The NCAA has pulled all 2013 championships from the state of New Jersey after a law was enacted that allowed gambling on professional and collegiate sports.
“The law in New Jersey requires that we no longer host championships in the state,” said Mark Lewis, NCAA executive vice president of championships and alliances in a statement. “We will work hard in the days ahead to find new suitable host locations which will allow the student-athletes to have the best possible competitive experience.”
“Maintaining the integrity of sports and protecting student-athlete well-being are at the bedrock of the NCAA’s mission, and are reflected in our policies prohibiting the hosting of our championships in states that provide for single game sports wagering,” the statement added.
The rule affects several sports, but includes specifically the Zone A Diving meet, that is a qualifier for the NCAA Championships. The meet was scheduled to be hosted in Piscataway, New Jersey at Rutgers University, but now will have to find a new host.
The rule is in effect to keep gamblers from trying to influence the outcome of college games: seen as more of a risk in amateur athletics because the athletes are not paid the way that professionals are. The most common issue with gambling on college sports has come in basketball, where there have been several high-profile “point shaving” scandals that involve players affecting the amount their team wins a game by to land the results on one side or the other of a point spread.
In August, the NCAA and four major professional sports leagues (MLB, NBA, NFL and NHL) sued New Jersey state officials in federal court seeking to stop the state from implementing sports wagering. The suit is not yet completed.
Officials from the state of New Jersey called the move “ludicrous and hypocritical” in comments to the Associated Press. They pointed out that sports gambling already happened in New Jersey, it had just been through illegal channels like independent “bookies” or internet sites.
Other events affected by the ban in 2013:
- Division III Wrestling Championships, East Regionals (Ewing, March 2)
- Division I Women’s Basketball Championship, Trenton Regional (Trenton, March 30-April 2)
- Division III Men’s Volleyball Championship (Hoboken, April 26-28)
- Division II and III Women’s Lacrosse Championships (Montclair, May 18-19)
The NCAA should be supporting legal sports betting, because it would help drive out the $billions spent thru illegal bookies. Just as legal casinos closed down most illegal gaming, as casinos were introduced in many states over the past 34 years, the same will happen with sports betting. Legal books can easily spot large swings in betting and are more capable of discovering illegal activities, than the present oversight by the NCAA.
Damn, I was all ready to strong-arm some of those divers when the meet was in New Jersey. Now I’ll never be able to find them.
If the NCAA really cared about this type of thing, they’d have to play March Madness games on the moon.
Yeah, but if they did, all swim teams (T&F, Wrestling, etc. as well) would have to be dropped because of the increased costs to send the basketball teams into orbit. Lets not give “the brain trust” (and I use that term in the loosest sense of the word) any ideas here…
Might be the only way to get our space program going again.
Well done NJ officials, stifling the development of some age groupers in multiple sports with this. By NCAA trying to protect its sports and student athletes by takin them out, local kids miss out on the opportunity to watch great young athletes compete, some from their states, cities and even neighborhoods. Though not the same, look at Nebraska State swimming on the men’s side when our team got cut. Sure there are several outstanding swimmers, but the depth is not there when they don’t have a local univ. to look up to. Schedule problems or not, these are rare opportunities for youth sports.
Will be interesting to see how this plays out. The NCAA diving meet is making a mess of the New Jersey age group schedule as it happens right in the middle of championship season. NJS relies heavily on Rutgers for use of the aquatics facility during this time.