
02:07 And now that it's legal,
02:08 the NFL with their partnerships getting out in front of it.
02:11 So this is also the first Super Bowl in Las Vegas,
02:15 which previously was taboo.
02:17 You can even mention Las Vegas
02:19 when you're talking about the Super Bowl,
02:20 like you alluded to before,
02:21 all the people coming in to bet,
02:23 whether you're going to the game or not.
02:24 And it's just a stark change from the NFL stance.
02:26 And credit to them,
02:28 they've been one of the better leagues coming out
02:31 talking about how to deal with these investigations
02:36 or problems occurring like that.
02:38 But it also makes sense when you consider
02:39 how much money they make off sports betting
02:41 compared to the other leagues
02:42 and how much people bet on the NFL
02:44 compared to other leagues as well.
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02:48 (upbeat music)
