“Once the leagues got in bed, and they are deeply in bed with all these gambling operations, they have had to ramp up their own security against fixes,” Bob Costas said.
The broadcaster was responding to host Matt Iseman’s question about sportsbook sponsorships in a Front Office Sports Tonight clip published September 23. Iseman asked whether leagues were being “corrupted by the dollar” as betting became part of their commercial relationships.
“Well, it certainly makes the relationship between some portion of the audience and the games themselves as much transactional as emotional, maybe more transactional than emotional,” Costas said.
MLB’s partnerships include renewed agreements with MGM Resorts and BetMGM announced June 23. The companies’ relationship with baseball began in 2018. The renewal continues BetMGM marketing across MLB Network, MLB.com and the league’s digital platforms, with sponsorship integration in MLB content on Apple TV.
Suspicion around officiating
Costas described fans who already suspect officials or broadcasters of favoring larger-market teams, while saying there was “scant evidence of that.”
“And now when you throw gambling into the mix, then people are going to have that feeling all the more,” he said.
Why individual-pitch bets concern him
“It’s all the prop bets, the things that generally fly under the radar,” Costas said.
He cited the allegations against Cleveland reliever Emmanuel Clase as an example of how one pitch could decide a wager without deciding an at-bat.
“He could come back and get that batter out, let alone not affect the outcome of the game,” Costas said.
The Justice Department’s November 9, 2025 indictment announcement accuses Clase and Cleveland pitcher Luis Ortiz of coordinating pitches with bettors in exchange for bribes and kickbacks. Both have pleaded not guilty and are presumed innocent unless proven guilty.
Covers reported September 20, citing court documents and ESPN’s reporting, that prosecutors had identified 18 allegedly rigged pitches across 17 games, including one from the 2024 postseason. Trial was scheduled for November, according to that report.
MLB capped individual-pitch wagers at $200 and excluded them from parlays in November 2025, citing heightened integrity risks.
