With the passing of a sports gambling bill by the state senate on May 12, sports and table gambling will soon become legal in the state of Delaware.
In reaction to this recent bill, the NCAA has banned all postseason games from being hosted within the state, forcing all future university playoff games to be held on the road.
While the NCAA's stance against sports betting may be understandable, using the only leverage it has in this matter against the university victimizes a community far removed from these types of political decisions.
This decision by the NCAA will affect student athletes, fans and the greater Delaware community who will no longer be able to root for their home teams at Delaware Stadium, not the state legislators who voted in the bill's favor.
Banning post season games from being held in Delaware also brings about a double standard. While four states, Delaware, Montana, Oregon and Nevada, are exempt from the 1992 federal law banning all sports betting, only Delaware and the university are currently facing such postseason limitations.
If a state's adoption of sports betting legislation must in turn affect the postseason of universities within that state, then institutions like the University of Montana should also be penalized.
With a competitive disadvantage of monumental importance to postseason success, the university's athletics program is also facing a loss of fan spirit. With no home playoff games for all sports, including football, great monetary losses in the future are also possible.
In addition, the new bill includes a clause that no sports betting may be made on university sports, even further removing the university's athletics program from the controversy clouding this national issue.
For the NCAA to punish the Blue Hen athletics program and fans for a completely removed political decision is both unfair and unethical. Delaware sports fans, who have no in-state professional teams to follow, must now travel out-of-state to watch one of the only sports programs in the state succeed in post-game play.
Why the NCAA feels that such a punishment fits the crime they claim has been committed by the state senate remains unseen. The NCAA should take into consideration who the real victims are in this situation- not the sanctity of college sports but rather the dedicated fans and athletes who must now look forward to a postseason far away from home.
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