Former New York Knicks president Dave Checketts has seen the sports world evolve in ways few could have imagined—and not all of them sit well with him. In a candid interview on the latest episode of Portfolio Players, Checketts expressed growing unease about the increasingly cozy relationship between professional sports leagues and sportsbooks.
“I’m not sure that’s a good thing, this coziness that we’ve established,” Checketts said. “I’m kind of old school when it comes to that.”
Checketts, who served as president of the Utah Jazz in the 1980s and the Knicks in the 1990s, remembers a time when sports betting was largely confined to Nevada and the black market. The NBA once went to great lengths to distance itself from gambling. He recalled a tense standoff with the Nevada Gaming Commission when the Jazz played a series of games in Las Vegas. “We had to pull all of the NBA games off their books,” he said—a move that didn’t sit well with the city, which relies heavily on sports betting revenue. “It’s why they have no state income tax,” Checketts noted. The Jazz experiment in Vegas lasted just 11 games. “We were completely barking up the wrong wall to get any support in Vegas,” he added.
Fast forward to today, and the landscape is almost unrecognizable. The NBA is now actively exploring expansion into Las Vegas, a city that was once off-limits. Since the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA) in 2018, 40 states and Washington, D.C., have legalized some form of online sports betting. Leagues have signed lucrative partnerships with sportsbooks like FanDuel and DraftKings, and fans are bombarded with ads for betting apps. Wagers now cover everything from game outcomes and player stats to micro-events like a single possession or the next pitch.
For Checketts, this rapid shift raises serious questions about the integrity of the game and the long-term health of the sports industry. “I’m not sure that’s a good thing,” he said, reflecting on the growing comfort between leagues and betting platforms. As sports fans, it’s worth pausing to consider what we’re gaining—and what we might be losing—in this new era of convenience and cash.