Major League Baseball couldn't find a worse news cycle than the current one, when Shohei Ohtani, the new star of the Los Angeles Dodgers and the global face of the sport, is embroiled in the scandal of Ippei Mizuhara, his closest partner since taking office. would be difficult. He joined MLB in 2018 and has been an interpreter for many years.
This story contains contradictory and changing accounts of what happened. A spokesperson for Mizuhara and Ohtani told ESPN Enterprise reporter Tisha Thompson in a March 19 interview that Ohtani transferred millions of dollars to a bookbinding business to cover Mizuhara's gambling debts. . However, as ESPN prepared to publish the article the next day, a spokesperson denied Mizuhara's testimony, Ohtani's attorney said he was the victim of “grand theft,” and the Dodgers said Mizuhara , but Mizuhara retracted his initial comments to ESPN.
On Friday, MLB announced it had begun a formal investigation into allegations that at least $4.5 million was transferred from Ohtani's account to pay off debts to a bookmaker that is under federal investigation. On Monday, Ohtani gave a statement at Dodger Stadium, but reporters were not present for questions. Through his new interpreter, Will Ireton, Ohtani strongly denied making illegal bets on sports or paying money to bookmakers.
The situation highlights the ongoing entanglement between sports, media and gambling as MLB investigates Ohtani's affairs.Many professional leagues and media The Athletic, has ties to gambling companies. The day before Ohtani's news broke, the NBA introduced betting to live games on NBA League Pass, allowing viewers to track game betting odds while watching on the app and click to place bets through NBA betting partners. announced that it would be possible. MLB and FanDuel entered into a partnership last year that allows fans to watch games and place bets through the FanDuel app. ESPN has its own sportsbook, ESPN Bet, which is linked from the main navigation bar on ESPN.com.
“The lines are really blurred in today's society,” ESPN and YES Network MLB analyst David Cohn said before Ohtani's speech Monday. “We currently have a partnership with gambling. When we played in the Mexican winter league, we saw people betting in the stands every ball. It's going to be a Major League park where you can bet on pitches. The lines are very blurred right now as far as the nature of the betting partnership with Major League Baseball.”
Of course, Ohtani is more than just a baseball player. He is the modern-day Babe Ruth of sports. He sells tickets for opposing teams and his own team, subscriptions to his MLB.TV streaming service, and is central to helping baseball's national media rights holders regain their audience. The Dodgers are scheduled to appear on ESPN's “Sunday Night Baseball” this week (against the St. Louis Cardinals) and April 14th (against the San Diego Padres), as well as a super-watched appearance on June 9th against the New Cardinals. He also plans to appear in matches where he can expect a high score. York Yankees. TBS's second nationally televised broadcast of the season includes the Dodgers (April 2nd against the San Francisco Giants) and will feature the Dodgers again on May 28th. Ohtani and others will appear on FS1 twice in April, and will appear on prime time after that. Fox played against the Cincinnati Reds on May 25th and again against the Yankees on June 8th.
“He moved the needle for us,” MLB commissioner Rob Manfred told Sports Business Journal before Ohtani was mentioned.
Ippei Mizuhara and Shohei Otani at a Los Angeles Rams game in December 2023. Otani claims that Mizuhara stole the money to pay gambling debts. (Kirby Lee/USA Today)
It will be important to see where and how ESPN and other news outlets cover Ohtani's story from here. Neither Fox Sports nor Warner Bros. Discovery/TBS have the infrastructure for 24/7 news like ESPN, nor do they have the sports journalism ambitions like ESPN. Multiple reporters and editors from ESPN's investigative/corporate team are currently working on Ohtani's story. ESPN broke into its regularly scheduled “Please Pardon the Interruption” on Monday to broadcast live coverage of Ohtani's conference.
“We will continue to aggressively report on this,” an ESPN spokesperson said. “ESPN is well-positioned to cover this story with its deep roster of investigative journalists and MLB reporters.”
You can expect more articles on the company's digital site, as well as on the company's off-the-shoulder shows like “SportsCenter.” But what about match coverage? During ESPN's coverage of the Dodgers vs. Padres Soul Series, the broadcast team of Karl Labec, Daniel Kim, and Eduardo Perez discussed this topic on three separate occasions.Kim also served as an interpreter for baseball players. and gave a particularly persuasive explanation. You can see how deeply involved interpreters are in the lives of athletes. Game coverage can have more impact than online articles because it attracts more attention.
Phil Orleans, ESPN's vice president of Major League Baseball production, said the Seoul broadcast team went to great lengths to make the language as accurate as possible. He said ESPN's game broadcasters are not restricted from discussing Ohtani's story, but they are unlikely to discuss it at length during the game unless coverage moves forward.
“Our perspective is that we absolutely cover this story, not ignore it,” Orlins said. “We did it three times in the game in Seoul. But our philosophy is usually not to overwrite the game documentation with those types of stories unless there's a real means to move it forward.” That's it. He's still playing. It's a baseball game after all. As new information comes to this story, we'll be sure to document it. But there's something actually significant that is specifically related to the game and our coverage. I don't think we're going to force five minutes into game coverage unless there's a problem. I think the audience expects us to not ignore the story, but we don't want to overwhelm the game coverage. I don’t think I want to either.”
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A curious crowd awaits Shohei Otani's statement, and the response is greater than expected.
Orleans did not inform MLB that Ohtani would be mentioned at the Dodgers-Padres game in Seoul, but said ESPN would be happy to let its league partners know the big story was coming. .
“They weren't pushy with us in general,” Orlins said of MLB officials. “If something rises to a level where we think there's a big reveal or an extreme and sensitive subject, we let them know it's coming. That doesn't mean it's going to change what's going to happen. No. When you're in a business relationship, there's a little bit of respect that comes with not turning a blind eye when something difficult happens.”
Ohtani's press conference was broadcast live on the league's MLB Network, followed by a discussion between on-air staff members Matt Basgersian and Dan O'Dowd.
“This is an important story and we will address it as it unfolds,” an MLB Network spokesperson said.. “When this story broke last week, reporters Tom Verducci and John Morosi both appeared on MLB Tonight multiple times to provide insight.”
How exactly that coverage plays out will be a big part of where the story ends up, especially given ESPN's resources and past coverage of Ohtani. ESPN has long provided daily media rights partner coverage on all major sports, but this is a unique situation given the subject matter (Ohtani), the specific allegations, and the company's gambling interests. .
The day before Ohtani spoke, ESPN's Rece Davis appeared on “College Gameday” and called one of ESPNBET analyst Erin Dolan's stock picks a “risk-free investment.” Although he later said the comment was “sarcastic,” the segment focused more attention on the ethical issues of normalizing sports betting as gambling continues to entrench itself into the sports mainstream. Ohtani said Monday that when ESPN reported that Toronto Raptors forward Jontay Porter was under investigation by the NBA following multiple incidents of gambling fraud involving prop bets, I barely finished the story. Two weeks before that, The Athletic Reported on irregular betting patterns discovered at Temple men's basketball games.
It's not hard to imagine a nightmare scenario for the league: the integrity of the game being compromised by the gambling industry they've embraced. Even if Ohtani and Porter are cleared, stories like this won't go away.
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If you were wondering why there were so many shots of Ohtani's wife Mamiko Tanaka during ESPN's Soul Series coverage last week, Orlins said ESPN needs to use the world feed for the games. He said there was. They couldn't control the crowd's shots.
“If we had our own game camera, I think he would have shown it to her,” Orlins said. “Frankly, the world feed was a little bit challenging. In the best of circumstances, the world feed is pretty neutral and conservative. I don't know if there was more appeal to her in Korea. But it's also the ultimate example of Ohtani's secrecy.”
— The College Football Playoff has signed a deal that gives ESPN exclusive rights from 2031 to 2032.
— Andrew Marchand weighed in on the potential flurry of deals ESPN is likely to make as it prepares to launch its direct-to-consumer service.
— Red Zone Channel will appear at the Paris Olympics.
— In the past three episodes of the Sports Media Podcast, longtime Sports Illustrated writer Jack McCallum, New Yorker writer Luisa Thomas, and the NCAA with Sports Business Journal's Austin Karp and Sports Media Watch's Jon Lewis A conversation about audience ratings was featured.
— By the end of February, about seven weeks after the AFC Wild Card Weekend Peacock-only game, 71% of people who subscribed to NBC's streaming service were connected to NFL playoff game day, according to consumer measurement platform Antenna. It is said that he was I was stuck.
Here are some interesting things I read last week (note: there are a lot of paywalls here):
• Caitlin Clark and Iowa find peace in the process. By ESPN's Wright Thompson.
• Geno Auriemma's Year of Reckoning.Written by Chantel Jennings The Athletic.
• How one fan approached the perfect March Madness slot. By ESPN's Ryan Hockensmith.
• Miranda's final gift. By David Frum of The Atlantic.
• CNBC's Alex Sherman, Tara Hadavi and Darren Geeter spent months reporting, editing and investigating how ESPN is trying to stay relevant amid cable decline. As a result, his 25-minute CNBC documentary is now available to watch online.
• The Athletic's Jeff Gluck feels the 'Netflix effect' in NASCAR.
• Empty frames and other oddities from the unsolved Gardner Museum robbery. By Tom Mashberg of The New York Times.
• The scammer posted an obituary declaring him dead. They were very lively. By Faith Karimi of CNN.
• The AthleticKen Rosenthal talks about Peter Angelos.
• Good thread about Kim Mulkey and the Washington Post by former AP Investigations Editor Ted Bridis.
• Meet North Carolina State's Gianna Eissa, the first hijab-wearing basketball player in the ACC. Written by Lindsey Gibbs of Power Plays.
• Former employee tells how and why he stole $22 million from Jaguars.Written by Katie Strang The Athletic.
• Damien Hirst's 1990s formaldehyde animal work was created in 2017. Via Maeve McClenahan of The Guardian.
• Why is Caitlin Clark the best shooter in college basketball? The physics behind her shots.Written by Ben Pickman The Athletic.
(Top photo of Shohei Ohtani and interpreter Will Ireton at Monday's press conference: Michael Owens/Getty Images)
