February 2, 2024/12a
Erie, Pa., — Due to the immense popularity of athletes through the new NIL era of college athletics, sports speculation has jumped to a dangerous level. The college sports world saw this take new heights with the case of LSU women’s basketball star Angel Reese in early November 2023. After being benched for half games, full games, and even an absence from The Cayman Island Classic.
The 2022-2023 season “Most Outstanding Player” had blown up the sports media world with speculation online. Reese had remained silent about her lack of playing time in a much-anticipated Tiger basketball season. Social media and on-air sports outlets continued to scrutinize both Reese and her team.
Speculation grew to the point that Reese was believed to be being punished for poor attitude or poor grades, tarnishing both her and the community surrounding LSU basketball in the process.
Sports speculation can reach a dangerous level, invading the privacy of the athlete and their community. An athlete’s community can be made up of their family, friends, team, coaching staff, school staff, athletic training staff, and more.
Typically for higher level athletes with a bigger online following, they have little control over what they can and cannot control being speculated.
The sports community isn’t new to this, the concept is annual with college football bowl games. Fans of teams may become upset or annoyed when certain players “sit out” of lower-level bowl games in order to prepare for the NFL Draft.
A popular case of sports speculation this year came with Notre Dame Quarterback Sam Hartman when he announced he would not be participating in the Sun Bowl to prepare for the NFL Draft. It can be hard for certain groups of fans to account for an athlete’s future profession.
Although it’s tough to not have your best players for end of season bowl games, these athletes are preparing for the future of professional athletics and need to make the tough decisions best for the next step of their lives and careers.
Sports speculation also has remarkably close ties to the sports betting world. Which, sports betting expansion has become a sort of whirlwind. “-States have reaped a total of over $4 billion of taxes from more than $280 billion wagered on sports since 2018” (Lieb, AP News).
Sports betting is linked with sports speculation due to the emotions tied to both a win and a loss. Athletes can receive brutal online messages, in-person heckles, and even death threats over a person’s loss on a sports bet.
As a student-athlete myself, I could not imagine the added pressure that some of these athletes take on regarding sports speculation.
A person should not be able to ruin my reputation or character due to a one-time performance that the person willingly chose to place money on. Another reminder, most of these starting collegiate athletes are 18 to 23 years old.
Young adults training hard to perform their dreams do not deserve the negativity and swarming danger associated with sports speculation.
