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MICHAEL DUNNE: I'm Michael Dunne. Somewhat infamously, Oregon's NBA franchise, the Portland Trail Blazers, have had a history of really bad luck much of their own doing, drafting Sam Bowie instead of Michael Jordan and Greg Oden over Kevin Durant and, of course, the “Jail blazers” era of the late 90s and early 2000s teams of dubious integrity. Well, last week's bombshell, the team's head coach was arrested for crimes associated with gambling came from out of left field and seemingly completely out of the team's control. Today, on the show, you'll hear from an expert at the University of Oregon who will explain how the NBA Association, with legal gambling, has created a ripe environment for this kind of trouble. And will finish the show by saying goodbye to a long-time local leader in the tourism space, Andy Vobora, who is retiring from travel Lane County. Dr. Ken Pendleton, Assistant teaching professor of marketing at the Warsaw Sports Center within the University of Oregon. Thanks so much for coming on and talking to us.
KEN PENDLETON: Well, thank you for inviting me. Michael.
MICHAEL DUNNE: Boy, maybe this is an overly simplistic question, but, but I want to hear from you. How big a deal is it that the FBI arrested current players and Chauncey Billups, the head coach of the Portland Trail Blazers? How big a deal is this for the NBA?
KEN PENDLETON: Well, I think it's a very big deal. But I would, right out of the gate, want to point out that, you know, the bulk of the allegations that are that have been made specifically against him, the ones he's been indicted for.
MICHAEL DUNNE: Chauncey, Billups…
KEN PENDLETON: Yeah, with, with helping the rig and get people to enter really high stakes poker games have nothing directly to do with the integrity of the sport in the NBA, though, obviously, having a coach implicated in working with the, you know, the four crime families in New York is not something the NBA would, you know, would welcome. And I don't feel qualified to speak on that issue. Okay, the scary part I think, for the NBA, should be that there's in the gambling case where players are sharing, either betting again, betting against themselves, or sharing information that they're, for example, not going to play in a game. Is it he? There's an unindicted coconspirator who meets the biographical description of Chauncey Billups, the coach of the Portland Trail Blazers, and whether, and if he was arrested on that the idea that an NBA coach would be arrested for betting, and this would be, in my mind, some ways worse than Pete Rose, because Pete Rose was guilty of betting on his own team, and while that is not a good thing, it is much worse to think that you're betting. You would be telling people that your team, for example, is going to be resting starters. But let me just reiterate, he is an unindicted coconspirator that matches his biographical description. That is not the same thing as actually being arrested, sure, but that would be a very big deal if that was the case.
MICHAEL DUNNE: And maybe for our audience, you can kind of delve into that a little bit more. I think many, probably non-sports fans, think about betting in very binary terms. You're going to bet and say, I think the Trailblazers are going to beat the Denver Nuggets. But there's so much more to gambling these days. And you touched on a little bit. It's, it's, oh, I'm going to say that Damien Lillard is going to score 17 points. Or I'm going to say that, you know, Steph Curry is going to score 38 points. There's so many of these prop bets that filter down throughout the gambling landscape, and the idea that a player or a coach might somehow manipulate playing time or resting time that could really influence the outcome of those bets, that's part of this Challenge, isn't it for the NBA or any other sports league?
KEN PENDLETON: Yeah, yeah, you're exactly right. It used to be that betting was almost all done on teams. And it would get a little more complicated, because one team would be favored by, say, a certain number of points over the other. So, you could bet on where they were going to whether they were going to win by more than those points or fewer than those points in there. But that, of course, meant that manipulating the result is actually much harder because most players can't, you know, in the case of football, there are 22 players on the field at every David and time, you know, probably 60 that are used in a game. In the case of basketball or. Baseball, you know, even if you have 25 players, 24 players who play in an NBA game most nights, or somewhere between 20 and 24 in baseball, might have 40 players playing tonight, so no one player can usually manipulate the outcome that way. I don't want to say never. We only have to think about the way that the 1919, White Sox threw the World Series, but there were eight men out, not one. Yeah, exactly. And so, so why? So, what's happening is you can, like you point out, you can now bet on Damian Lillard or Steph Curry, or, not only that, but you can bet on relatively minor players, on teams, someone who comes off the bench. And in this case, it, first of all, it's popular because young generation Z actually identity follows players. It follows players more and more than teams. So they're LeBron James or Steph Curry fans more than their fans, of say, the Los Angeles Lakers or the Golden State Warriors, right? And in James's case, that's significant, because he went from Cleveland to Miami to Cleveland to LA and sort of, they sort of follow him, and so they want to, you know, they want to be able to bet on their guy or bet on individuals. And so, you know, according to The New York Times Daily, this that you know, came out today, about 20% of the revenue that bookmakers are earning comes from these prop bets. And so obviously they have a big vested interest in not shutting this down completely, and the NBA has a vested interest in not doing so either, because it indirectly affects TV revenue, you know, TV ratings. It might even affect the value of sponsorships and attendance at games. Because that, you know, when you have money on a player, that makes a game really exciting to watch.
MICHAEL DUNNE: Yeah, yeah. About what it's been over a decade now, maybe longer, but there was a huge scandal in the NBA. Now, this did involve a player. This involved referee Tim Donaghy, who ultimately went to jail for fixing it. Is this as big a deal as that was?
KEN PENDLETON: I would argue, not quite okay, because Donaghy was making calls at the end of games that were affecting me, out, you know, directly affecting the outcome of the game. But we're really splitting hairs here, because one of the indicted coconspirators is Terry Rozier, and when you look at the numbers, the athletic reported that he was paid $100,000 to not play that night or not. He took himself out of a game. And there was at least $61,000 that we can tell was wagered. So, he was a, you know, he's a good, but not great player, sure, but it gives you an idea of just how much money is changing hands. Because, you know, our people are betting on individual players, and which is, you know, from the league point of view, on one level, of course, this generates tremendous, you know, like I said, revenue for them, indirectly or indirectly. On the other hand, you know, the potential harm to the league's brand is, you know, immeasurable. And so, I think it's interesting, because to me, the NBA is the only American sports league that has a chance to be a truly global sports league. The NFL is trying to do that, but there are just structural obstacles to football becoming popular beyond a certain point abroad, namely that I can't imagine many other countries would sanction tackle football as a youth sport. Yeah, that it's ever going to be popular that way, but basketball has a real chance to compete with soccer as the English Premier League or Spain's La Liga on a global level. And it's interesting, if you think of that as a possibility, because the English Premier League is sunsetting gambling sponsorships at the end of this season. So, they made a tremendous amount of money from these sponsorships, but they decided that this was not in their best interest as a global brand. And so, I think that the NBAs I get the temptation of making the money on, you know, making this red generating this revenue, but I actually think the risk to the integrity of the sport could actually undermine what should be the bigger picture for the NBA, which is trying to compete as a global brand.
MICHAEL DUNNE: Well and to continue that point. And I know that this is a bit of a philosophical question for you, but how does a league survive if the majority of fans question its integrity. I guess what I'm asking is, if you're sitting at home, or you go to a game, and there's even a kernel in your mind to sort of say, I just don't know if these players are, you know, doing everything they can to win, and they're not thinking at all about how much money they could make on the side, or something like that?
KEN PENDLETON: Yeah, I don't know what that critical mass of cynicism would have to reach before people would say, I really just don't believe what. I'm watching. I mean, it seems like the opposite sort of thing occurs. There's a sort of a belief. We have a natural tendency to want to believe things are on the up and up. And I use the Tour de France as an example. I mean, how many times do we have to see someone caught using before, enhancing drugs before? We just sort of think that's just what normally occurs, sure, sure. But yet, every time a new great writer comes along, there's a suspension of disbelief we in. The same thing is true with baseball, right? With performance enhancing drugs, we always think that till we know otherwise, we tend to give the benefit of the doubt to the latest and greatest, and that might actually be a good thing in a lot of ways, because I don't think you deserve to. You deserve to be judged by your character, not by a stereotype about your profession, but it but, but it seems like fans naturally want to believe whatever happened in the past is in the past. So, we believe there's never been another referee fixing games, like Tim Donaghy, until we see or find out that someone is actually doing that? Yeah, yeah, good point. But let me add one thing where I would really be suspicious here, which is nearer and dearer to us than even the Blazers, which is, is college sports and the NBA. These players, like Terry Rozier, was on a he's on it was on a huge contract, and, you know, upwards of near $100 million and it's hard to believe that it would be rational for him to engage in any kind of sports betting, but not to say he didn't do it, but it's, it's not, it's not going to happen very often for any individual, because it defies right, you know, it's just not very smart from a utilitarian point of view, to maximize your own interest, you wouldn't want to risk $100 million contract to make $100,000 for illegal gambling or something like that, right? But imagine you're a college player who recognizes that you probably, you know, don't have nearly that kind of money, and might recognize that your career is coming to an end. Well, that calculation might be very different, and maybe later in life, you feel guilty about that way, regardless of whether you're caught or not. But as a 22-year-old, and I'm not so sure you don't look at that, you know, there's going to be a higher number of people who are in a much more vulnerable position than NBA players are. And so, I, you know, last time we talked, I would still make the argument. I'm sort of a social libertarian. I sort of believe anything that consenting adults want to do, most of it, should be within their rights, should be legal. And I further would argue that very few things should be out now criminalized, because criminalizing them actually just drives them underground. And I don't think that was good for, say, prohibition, and I don't think it's really good for gambling, either. But having said that, I'm appalled at the lack of regulation that exists within the gambling world, and less about players. You know, the NBA actually is trying to regulate this and monitor these bets, and this is where having it above board, as opposed to say, being done by the four crime families, is a good thing, right? Because there's more transparency, but I'm actually thinking of the consumer, the better. And for example, let me I did a startup, and it was actually a fantasy sports startup, and when we did a crown funding raise, you could only lose X percent of your income, like risk, I should say risk, but it turned out to be lose risk X percent of your income on our company, because they were trying to protect non-qualified investors. That is, say, people who are not that wealthy. But if you go on to Draft Kings or FanDuel or Bet MGM, there's no such monitoring. So, if you made 100,000 a year and you bet 60,000 of it, there's nothing to stop that from occurring. So, why wouldn't you regulate something like that? If you can't invest in a company that actually had to turn over financial statements and put out a risk, you know, sort of a risk document that tells you everything that can go wrong, and they'll say, okay, you can only lose, say, 2% of your money on that of your annual income. Annual income. Why wouldn't you do that with something like sports gambling? And so, a variation on that, it turns out you don't actually have to if you opt out of gambling because you have a problem, they let you opt back in voluntarily, and they don't even have to inform your spouse. Why? If you really cared about people, why would you do that? And the other thing is, certain industries I don't believe should really be marketed, and some should probably be anti-marketed. So, for example, the cigarette industry, I would go so far as to say I wouldn't make it illegal. I would just say it should be anti-marketed. Like show people with pictures of people's lungs on the cigarette pack, sure when they buy them, we know that's effective. And I would think, I don't think gambling is quite that bad, but I don't really see why we have companies. Companies are allowed to do TV commercials trying to encourage people to do this.
MICHAEL DUNNE: You bring up a great point. It was pointed out on social media over the weekend. You know, I want to say like Zach Lowe of The Ringer, who's a very well-known sports podcaster on a very well-known site, was railing against gambling and the NBA. And what was so funny is he had just done a spot about Draft Kings, which is sponsoring his podcast. So, it's I feel like, and I'm not crying for anybody who's making a lot of money on this, but it is a weird situation where it seems like whether they're media types or even ex athletes, are put in this, are in this position of maybe trying to do the right thing, but they're also getting paid a lot of money to get people to lose a lot of money, right?
KEN PENDLETON: And the Ringer, Zach Lowe's podcast on the ringer and Bill Simmons as well, right? They were doing advertisements for FanDuel at the same time. Bill Simmons was actually, I thought, sort of downplaying the scandal a little, and you couldn't help but think, Boy, there's sort of a conflict of interest here, and maybe that's really what he believes. I like Bill Simmons a lot, but on the other hand, the appearance of impropriety is it is itself a bit of a problem, and the worst to me is when you know, one of the things that's really changed my mind on this subject was hearing how much the players get bothered by fans or harassed by fans when they don't when they lose bets on them, or fans trying to solicit inside information on them…
MICHAEL DUNNE: And to the point now where they're starting, I'm sorry, but I was gonna say to the point where they're starting to advertise, basically saying fans leave the athletes alone, kind of a thing.
KEN PENDLETON: And it's in what I would like to hear the players theorize on the other side is, of course, they make more money because of this because of this way the strategy, salary structure works, the more revenue the NBA generates, the more money that, the higher the salary cap goes, the more money they make, right? Yeah, and, and so I don't think everybody's thinking through what their own conflicts of interest are in this, in this situation.
MICHAEL DUNNE: I really appreciate you coming on and talking about this, because this is such a you know, it's obviously front and center here in Oregon, and it will be front and center for a while. Dr Ken Pendleton, Assistant teaching professor at the Warsaw Sports Center at the University of Oregon. Thank you, as always, for coming on and talking.
KEN PENDLETON: You're welcome. Thank you for reaching out to me.
MICHAEL DUNNE: Travel Lane County has new leadership and new strategies, but it's saying goodbye to a long serving staffer, and we chat with him now. Andy Vobora, the VP of Stakeholder Relations for Travel Lane County, is always great to see you. Thanks for coming in.
ANDY VOBORA: Oh, it's my pleasure.
MICHAEL DUNNE: Well, congratulations. Understand your calling it a day. You'll be retiring after a long time. Talk about sort of what kind of went into the calculus of saying, Okay, I'm ready to call it a day.
ANDY VOBORA: Well, it's not an easy decision. Certainly, I've had the honor to be able to work for a couple of great organizations. And, you know, going back to when I graduated from the University, and after a kind of year of exploring a couple of different things that ended up at Lane Transit District, and just had the honor and pleasure to work at Lane transit district for over 32 years. While I was working at Lane Transit District, I was serving on the travel lane county board, so I got exposed to the hospitality industry, and when a position came open, it just felt like a good time to make that move. And so, I've been at Travel Lane County now for 10 years. Yeah, but that 65th birthday coming up in a few weeks was one of the kind of milestones I thought, Okay, that seems like a good time to move on to some other things.
MICHAEL DUNNE: Well, it's interesting, because both places where you had leadership roles, Lane Transit District and travel Lane County, they both kind of showcase, in many ways, sort of the growth of this community. Talk about that. Talk about what you've seen over your career and how you know this maybe a sleepy little town is suddenly or the sleepy little County has become quite big, quite important, and a lot's going on.
ANDY VOBORA: Sure, I think going back to lane Transit District, I had the opportunity to work at the district at a time when some real milestone activities happened. We were the first transit district in the United States to be fully lift equipped for people with disabilities, and that happened five years before the signing of the Americans with Disabilities Act. So that was something to be really proud of, and that was kind of something that our general manager, Phyllis Luby, at the time, was just adamant that we be a leader in. So those kinds of milestones, along with just the growth in the system and the use of transit over those years because of some innovative programs, like our group bus pass program that was implemented with our team, then back in the late 80s, early 90s, to things like our Special Event Services, where we got to step up and really serve the expansion of. Watson stadium back in 2000 to three those kinds of milestone activities really stand out, and it really was because the community was changing and growing on the tourism front, I've only been a part of it for a decade. Sure, there's other staff members on our team that could talk more about this, but really, the the growth in visitor spending that we've seen in our county, you know, it now, tops a billion dollars almost every single year, and the growth of just the activities that we see that people enjoy here, both residents and visitors, is something that, I think, again, we can be really proud of and look back on and be very excited about.
MICHAEL DUNNE: Yeah, and certainly, you know, being able to both bring in and then flawlessly carry off something like the world's it's a big deal, isn't it?
ANDY VOBORA: Yeah, I think we laugh about it a lot of times, because, you know, we work really hard to bid on events. And our partners who bid on events like the world Athletics Championships, or, you know, the good work that track town does to bring in the Prefontaine and have that locked in every year. And the work of the university, you know, securing the NCAA championships. I think for a lot of people in the community, it's just like, Oh, it's just routine. It just happens, and those are always going to come here, but there's a lot of work that goes on behind the scenes to make that happen. And then there's on top of that, all of the volunteers that support those events happening in our community. And it goes well beyond just the track town events, but something we can all be very proud of. But we do such a good job, you know, punching above our weight class, that I think again, people do sort of come to expect it and here we are again, in 2026 with the world athletics under 20 Championships coming to Eugene. So that's going to be really special.
MICHAEL DUNNE: Well, congratulations on your retirement - job well done. Annie Vobora, the outgoing vice president of Stakeholder Relations for Travel Lane County. Thanks so much for coming in.
ANDY VOBORA: Oh, you're very welcome.
MICHAEL DUNNE: That's the show for today. All episodes of Oregon On The Record are available as a podcast at KLCC.org. Tomorrow, you'll hear from the leader of the Oregon Community Foundation, which is stepping into the void left by the federal government to help out Oregon nonprofits. I'm Michael Dunne, host of Oregon On The Record, thanks for listening.
