USA Today offers a clever defense of Brendan Sorsby’s bets on Indiana football
Brendan Sorsby bet on the Indiana Hoosiers football team in 2022 so he could feel connected to his teammates, which is exactly how sportsbooks market betting.
USA Today offers a clever defense of Brendan Sorsby’s bets on Indiana football originally appeared on The Sporting News . Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here . Texas Tech Red Raiders quarterback transfer Brendan Sorsby was discovered to have gambled on games during his freshman season with the Indiana Hoosiers .
Of course, betting on your own team is frowned upon, even if it’s not as much frowned upon as betting against your own team. USA Today’s Kevin Skiver made a great point about Sorsby’s explanation for why he wagered on the Hoosiers, which centered around feeling “connected” to the team: that’s exactly how sportsbooks market their product to the public. “While at first blush it's obviously inconceivable for a member of Indiana football to need to feel more connected to the program, and it ultimately is a ridiculous premise, it is in-line with modern gambling ads are selling.
During broadcasts, including college football broadcasts, the promise is for fans to feel like they're a part of every snap, every home run, and every basket. Even so, Sorsby's bets ranged far beyond Indiana athletics, and college athletes are expressly prohibited from betting on games,” Skiver wrote. Sorsby sued the NCAA for an injunction that’d allow him to play this fall after being ruled ineligible.
His defense figures to be close to what Skiver suggested. It probably bodes well that the case is in Lubbock. It definitely bodes well for Sorsby that this exact line of thinking is being published in USA Today.