Professional Tennis Has To Face Its Gambling Threats Head On and Fight Back

There’s no bigger threat to an individual sport than illegal gambling. The media and fans can argue all day long about the detrimental impact of steroids in baseball, but a sport can be completely destroyed if even the faintest whiff of a gambling impropriety is detected.

The NCAA and all major professional sports have been hurt, to various degrees, throughout its history by betting scandals and have had to work extremely hard to distance itself from all types of illegal bookmaking and organized crime.

Although gambling will always be apart of the sports culture, nothing is more important to sports leagues and its respective commissioners then that their contests are one hundred percent pure and true and completely on the level.

We’re all familiar with the Black Sox Scandal of 1919 where eight players on the Chicago White Sox were found of have thrown the World Series and were banned from baseball as a result: “Say it Ain’t So, Joe!”

College basketball has been seriously affected over the years by point shaving scandals where players, under gamblers’ instructions, manipulate the game’s score to win by less than the point spread.

Perhaps the biggest and most shocking point shaving scandal occurred in 1951 when, after winning both the NIT and NCAA Championship the previous season, players on the City College of New York (CCNY) team were discovered to be working with gamblers and holding down points. That scandal opened up a Pandora’s Box of other point shaving activities in various New York City area college programs.

It was a public relations nightmare for college basketball.

And let’s not forget about the once great American sport of boxing. “The Sweet Science” used to be as big and popular as baseball in the first part of the twentieth century. But the heavy influence of gamblers and the mafia destroyed boxing’s integrity and took it off the map as a major sport – and to this day it has never fully recovered.

So when stories began to surface a few years ago about professional tennis matches being fixed – the ATP, WTP and all the pro tennis governing bodies where looking at the makings of a major crisis in its sport.

Blamed heavily on the emergence of the Internet gambling industry, more and more accusations and strong suspicion of match fixing had been popping up in the smaller tournaments – and now gambling irregularities have hit Wimbledon, the sport’s most prestigious event.

After a first-round match last week between 109th-ranked Wayne Odesnik of the United States and 30th-ranked Jurgen Melzer of Austria (two relatively unknown players) was reported to have received more than six times the usual wager action for that type of match, speculation rose once again that gamblers are influencing the results of tennis matches.

In a public relations sense, whether or not gamblers are actually affecting the outcome of matches is just as important as the public’s perception that matches are being fixed. All the matters is – if the fans and media believe your sport is corrupt, you’re dead.

Wimbledon spokesperson Mark Davies downplayed the recent media attention suggesting match fixing at Wimbledon. “It’s being reported as potential corruption, but I don’t see it that way at all,” Davies told The Associated Press. “I doubt that there was any wrongdoing.”

Not exactly the strongest denial ever uttered by a PR representative.

With something as serious as gambling accusations threatening your sport, tennis needs to be much more vocal and diligent about denouncing all gambling activity and pledge to thoroughly investigate and eradicate, if necessary, any links to it.

The professional tennis world should take a page out of NBA Commissioner David Stern’s PR playbook regarding game fixing and gambling.

In the summer of 2007 it was revealed by the FBI that an active NBA referee, Tim Donaghy, was involved with the mafia and had wagered tens of thousands of dollars on various NBA games during the previous few seasons.

Think about it: A referee was actually betting on the same games he was officiating. Talk about destroying the integrity of the sport. Donaghy made Pete Rose look like a choir boy.

So with the credibility of the entire league hanging by a thread, Stern jumped right out in front of the entire mess, grabbed the potential disaster by the horns and fought it down.

Stern handled the situation like a text book PR pro – he brought the entire affair out in front to the media, hiding nothing. He denounced Donaghy as a “rogue, isolated criminal” and assured fans and the media that after the investigation is completed it will be revealed that there were no other referees, players or NBA officials involved in the scandal and the league will be clean and clear of all gambling threats.

The “most serious situation and worst situation” Stern had to ever deal with as commissioner was appropriately and effectively handled and virtually forgotten by the fans and now out of the media’s eye.

Tennis has not come anywhere close to handling its gambling crisis appropriately, like the NBA did.

Davies’ only further comment was that Wimbledon is handing the matter off to the Tennis Integrity Unit. “Then they can make a judgment,” Davies said. “But having heard the commentary on the match, I don’t suspect that this is going to turn out to be any kind of corruption story.”

So aside from creating the TIU (an independent organization launched 18 months ago to analyze professional tennis’s integrity regulations and procedures), tennis has done nothing to combat its gambling threats.

Even Roger Federer, the sport’s most well-respected player, came out against the gambling speculation and demanded it be dealt with strongly. “I think we should have massive bans on those who get caught so they get really scared of doing it,” Federer said. “If it’s happening or not, we are suspecting. We’re not sure. But, of course, it has no place in tennis.”

But Federer shouldn’t be the one leading the charge against the gambling threats – in fact, Federer shouldn’t be commenting at all about such a delicate and serious situation. He’s your sport’s top star; keep him away from the potential mess.

Tennis needs to develop and implement a real PR plan to fight the gambling threats. To simply hand off the PR responsibilities to a separate organization is ludicrous.

Tennis can’t hope the problem just goes away. It has to meet this issue head on, attack it and take it down – ala David Stern and the NBA.