The evolution of social media has enabled fans to directly interact with their favorite athletes. Although there are great upsides to it, there is room for hateful, nasty interactions as well. The rising popularity of sports betting has led to an increase in spiteful actions toward NBA players. Knicks star Jalen Brunson claims that sports betting has made fans much more hateful.
Brunson took to the Roommates Show to share his experience with hate comments due to sports betting. JB admitted that gambling in sports has brought in a lot of new viewership, but it has also caused a spike in hate speech against players from fans who miss out on their parlays.
One message from a fan made the All-NBA guard realize the extent of malice some fans can show to players. He said, “The amount of hate DMs you get…Oh my gosh…[Messages like] ‘You can go kill yourself’…Last season a guy copy and pasted ‘die’ a thousand times. You slide up, all the message says ‘die, die, die, die, die, die, die.’
Brunson is one of the major reasons the Knicks are once again a relevant team in the NBA. However, many fans don’t care about the team’s success. Their focus is on whether or not Brunson and other players reach the stats they need for their parlays to hit. The 6-foot-2 guard revealed that some fans send death threats if the All-Star fails to meet their criteria.
Although the cons of sports betting are terrible, Brunson understands some positives come from it. He highlighted sports betting’s ability to get fans more engaged into the game. The show’s co-host also pointed out how it can make boring games interesting for some fans.
However, that doesn’t excuse the inexplicable behavior that athletes across all sports have to endure. Brunson’s teammate and podcast co-host, Josh Hart, responded by sharing his own experiences with hateful fans.
“One time I literally tweeted out, I’m like, ‘I don’t care about y’all parlays,'” Hart said. “People were giving me so much hate for it. I tweeted this after we beat Denver by like 30 or 25. We win by 25 and people are dming me, you know, cursing me out over not getting eight rebounds or something like that. Bro, I don’t care.”
Brunson and Hart’s experiences left their special guest, actress Edie Falco, in shock. The big-time Knicks fan didn’t know the extent of the hate that the players experience on a nightly basis. She couldn’t fathom how they remain unfazed and continue to do their job at the highest level.
Several athletes have spoken out on the hateful breeding ground sports betting has created. Kevin Durant is one of the biggest athletes to offer his distaste for the practice. Sportsbooks and the NBA are yet to figure out a fix to it.
