OPINION: Growing acceptance of sports betting emphasizes Rose must remain banned from baseball

OPINION: Growing acceptance of sports betting emphasizes Rose must remain banned from baseball

Article brief provided by St. Louis Post-Dispatch
  • Dan Caesar, St. Louis Post-Dispatch
January 31, 2021 1:57 PM
  • Dan Caesar, St. Louis Post-Dispatch

The fast-tracking of legal sports betting in America is being fueled by a frenzy among media outlets, teams and leagues as they embrace a new, potentially huge, revenue stream. And this has created many business and ethical questions.

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A grandiose plan now in the works is for Sinclair Broadcast Group, which owns Cardinals, Blues and St. Louis University basketball telecaster Fox Sports Midwest, to incorporate sports wagering into its telecasts at a date to be determined.

The latest step came Wednesday, when Sinclair announced it will be renaming all the regional sports networks it owns nationwide under the Bally brand — the casino company with which it recently partnered to run the gambling end of its business. Thus FSM will become Bally Sports Midwest, probably by the start of the baseball regular season.

Since Sinclair unveiled its plans a couple months ago to incorporate gambling into its telecasts, where legal, there has been much discussion about Pete Rose’s situation.