To many of us particularly those with kids in sport cringe when we see gambling and alcohol adverts during major sporting broadcasts.
We have seen the clear evidence where betting has corrupted players, officials and entire codes so why are my alarm bells ringing when I read News Corp are signing off with a mega deal with a major world wide betting conglomerate when they have subsidiary companies running and influencing AFL and NRL codes.
These codes have been plagued with controversy with betting, drug and salary capping , match fixing issues in the past and this move will do nothing to cleaning up the reputations of these codes and officials who are trying desperately to put out fires and clean up their act.
Yes business is business and News Corp sinking share in the marketplace in core news has to be supplemented in other ways but the marriage of sports that set influence on our kids values and link that to gambling is not socially nor morally acceptable