NCAA pushes to influence Senate sports betting bill

For decades, the leaders of college and professional sports did everything they possibly could to prevent the rise of regulated sports betting in America. Now that they’ve lost that fight, thanks to the Supreme Court of the United States of America, the professional sports leagues (NFL, NBA, MLB, and NHL) along with the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) are fiercely lobbying US Senators in an effort to make their voice the dominant one in any federal sports betting bill that might come up.
The NCAA has been particularly active in the lobbying department and is pressing hard on Senators Mitt Romney (R-Utah) and Chuck Schumer (D-New York) as they work through the early stages of drafting federal-level sports betting regulation, according to a report on ESPN.com and would love to see a prohibition on wagering on college sports. But, thanks to the general dysfunction of US politics, such a bill could be a long ways from actually becoming law.
NCAA vice president of hearing operations Naima Stevenson Starks told ESPN.com, “Certainly, if there were the ability to have some kind of carve-out on college athletics altogether, that would be something that I know most would be supportive of. Whether or not that would be something that the federal legislation that’s being proposed would do, given that states are already doing it, I think that might be a challenge for the bill potentially get passed, which is the ultimate goal.”
So the NCAA is in favor of a federal law regulating sports betting, and would like to see a ban on college sports as part of that bill, even though they know it’s not likely to happen.
As of this writing, no sports betting bills have been brought before the US Senate and none are scheduled for this year.