Would I write something that goes against my own thoughts and beliefs? Like, if some media operation came to me and said, “Hey buddy, we need you to bang out 1,500 words on this terrible, horrible, no-good thing. It’s bad. But you’re a good guy, a good writer, and you doing this isn’t really going to move the needle either way, so we just want to get this out there. You in?”
The answer, of course, would be a firm “no.” I’m not going to risk sullying my good half-decent name for someone else’s benefit. No thanks. Never. Not me.
“We’ll pay you $250,000.”
Uhhh, in that case…
Listen, I’m not an angel. Few of us are. I want to do good, write good things, and be a good person. I also want to feed my family, pay my mortgage, and eat sushi on a Wednesday just because.
Translation: I’ve got a price.
Does this make me an evil no-goodnik? Eh, maybe. But I’m sure I’m not alone. In the immortal words of AC/DC’s Brian Johnson: Money talks.
I was thinking about this — what’s my price? — after seeing Michael Porter Jr. say the quiet part out loud on the One Night with Steiny podcast earlier this week.
Porter Jr. is the older brother of Jontay Porter, who was banned for life from the NBA for his role in a gambling scheme. The scheme was basically this: People bet unders on Porter, Porter pulled himself from games, unders cash.
So there was Porter Jr. on the pod the other day, throwing out this — ahem — hypothetical situation: “Think about it, if you could get all your homies rich by telling them, ‘Yo, bet $10,000 on my under this one game. I’m going to act like I’ve got an injury, and I’m going sit out. I’m going to come out after three minutes.’ And they all get a little bag because you did it one game. That is so not OK, but some people probably think like that. They come from nothing, and all their homies have nothing.”
While Porter Jr.’s imagination is clearly below average — this is exactly what his brother did — throwing out the idea on the podcast was something else.
I mean, I cannot imagine the NBA brass is too thrilled with him talking about the possibility of other players pulling a Jontay.
But here’s the thing: Maybe they should be listening instead of fuming.
Everyone has a price
What he said was dumb, but it was also honest. The kind of honest that most*** people keep to themselves. (***See: My $250K offer. It stands.)
The American Gaming Association (AGA) just released a study that claims $84 billion was bet illegally last year. Legal online sports betting? Just under $150 billion, per InGame Intel. Which means illegal betting is more than half the size of the legal market. Who’s watching that for the Jontays of the world? And even stateside, legally, who’s keeping a close eye on Slovakian table tennis, Albanian darts, Saudi camel racing, boxing, cornhole, yada yada yada? Not the FBI’s A-team, of that I’m certain.
No sport is immune from the potential of bad actors doing bad things, even the big ones (see: Ortiz, Luis and Clase, Emmanuel). They aren’t accused of throwing games; they’re accused of throwing pitches.
The plumbing for corruption is already installed — legally, illegally, it doesn’t matter. All it takes is someone with the right mix of need, greed, and opportunity to turn the faucet.
If there’s sports, there’s gambling. If there’s gambling, someone’s looking for an edge. And if someone’s looking for an edge, eventually someone’s going to dive for the prize. That’s not cynicism. That’s humanity.
No shrugging
I’m not saying insert a shrug emoji and move on. But let’s at least admit the uncomfortable part, the part that Porter addressed: People have prices. Some low, some high. Some want to help their friends. Some just want the “bag” for themselves. And when life-changing money is on the table for doing something as simple as pulling yourself from a game or throwing a pitch in the dirt, a lot of people are going to think about it.
So, yeah, we can ban players, fine them, make examples of them. But for every Jontay Porter who gets nailed, how many others don’t? How many dart throwers or cornhole champs are pocketing cash in tiny markets that no one watches?
With the rise of the internet, we’ve built a betting buffet where you can wager on anything. The potential payouts are huge, oversight is thin, and plenty of athletes aren’t making yacht (or even sushi-on-Wednesday) money. Then we act shocked and surprised when someone starts stuffing the shrimp down their shirt.
If we actually want to fix this, maybe step one is dropping the fantasy that athletes are some kind of moral superhumans. They’re just like the rest of us. I already told you my number — $250K — for writing something I don’t believe in. That’s my “sit after three minutes” play. It also might be open to negotiation.
Money talks. Always has. Always will.
Until we own this uncomfortable truth, we’ll keep running the same play over and over: Catch the unlucky ones, pretend the system works, and look the other way while the next guy lines up his shot.
