A presentation Monday to the Faculty Senate by LSU Athletics on its partnership with sports betting site Caesar’s Sportsbook drew sharp criticism from the school’s faculty representatives, who said they were left out of the deal making process and questioned the ethics of a gambling company sponsoring a school in the first place.
The Caesar’s Sportsbook deal in question was signed in late 2021 in anticipation of sports betting being legalized in Louisiana in January 2022. The exact details of the deal are unclear, but it runs until 2026 and, according to reporting by the AP, is worth “multiple millions” of dollars.
Members of the Faculty Senate raised concerns about what they felt was the secretive nature of the deal. Representatives said they weren’t notified of the deal’s existence until about a day before it became official and were given no opportunity to offer input.
“I didn’t hear about this until literally the last minute,” said Faculty Senate member Edward Shihadeh, a professor of sociology.
Officials said this was because the deal was made by LSU Athletics and not LSU itself, meaning it didn’t need oversight from any administrative body without connections to the athletics department. The LSU Board of Supervisors, however, did get a say in the deal and approved it.
A far more impassioned round of questioning began when the topic of underage gambling was raised.
Multiple members of the Faculty Senate expressed concern about the proximity of Caesar’s Sportsbook advertisements and promotional materials at sporting events such as football and basketball games to students under 21, the legal age to gamble in Louisiana, at the university and local schools.
One poster in particular drew the ire of the Faculty Senate. It was a responsibility poster featuring a man in traditional Roman attire pointing to the slogan: “Caesar’s know their limits.”
“I do not feel that shows responsible gambling, it shows that if you gamble with Caesars, you are a good person because you know your limits, and it endorses engaging in a very addictive behavior,” said Faculty Senate member Hana Beloglavec, an assistant professor of trombone, who was met with applause from the full Faculty Senate.
In the face of questions and frustrations from the faculty representatives, Keli Zinn, chief operating officer for LSU Athletics, and her co-presenter Clay Harris, deputy athletic director for revenue generation, remained on message about their reasoning behind the contract.
“With a partnership like this, they [Caesars] become one of our most high-level givers to LSU Athletics, so that’s a big part of this,” Harris said in favor of the contract. “They’re contributing a good bit of funds to this…and it’s a financial gain.”
The meeting adjourned a few questions later, but the tension remained, all but certainly setting the stage for future clashes between the juggernaut of LSU Athletics and the more academically focused Faculty Senate.
