Taking A Gamble In Business…Literally

Throughout the course of the history of sports there have been business deals fueled by the problems and pratfalls of gambling or paying off debt. Lore has it the New York Giants were originally acquired by the Mara family in an effort to pay off gambling woes by a partner. The Philadelphia Eagles ran amok at one point becuase of the gambling debt accumulated by owner Leonard Toes…there is the legendary story of Red Sox owner Harry Frazee selling Babe Ruth to the Yankees in order to finance his play “No No Nanette” (although thats not necessarily true). Although not realated to gambling, the USFL's Arizona Wranglers and Los Angeles Express franchises literally swapped entire teams one year.

Today the business of ownership and all the due diligence involved, along with the high level security monitoring that goes on, would probably create mounds of red flags well before owners could spin into problems with gambling. Bad businessmoves are always in play, but ill gotten gains could be less of an issue. However there is the business of poker, and the evolution of a parlor game into a well managed, high stakes and well followed sport, with the World Series of Poker leading the way both in the United States and now around the world. So out of the WSOP this week came a report (featured in tech Crunch. that two participants. David Sachs the founder of Yammer and Jason Calcannis, president of Mahalo, had literally bet their companies, or part of them, in WSOP this week. It certainly makes for great publicity for bith the digital companies and for what can be pout oin the table during WSOP events..? While it does seem there is some value but l assets involved, and both players are solvent well beyond their wager, it does pose for some interesting thoughts on what could be done as promotion for WSOP and its high stakes participants. While serious players do want to play and not turn the event into any sort of a circus that is not taken seriously, bringing unique gambling elements in to spice up the events, especially those pieces which draw big sponsors and TV eyeballs, could make it a but interesting. Now there is no way Dr. Jerry Buss would go against, say Paul Allen and put a portion of the Lakers against a portion of the Seahawks, but maybe there are companies or even minor league teams which could find a way to effectively put up portions as part of a stunt for recognition and even brand value. While mixing gambling and professional sport on field is frowned upon, the gambling value in professional sports is astronomical worldwide, and that money remains a good part of the lifeblood of sport.

No in the long run you won’t see teams being gambled away on TV…well probably not anyway. However these week's wager was a fun move to grow WSOP's brand and does open the door for them to find new areas of publicity and promotion as they look to evolve.