KC Smurthwaite is a consultant for Athletics Admin, specializing in revenue generation, licensing, marketing, and higher education. He has almost two decades of experience in collegiate athletics and the sports and entertainment industry. Smurthwaite is a fractional employee of several athletic departments across the country. He also teaches sports management and journalism as an adjunct professor. Follow him on Twitter or connect on LinkedIn. Smurthwaite can also be reached at [email protected].
The NCAA’s relationship with sports betting has long been rooted in denial, caution, and, might we add– contradiction. For what it’s worth, it can also be said about state and government entities as well.
But over the last few years, the NCAA’s relationship appears to be shifting — not just quietly, but strategically. And as athletic departments (and the NCAA) across the country wrestle with rising costs, dwindling revenue, and legal settlements with billion-dollar price tags, the question is less about whether the NCAA should embrace betting and more about whether it can afford not to.
When the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the federal ban on sports gambling in 2018, the NCAA’s initial response was to slam the brakes. Championship events were pulled from states with legal betting, which even began in the 2010s. Rules were reinforced. Betting was treated as a threat — not an opportunity.
But quietly, that posture has changed.
The fundamental shift began in 2019, particularly as states started to legalize betting. First, the NCAA lifted its restriction on hosting championship events in betting-friendly states. In 2023, rules about betting for student-athletes were altered and could even be described as “softened.”
Then, this last April, it signed a formal partnership with Genius Sports — a data distribution company that feeds real-time college stats and betting lines directly to sportsbooks. That move alone signaled the NCAA wasn’t just tolerating betting — it was finding a way to profit from it while still pretending to keep it at arm’s length.
“Everyone sees what’s happening,” said one Division I administrator, who asked to remain anonymous due to the topic. “It used to be: ‘Don’t touch it, don’t mention it.’ Now it’s: ‘Let’s find a way to benefit — just don’t say the word betting out loud. I know our athletes and administrators who want to bet are finding ways to bet anyways.'”
Another administrator pointed to the late-night popularity of niche sports like darts and obscure basketball matchups streaming online and available to bet illegally: “We had a group of athletes who were into like overseas darts and basketball in Thailand. It didn’t make sense until you realized what they were probably doing.”
There are also already avenues for some schools to benefit financially from betting.
Aloha Hawai’i.
Hawai’i football games often kick off just before midnight on the East Coast — the final window of the night for college football bettors. In gambling circles, this is known as the “chase game,” the last opportunity to recover losses or boost winnings, or hit that last leg of a parlay. As a football-only member of the Mountain West — soon to be a full member in 2026-27 — Hawai’i benefits from a unique carve-out that allows it to negotiate its own local TV rights for a select number of home games. While many of those games were previously blacked out on the mainland, Hawai’i found a new revenue stream by leaning into the sportsbook market. Through a third party, they sold some of those games to sportsbooks across Las Vegas.
As sports betting continues to expand, schools like Hawai’i — which draw a consistent audience regardless of traditional TV windows — could and arguably should factor into future media valuations. Just as television networks influence kickoff times, matchups, and schedules, don’t be surprised if gambling partners begin to exert similar influence by the 2030s. The incentives are clear, especially if there’s a revenue model that appeals to both schools and, let’s be honest, the NCAA.
According to The Washington Post, Hawai’i’s 2023 season opener against Stanford generated a $51 million betting handle — a Friday night home game that started at 5 p.m. local time (11 p.m. Eastern). The next-highest handle for a Hawai’i game was $16.1 million — still well above the Power Five average of $11.5 million. Despite not appearing in a bowl game, Hawai’i finished with the second-highest total handle in the Mountain West, trailing only UNLV by $1 million.
In North Carolina, the impact is already being felt. The state now funnels sports betting tax revenue directly to its public universities. In an interview with Western Carolina Public Radio, former AD at Western Carolina Alex Gary said those dollars made the difference between solvency and serious cuts.
“Had it not been for the gaming receipts, we would’ve had to slash expenses, lean on the university, or raise student fees — maybe all three,” Gary told North Carolina Public Radio. “I can’t overstate how much help that money has been in simply covering our costs.”
In the same article, UNC Pembroke is mentioned to receive nearly $2 million from the fund — a game-changer, but not a fix-all.
“The smaller your school, the smaller your TV footprint — and the less you’re making from tickets, sponsors, or conference payouts,” said UNCP AD Dick Christy. “That puts enormous pressure on schools like ours to find new revenue anywhere we can.”
And those pressures are mounting. The NCAA’s expected settlement in the House v. NCAA case — potentially $2.8 billion in retroactive NIL damages — would’ve been unfathomable a decade ago. However, it’s now just one of several existential financial threats, including looming legal battles over athlete employment and revenue sharing.
It’s no coincidence that talk of expanding the NCAA men’s basketball tournament has picked up again. Nor that the longstanding ban on partnerships with professional sports betting has begun to erode. The signs are all there: the NCAA needs revenue. And it has a pretty good idea of where to find it.
So maybe, this time, the NCAA is learning from its history. Instead of digging in — as it did for years on NIL, athlete transfers, or academic rights — it seems to be pivoting early. Quietly but purposefully. Betting is happening, with or without them. At least now, it appears they’re done pretending otherwise.
Whether this shift is a sign of evolved thinking or just a cash grab may not matter much in the end. The revenue is real. The legal pressures are more real. And for schools left out of the media gold rush, sports betting might be the only rising tide left.
So if the NCAA is smart — and many believe they’ve finally realized they have no other choice — they’ll get ahead of this one. Let it happen. Regulate it. Benefit from it because the money’s there. And if they don’t take it, someone else will.
