Former ESPN Producer Nicole Noren's Exit Fuels Gambling Debate

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Former ESPN Producer’s Resignation Fuels Debate Over Criticism of Sports Gambling

I am hypersensitive to negative stories about sports gambling. An article published in the Columbia Journal Journalism Review featured an interview with Nicole Norrin, a decorated former ESPN producer, under the headline, “I’m Not Going to Have Blood on My Hands.”

Norrin explained why she resigned from ESPN after contributing to major work for the network. She had been involved with Emmy, Merle and Peabody Award-winning projects and worked for Outside the Lines. Her reporting covered gender-based violence, college students’ mental health, concussions and the NFL.

When she learned that ESPN was going to work with sports betting companies, she decided to resign. Her story is now being cited by national media figures as an example of why sports gambling is dangerous and why more people should discuss its potential harms.

Asked whether her bosses and other ESPN leaders defended the company’s direction when she raised her concerns, Norrin said they did not. She described their response as putting their heads in the sand. What bothered her most was the apparent disregard for the dangers and ramifications of ESPN normalizing gambling for an audience that views the network as a sports guide.

She also said that a former co-worker sent her a link to an interactive gambling story on ESPN’s website a few weeks after her departure. She described it as a primer on how to gamble on sports, featuring bright, bouncy animation that she believed looked as though it had been made for children.

Norrin’s decision was deeply personal. She said her grandfather, father and one of her brothers were largely destroyed by sports gambling addiction. Growing up in Ventura, California, her family had to move suddenly several times because of extreme financial swings.

She described growing up in sports books rather than visiting museums and other places children typically go. During the 1980s, she was taken to Las Vegas and spent time in the Hilton and Caesars sports books, despite children not being permitted in those areas. She also remembered visiting horse and dog tracks.

Her brother died 13 years ago on a sidewalk in downtown Las Vegas at age 36. Norrin connected his death to the tragic progression from being brought to Las Vegas as a child while their father gambled to later surviving there as a homeless person.

The scale of that statement, and the way the conclusion is now being repeated without challenge, immediately caught my attention. That does not mean someone lacks the right to leave a job that no longer aligns with personal morals or professional goals. Anyone who disagrees with a company’s direction has every right to walk away.

My frustration is with the selective nature of the criticism. Where are comparable stories about alcohol? Without alcohol advertising, there is no sports media in the broadest sense. That goes back to the early days of ABC, CBS and NBC, before Fox, when the NFL was still developing and the NBA was struggling before Bird and Magic arrived. Alcohol advertising helped sustain sports.

That history raises difficult questions about the number of alcohol-related and drunk-driving deaths in America since the 1960s. When I was born in 1977, there was no nationwide seatbelt law. Earlier generations grew up moving between the front and back seats while a parent had an open six-pack in the front. None of that was good.

The point is that sports gambling and those seeking to make money from the industry face a selective level of criticism. Stories like this are promoted by national media figures who oppose sports gambling and present one family’s tragedy as proof of their position.

Norrin’s brother could have struggled with multiple issues before becoming homeless and dying on the streets of downtown Las Vegas. Much more would need to be known about his story before concluding that sports gambling alone was responsible.