I wish I had thought of that title first, but it is the title of a blog post over at The Sporting Blog, part of The Sporting News. But Rep. Pete Schwarzkopf is shaping up to be something of a hero among some sports blogs.
Sports betting in Delaware has gotten a decent amount of attention this week, covering the lawsuit filed against the State by the NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL and NCAA to stop the implementation of the newly approved sports betting scheme. These leagues have gotten an assist from Senators Orrin Hatch and John Kyland Congressmen Heath Schuler, Gregory Meeks and Spencer Bachus who all oppose Delaware’s plan and who are urging the DOJ to work to stop not just this effort, but the NJ lawsuit looking to neutralize the law grandfathering in sportsbetting.
But while the sports leagues and certain congresspeople are gearing up to fight the State on betting, the sports blogosphere (the little that I’ve looked it) seems to be solidly rooting for us — or at least for these leagues to get a well-deserved smackdown on something. The SportsBlog above took at look at Pete Schwartzkopf’s reaction to the lawsuit and has admiring words:
Unusually for a politician, Delaware majority leader Peter Schwarzkopf does not live under a rock. Nor does he take obviously hypocritical crap from anyone:
It is hard to imagine why moving forward with sports betting in Delaware will undermine the integrity of professional or college sports. Las Vegas has promoted sports betting for many years, so Delaware is not covering new ground here. When it comes to expanding state sponsored gaming, legitimate debate and discussion should continue among Delaware’s elected representatives and its citizens. But the self-serving, hypocritical pronouncements and legal threats by these for-profit sports leagues that have sued Delaware should be rejected.
Oh, snap. And that goes double for the NCAA, which is threatening to prohibit postseason events in Delaware at the same time they do this:
We also learned that the NCAA … sponsored the Las Vegas Bowl last year, housing its players in hotel casinos where bets are taken on games.
The SportsBlog likes this taking on the hypcritical from our Majority Leader and hope that they get to see Pete on Around the Horn soon as an improvement on the current lineup. The Dagger (a blog on college hoops) praises the Majority Leader and so does Rush the Court in just as colorful language.
Congratulations are due to Rep. Schwarzkopf for providing the impetus to remind people just how much they don’t like these sports leagues and we hope he gets a turn on Around the Horn (the real ESPN one) soon.