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The Pac-12 potentially releasing an NFL-style injury report as part of a push that could include selling data for use in sports betting is filling a need that isn’t there, a longtime industry insider told Front Office Sports.
The idea was floated by Pac-12 commissioner George Kliavkoff to CBS Sports in a story published Wednesday, something Kliavkoff said “might be part of our next media rights deal” that is currently being negotiated.
“We want transparency,” said Jay Kornegay, VP of race & sports book operations at SuperBook Sports. “We want everybody to know. First, I just feel like it would take a lot of upkeep for them to stay on top of this. Second, I still feel that bettors are going to be reading between the lines [on the injury reports], and I’m not sure how valuable that information would be.”
While the MAC inked a deal to sell its data to sports betting information provider Genius Sports in March, no Power Five conference currently has a similar partnership.
Few details on what a betting partnership would entail, although Kliavkoff mentioned the injury reports could be weekly for football.
“On the injury front, the information has to be accurate and timely,” Kornegay said. “There’s a lot of prevalent real-time information on the social media side that’s widely available to bettors and operators. How valuable are these injury reports?”
The NFL has been doing daily injury reports in the days leading up to games for decades — and even that information isn’t always accurate, even as coaches and teams are fined by the league for fibbing on the reports.
“NFL does a fantastic job keeping up with their injury reports, but the reality is most of the real-time injury information is on social, and that’s what most sharp bettors and operators reference,” Kornegay said. “Injury reports could be outdated after an hour.”
The Pac-12 would need to establish a similar punishment system, but it appears to be a bit early since there are no indications a formal proposal has been offered up to conference membership.
About 30 states and DC have some form of legalized sports betting. More than half have some sort of restrictions when it comes to betting on college teams located within the state.
