Citations Needed31 Heinä 2024

Episode 206: How the Gambling Industry Swallowed Sports Media Whole

"Legalize and Regulate Sports Betting," NBA Commissioner Adam Silver wrote in The New York Times in 2014. "NFL Betting Promos & Bonuses | Top NFL Betting Sites & Offers for Week 9 NFL Odds & More," USA Today offered readers in 2023. "Bookmakers break down NBA, NHL playoffs, big bets," reads a June 2024 Fox Sports headline.

It's not an exaggeration to state that, since its legalization in 2018, sports betting and other forms of sports gambling have all but taken over American sports media. Increasingly, over the last six years, leading sources on sports news, including ESPN, Fox Sports, CBS, and NBC, have signed multi-million and billion-dollar agreements with major players in the sports betting industry, and launched suites of gambling-themed verticals, podcasts, and series designed to urge viewers and listeners to keep placing their bets, no matter the social costs.

These media platforms claim to reason that, amid a shifting media landscape where cable channels struggle to adapt to the streaming era and legacy newspapers hemorrhage advertising revenue, partnerships with sports gambling companies help keep them afloat. But what does it mean when sports media are beholden to betting companies? Given the predatory nature of the industry, and the clear conflict of interest of sports media also being gambling pushers, what are the social and political costs to shifting sports from an admittedly already very flawed entertainment business, to a widespread peddler of increasingly unsustainable and gimmicky gambling opportunities? On this episode, we examine how sports media in the U.S. have increasingly embedded themselves in the exploding online sports betting industry. We look at the corrosive effect this has on sports coverage, the glaring conflict of interest this generates, and the moral hazards of a media climate (and state and local governments) that welcomes with open arms a regressive tax pushed by a notoriously rapacious and exploitative industry.

Our guest is, friend of the show, The Nation's Dave Zirin.

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Ep 245: The Authenticity Affect (Part III) - Left Politics as Effete, College Kid Artifice

In part 3 of our three-part series on the uses and misuses of "authenticity" in political media, we examine the popular media trope that progressive politics are exogenous to core Democratic constitue...

7 Loka 1h 20min

News Brief: 2028, Israel's Progressive Rebrand and the Risk of "Genocide" as Rhetorical Box Check

6 Loka 30min

Ep 244: The Authenticity Affect (Part II) - The Dopey, Power-Flattering, Media-Created "Maverick" Politician

In Part 2 of our 3-part series on the uses and misuses of "authenticity," we examine the media obsession with "political mavericks" who "buck party orthodoxy"—almost aways with either trivial interven...

30 Syys 1h 8min

Ep 243: The Authenticity Affect (Part I) — Whistlestop Tours, Smarm, and the Art of Channeling 'Folk'

In part 1 of our 3-part series on the uses and misuses of "authenticity," we examine the Real America "listening tour," its propaganda utility, and how it uses the superficial aesthetics of rural simp...

23 Syys 1h 26min

Ep 242 - The Disempowering Politics of 'Inevitability' Part 2: US Empire as Mysterious, Teleological Force

In this episode, we discuss how circular "inevitability" arguments have been used for centuries to justify war, expansionism and perpetual hostility — most recently against China. Our guest is organiz...

19 Elo 1h 16min

Ep 241 - The Disempowering Politics of 'Inevitability' Part 1: Data Centers and LLM as 'The Future'

In this episode, we breakdown the popular "inevitability" argument AI companies are using to bulldoze over democracy and how the "inevitability" line has been used to sell everything from Manifest Des...

12 Elo 1h 28min

News Brief: Very Serious New Yorker Article Launders Biden Officials' Responsibility for Gaza Genocide

In this News Brief, we are joined by Kaleem Hawa to discuss David K Kirkpatrick's 10,000 word PR job that feigns criticism of Biden officials, but ultimately serves to distance them from the horrors o...

29 Heinä 41min

News Brief: Why US Media Has Evoked Israel's "Right to Exist" 1,001 Times vs Only 6 For Palestine

In this News Brief, we dissect the Orwellian phrase "right to exist," why it only applies to Israel, what purpose it serves, and why Palestinians are never said to have such a right.

15 Heinä 28min