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In 2015, the NFL stopped an attempt by Tony Romo to host a fantasy football convention at a non-gambling facility in Las Vegas. Three years after the Supreme Court opened the floodgates on nationally legalized sports betting, things have changed. Dramatic.
Gisele Bundchen, the wife of Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady, has joined DraftKings as a special advisor to the board of directors, via ESPN.com’s David Purdum. DraftKings operates sportsbooks across the country, having emerged as one of the leading providers of everyday fantasy in the years before.
It is not clear what Bundchen’s special advice to a sports betting company will be. Clearly, the NFL has quickly transitioned from treating gambling like a poisonous arachnid to letting a bucket of tarantulas crawl over The Shield.
Indeed, the news comes less than a week after the NFL released an unprecedented “tri-exclusive” (i.e, not exactly exclusive) a sportsbook partnership with DraftKings, FanDuel and Caesar’s. With DraftKings now an official NFL affiliate, chances are the NFL gave the nod of approval to hiring Bundchen as a special advisor to the board.
This is not to say that someone is doing something they shouldn’t. It’s just further proof of how the world has changed so significantly when it comes to the firewall that the NFL maintains between betting on its product and the integrity of its product. Just six years after the NFL, heavily armed media and players committed to attend the Romo event were because, egads!Happening in a building owned by a casino, a gambling company has given an important position to the husband of the greatest player in NFL history.
The firewall remains in place; players and coaches and officials must not be involved in gambling. However, it is getting thinner and the fire on the other side will continue to burn uncontrollably.