Hearsay From the Sidelines

This episode features an interview with James Barton, a Seton Hall Law School student and member of the Seton Hall Law Review. We discuss his work-in-progress which focuses on the use of dark patterns and other manipulative design practices in the online sports betting industry.

While new scandals coming to light weekly, the growth of online sports betting hasn’t slowed. There are still new markets and opportunities to explore, including women’s and youth sports. In fact, it is difficult to imagine who could ever disrupt this wildly successful industry – except, of course, an industry that’s figured out a way around all the rules and regulations.

The question of how legal sports betting has changed, and will continue to change, the culture of sports is a complicated one. The wide array of platforms and products certainly increases opportunity and decreases risk for bad actors to influence athletes or impermissibly utilize inside information. On the other hand, technology advances and data sharing have made anomalies easier to detect. And while wagers may increase emotional investment that benefits the bottom line, that emotion often spills over onto athletes in undesirable ways.

Building on the general information on gambling harms and treatment options for compulsive gambling, this episode focuses on advocacy for “responsible gaming.” Do responsible gaming tools have a beneficial effect? How big is the gap between what advocates recommend and what operators adopt, either voluntarily or because they are compelled by laws and regulations?

Where there is gambling, there are addicted gamblers. Gambling addiction is more than just an economic problem – it can have a profoundly serious impact on the lives of individuals who are affected – but the research on, and funding for treatment of, compulsive gambling is only a fraction of what is available for substance use disorders. The rapid growth of sports betting has created a new challenge in this space, impacting a new demographic of young men. This episode provides some foundational information about gambling addiction and recovery as a foundation for a discussion of responsible gaming and industry […]

With all the negative coverage of sports betting – concerns about gambling harms, cheating scandals, bad behavior directed towards athletes – the casual observer to wonder why we ever wanted it in the first place or why state legislators continue to push sports betting forward. The reality is that the sports betting industry has benefits, both economic and social, that make it hard to quit.

Season 2 is back after a short hiatus, and taking you back in time to a time to when Congress banned sports betting. What drove this legislation and how was it overturned?

This episode provides an overview of the legal sports betting ecosystem, highlighting the crucial roles of regulators, compliance officers, and monitoring in maintaining integrity in the gaming industry. Guests address collaboration between private companies and state government, as well as the role of technology in monitoring events and detecting suspicious activity.

The first episode of this new season serves as an introduction to the current online sports betting landscape and the debate around legalization, responsible gaming initiatives, funding for addiction treatment, and criticisms of the industry by public health advocates. The season will delve into the history of sports betting, integrity, and the future of this increasingly normalized activity, focusing on its impact on the culture of sports and those at risk of addiction.

This episode provides an update on developments related to the inclusion of trans athletes in interscholastic sports, including the Second Circuit’s en banc decision in the Soule v. Connecticut case, the general Title IX Final Rule litigation, transvestigation during the Summer Olympics, and a recent Senate hearing on an entirely different subject that foreshadows what the next four years holds for trans athletes.

This is the second of two special episodes about CrossFit’s cultural and organizational issues brought to light by the death of elite athlete Lazar Ðukic at the 2024 CrossFit Games.

On August 8, 2024, Lazar Ðukic lost his life in a Texas lake during the first event of the 2024 CrossFit Games. His death has rocked the competitive CrossFit community to its core. Although competition resumed, it wasn’t the same. Many top athletes were missing from the floor and those who continued were subdued, grieving. But for many, the sadness is mixed with anger, with frustration. Games veterans have come forward and publicly decried, not just the execution of the particular event where Lazar lost his life, but a culture of dismissiveness where the safety and well-being of the sport’s top […]

This final episode of our first season closes with some final thoughts from most of this season’s guests where transgender youth in K-12 sports currently stands, where it could be headed, and what we should be doing with our concerns in the meantime.

In this episode, I explore the various factions who, despite their different general ideologies, have united in advocating for the exclusion of trans kids from sports. We discuss why this presents such a challenge when working to educate and advocate around this issue. I also provide some additional details on one of the largest and most powerful organizations on the side of exclusion.

When I started thinking about how to address the issue of trans exclusion from youth sports, I knew I needed to include the culture/industry of youth sports as part of the discussion. The pressure to compete and perform at a high level in athletics is reaching kids earlier than ever before, facilitated by parents who see success in sports as the ticket to success in life. This episode explores the relationship between the increased parental investment in kids’ athletic achievements and the social acquiescence to the exclusion of trans kids from sports.

One of the most commonly expressed objections to the inclusion of trans athletes is that it is fundamentally unfair, particularly to cis women and girls, to compete against trans women and girls. While this cultural belief may be ubiquitous, the science behind it is far from black and white. Without any substantive, multi-sport studies that include trans youth, much of the “evidence” of unfair advantage is merely inferred from other studies of biological difference. But with so much on the line for an already-marginalized community, we should be wary when anyone tries to justify exclusion solely on loose correlations between […]

This episode picks up where the last left off – about 50 years ago – when Title IX’s enactment changed education and athletics for women and girls in some big ways. But this 50 year old statute and implementing regulations were not created with trans and non-binary students in mind. Messaging on how schools must create and adapt policies with these students in mind, including rules about athletic participation, has been inconsistent and confusing. To help address this, amendments to the regulations have been proposed. If these changes are finalized, there will certainly be improvements for trans kids in school, […]

To better understand how and why sports are a part of education, this episode goes back to where they started. Although the culture of youth sports has certainly evolved, the purpose of interscholastic athletics really has not. Today, just like 100 years ago, educators value the role of sport in preparing kids for success in life. But the structures governing competition have always limited who can participate and how they are recognized. Many thanks to all the guests who contributed their thoughts.

Episode 2 looks at the recent legislative push to ban transgender kids from scholastic sports across the country in the context of the anti-trans bathroom bans that preceded it. I also dive into the Soule v. Connecticut case that is so frequently referenced as an example of trans athlete exceptionalism despite the actual facts. There will be more later in the season on the organizations encouraging the passage of sports bans and supporting their defense in court, but my guests in this episode start to shed some light on who they are and what motivates their actions. I extend my deepest thanks […]

In Episode 1, I start to introduce you to some of the legal scholars and advocates I interviewed in my research. Their remarks all come from recorded interviews that are available in full via provided links. I excerpted these specific portions to frame my approach to discussing the significance of excluding transgender youth from playing sports with their peers. In addition to causing direct harm to individuals, participation bans create broader social harms that we should find extremely concerning. If we value the provision of a well-rounded and robust primary educational experience to all children, then it strikes me as […]

This brief prologue explains a bit about who I am as host and creator of Season 1 of Hearsay from the Sidelines. You can learn more about me as a professional via my Seton Hall Law faculty profile. My interest in creating a podcast focused on the issue of transgender youth inclusion in scholastic sports grew out of a forthcoming article I wrote on podcasting as a medium for legal scholarship (draft available on SSRN). As I explain, I am not a civil rights, gender, or sports law scholar and I have not previously written about transgender issues in any form.  My approach to this season’s focus is framed by my personal beliefs that trans rights must be protected in all aspects of life and that access to sports and physical activity is important for all people, especially kids. Given the progress we have made, both socially and legally, in formalizing legal protections for LGBTQ+ people in many aspects of public life, I struggle to understand why sports, particularly youth sports, has unearthed such ambivalence about this specific aspect of civil rights for trans people. An organized campaign of lawsuits, state legislative action, and media punditry is the most obvious culprit. Bu the sentiment against trans inclusion runs deeper and certainly implicates a national history of gender inequity, general acceptance of misunderstood science about sex differences, and the cultural elevation of youth athletics to a level of significance not seen in previous generations. This is the tangled knot I want to dive into and start to pull apart. I certainly don’t think I have specific solutions to offer, nor am I confident I can even add anything entirely novel to the conversation. But I hope others will benefit from an exploration of the scholarship, legal issues, and historical context interwoven throughout the debate, and find themselves better positioned to engage with this topic more thoughtfully.  The theme song for Hearsay from the Sidelines Season 1 is “Splendor Dysphoria” by SuperKnova. I want to express my gratitude to the artist for permission to use the song. You can hear more from SuperKnova on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever you stream your music.

Listen to our new show: "Hearsay From the Sidelines", a place where law, sports and culture intersect​ and is brought to you by Culture in Sports and Seton Hall Law School’s Gaming, Hospitality, Entertainment and Sports Law program."