Earlier in the offseason, Oklahoma Sooners quarterback John Mateer was caught up in an odd situation after some of his Venmo payments went viral on social media. It appeared he had been involved in potentially betting on college football games, but Mateer claims it was just an inside joke with him and his friends.
After chaos ensued and the 21-year-old quarterback issued an official statement regarding the incident, the NCAA announced that it is now in partnership with Venmo, according to Alex Byington of On3 Sports. However, the partnership is in favor of student athletes, as reports indicate that the NCAA and Venmo are going to work together to fight against harassment from losing bettors.
“The NCAA and Venmo, a popular online payment service, announced a partnership Tuesday to combat harassment of collegiate athletes [who] have received unwanted financial and informational requests from losing bettors and gamblers impacted by their performance.
“As part of the NCAA-Venmo partnership, the payment service has agreed to start a dedicated hotline for collegiate athletes to report abuse and harassment, provide user education on account security, and increased monitoring to combat abuse.”
NCAA President Charlie Baker issued a statement regarding the new partnership with Venmo. Baker is seemingly happy with the partnership, as it is more focused on helping student athletes combat potential harassment. Although John Mateer's situation was viral on social media, it appears his incident has nothing to do with the NCAA and Venmo joining forces.
“The harassment we are seeing across various online platforms is unacceptable, and we need fans to do better,” Baker said in the Venmo partnership. “We applaud Venmo for taking action, and we need more social media companies and online platforms to do the same. Several states have passed laws to crack down on this behavior to protect student-athletes, and we hope more do the same because stopping this abuse requires action on multiple fronts.”
This is one of those partnerships that should make student-athletes happy, as it protects everyone, not just college football. Hopefully, it reduces the number of sports bettors contacting the student athletes, as some of the threats they receive are extremely ugly.
