Study: Betting-related abuse of college athletes common online

Sports-betting-related abuse remains one of the most common forms of online harassment directed at college athletes, coaches and officials, even as overall online abuse decreased this year, according to a study commissioned by the NCAA.

Betting and match-fixing-related abuse represented 11% of nearly 4,000 messages flagged by the study. That’s approximately twice as much as racial abuse or threats of violence.

Sexual (20%) and sexism (14%) were the most common categories of abuse. The numbers were in the same range as the previous year’s study.

Overall, online abuse directed at athletes, coaches and officials decreased by 22% year over year, with women’s basketball seeing a significant decrease and men’s basketball experiencing a dramatic increase.

“The NCAA condemns all forms of online abuse and harassment,” Clint Hangebrauck, NCAA managing director of enterprise risk management, said in a statement to ESPN. “The results from this year’s study suggest that the NCAA’s multi-layered strategy of building public awareness, advocacy and forming collaborative relationships with third parties is having a positive impact and has enhanced our ability to combat abuse.”

In March, the NCAA launched a “Don’t Be a Loser” video campaign that ran during the men’s and women’s basketball tournament broadcasts, in addition to lobbying for states to ban prop betting on individual college athletes. The NCAA also partnered with online payment processor Venmo this summer in an effort to combat unwanted interactions on the platform.

This was the second year the NCAA commissioned a study on social media abuse directed at college athletes, coaches and officials. The study, which was conducted by Signify Group, an artificial intelligence firm that tracks and analyzes online abuse, monitored seven championship events, including social media accounts for 5,555 athletes, 625 coaches, 466 teams and 26 official NCAA channels during the 2024-25 academic year.

Signify researchers found 31 individuals were responsible for egregious content that warranted investigation. Eight of the individuals were involved in sports betting, according to the NCAA.

Seven abusive messages met the threshold to be shared with law enforcement, the study found.