In Liga MX, Chivas are good and sports betting is legal (the Xolos play at a casino). In MLS, this is considered a play on the ball. Get out of the way, Marvin!!
by Matt Hoffman
Sports betting is a huge industry.
In England, it’s not uncommon to see betting sites in team’s previews, team’s kits, or even sponsoring the entire league for that matter. North of the border, Ladbrokes just secured a deal to sponsor the Scottish league.
Of course sports betting exists in the United States. It’s just a soggier prospect here. For instance, the NBA forbid the Maloof brothers’ casino’s sportsbook–The Palms in Las Vegas–from letting people place bets on the Sacramento Kings.
That’s not entirely a bad thing. I’m not about to take the high ground and suggest that gambling is good or evil. It just seems to reside with the sport across the world for better or, in the case of Italy, for worse.
Times have changed, if only marginally. NBA Commissioner Adam Silver recently wrote an op-ed in the New York Times noting:
“Outside of the United States, sports betting and other forms of gambling are popular, widely legal and subject to regulation. In England, for example, a sports bet can be placed on a smartphone, at a stadium kiosk or even using a television remote control.”
Silver suggests that in light of the winds of changing blowing, gambling laws should be changed. He’s not the first, but certainly the most high-profile, person to say this.
Of course Silver has limited, if any, control of overseas Sportsbooks. American sportsbooks exist in Nevada and certain other pockets of the United States. Then there is online betting which exists but has dried up following the passage of the 2006 law effectively shutting down online sportsbooks and poker.
In that law a critical loophole existed : Games of “chance” were deemed illegal, however games of “skill” were not. In this loophole laid the seeds for legalized sports gambling under the guise of fantasy sports; the “same-day fantasy sports leagues” such as MondoGoal and Draftkings.
It is no mere coincidence that Silver’s op-ed came the day before the NBA took an ownership stake in FanDuel.
Major League Baseball has similarly partnered with DraftKings with MLB’s Commissioner Rob Manfred saying in his Opening Day remarks:
“We see DraftKings as a form of fantasy baseball akin to the traditional fantasy that has been a part of our game for years and years. We’re comfortable that the games on DraftKings are on the right side of the legality line. We see it as a continued growth of the fantasy activity.”
Manfred is correct when he speaks about the growth of fantasy sports. Fantasy sports have created a billion dollar industry bringing in new fans and, perhaps more importantly, new streams of revenue. Media sites like ESPN, Yahoo!, and SportsLine (CBS) are but three of the websites offering fantasy games.
The leagues themselves are cashing in on the fantasy bubble, offering their own leagues.
Yahoo! pulled their MLS Fantasy site on April 20th, a month after the 2015 MLS season began
Outside of the league, Major League Soccer doesn’t have much of a fantasy presence.
In fact its only third party fantasy vendor–Yahoo!–pulled the plug on its fantasy league just a few weeks into the season.
It’s pretty easy to see why fantasy works for other sports. It just takes a mere glance at the box score to get an idea of the performance of your player.
Your guy had three home runs? Probably had a good game. Your quarterback who got picked four times? Probably not so much.
Gambling will be a topic for a future post, for now, let’s just speak about “fantasy soccer”.
“Fantasy Soccer” as it were, is a bit harder. In fact, it’s a lot harder. It’s a sport where we hope (but certainly don’t expect) the two teams to combine for three goals in the contest.
To overcome this there are over twenty different discrete acts a player can do–or have done to him–that will affect his score. Then there are asterisks which provide various bonuses, penalties, and other contingencies.
It’s easier to do my taxes than to score a fantasy MLS game. And actually, probably more fun. But its mirrored exactly from the Barclays Premiership Fantasy system so it’s got to be cool, right?
But the real tragic flaw of the MLS fantasy setup is the incredible lack of options. Consider:
Player acquisition: To cap things off–pardon the pun–it’s a salaried cap league. In other words, you have a salary cap to work with and you have to fit as many players as you can within that cap. The values of each player are predetermined and you don’t have any “ownership” of the players.
That is, say you desperately want Graham Zusi on your team. Sure, you can have him! But guess what? Everyone else can have Graham Zusi too as long as they can fit him in their budget.
A standard MLS lineup card. Some names look a little unfamiliar? Don’t worry; Patrick Doody and Otis Earle have logged as many minute in the current MLS season as I have.
No Drafting: Drafting is the best part of any fantasy league. Some people get together for a draft party. Some people do it on Skype. Some people do auction drafts. Some do snake drafts.
MLS Fantasy doesn’t really do drafts. In fact if you want to, you can just auto-pick your league. Because, if there is no social impetus, why not just let some soulless computer randomly find a cadre of players to fit under your budget.
H2H? Roto? Forget about it: In most leagues there’s head-to-head (each week two teams compete and however has more points gets a win) or rotisserie (based on categorical rankings).
Again, MLS’s is different. It’s cumulative points throughout the whole year. Remember, the appeal of same-fantasy sports is you get your winnings the same day. Heck, in regular Head-to-Head leagues you get your score at the end of the week.
Ten months from now, when the league (and therefore fantasy) is winding down, we will probably have a pretty good idea of who the two people running for President will be with the primary season mere weeks away.
No Customization: Let’s say you value the set-up man just as much as the guy who scores the goals. I was in a fantasy hoops league where our commissioner thought assists should count double. And, as commissioner, he changed that.
You want to tweak how MLS determines the whole scoring method? No such luck. You have as much power tweaking the Discovery Rights process as you do changing the way point are accumulated.
Much like Discovery Rights, Major League Soccer has determined the best way to play their fantasy game. You will enjoy it because obviously you want soccer to succeed in the United States, right?
