First it was bad enough that the announcers for the C.J. Cup from the Golf Channel were making gambling sound like total fun last week at Shadow Creek in Las Vegas.
Maybe they were getting free rooms at the MGM but they couldn’t top pretending that it’s easy to bet on golf and win! There are enough gambling addictions out there — kids and young adults watch the tournaments and they were getting genuine “encouragement” from Phil Blackmar and friends.
Now, they really got off the mark when they kept pimping Bibigo food products constantly during the broadcasts. “We’ve been feasting on the wonderful food from Bibigo,” Blackmar said more than a few times and the rest were right there with him.
There were Bibigo signs all over Shadow Creek and the viewers were inundated with Bibigo commercials. Hey, Korean food for everyone!!
But the Golf Channel was way out of line this go-round.
The incessant promoting of gambling was the worst and no one needed to hear the constant raving about the free food.
End of story — they’re all heading to our Dog House — no gambling and approved dog food only!
6 Comments
baxter cepeda
Gotta keep the sponsors happy.
I thought the food talk was ok and genuine. The signs were waaaaay toooo big; covering the manicured beauty of shadow creek. But Whatever on that.
The gambling talk is a total souls sell out to you know who.
Tom Edrington
Oh yeah and The Sheriff is all on board with the gambling stuff…Spending 10 years as a sports writer taught me to never bet on sports…
baxter cepeda
Make no mistake Ur still a sports writer Tom.
Just not for a newspaper, whom got their own problems.
Imo As a sports reporter you can have greater perspective from your couch than inside stinky locker rooms imo.
Being around sports I resist sports bets also (for the most part); but have been feeling the bug, and yes, these gambling odds on golf channel definitely influencing me more than anything.
Another issue is friends with the bet bug, knowing who I am, asking for golf and other sports betting tips. This puts me in a whole new moral issue because while I likely will resist gambling too much, my simple feedback could cause others close to me to further their gambling problems.
As you are trying to address with your modern day sports journalism; Sports betting consequences (from newly legal gambling) is a really big issue in the making.
Tom Edrington
I know what you mean Baxter — one of my friends who gambles a LOT, always asks me about my alma mater, East Carolina and I’ve given him some good tips on the Pirates that he cashed in on……I used to be on Jai alai when there was a fronton here in Tampa — I was buddies with their PR guy and he’d tell me which players were under the weather, which ones were fighting with their wives, which of the single guys had ladies coming to watch them and so on…..made money there but wasn’t a big bettor on it….I won $50 from one of our Tribune staff guys who bet me I couldn’t hit the front wall from the back of the court — the motion was a lot like lacrosse and I played at ECU, easiest bet I ever won….Hit the front wall then caught ball on first bounce back and hit it again with a backhand…..
baxter cepeda
Lol. Inside info on Jai alai.
Whats true is obscure sports gambling, lower division college gambling, counts just as much as big time Sports.
Tom Edrington
And it was good inside info!