My 1989 world-class prediction on ABC's "Nightline" about the NFL and gambling—now completely vindicated 35 years later
The NFL and the sports media continue to pretend that my book about the NFL and the Mafia never existed
Before Super Bowl LVIII on Sunday, February 11—which will likely be the biggest betting event in the history of sports—I cannot resist re-posting this world-class prediction that I made during my appearance on ABC’s Nightline on September 11, 1989, about the NFL team owners’ then veiled determination to support, promote, and profit from sports gambling.
The two other guests on the program were Michael “Roxy” Roxborough, then the top oddsmaker in Las Vegas, and Warren Welsh, then the chief of NFL Security, the internal police force of professional football. I knew and respected these two gentlemen, both of whom I interviewed for my 1989 book, Interference, about the NFL and the Mafia—although, as the film shows, they did not share my enthusiasm for what I predicted.
It wasn’t until 2018—29 years later—that the U.S. Supreme Court, in a stunning landmark but tragic decision, supercharged the legalization of sports gambling nationwide. The NFL and its team owners wasted no time taking full advantage. Thus, my controversial prediction has been completely vindicated.
Meantime, in these days before Sunday’s big game, pay attention to the members of the sports media, who are dependent on the access to and goodwill of the NFL’s high command, as well as the managements of the individual NFL teams. They have always served and will continue to serve as the league’s front line of defense, as well as an integral function of its public-relations apparatus.
To be sure, sports reporters will likely discuss the reality of legalized sports gambling—which will be clear and present from all of the anticipated commercials touting these online operations before the Super Bowl. But they will surely not make an issue of the financial windfall that the NFL owners are about to enjoy. And they will certainly not be discussing the NFL’s historical ties to the illegal gambling community and the organized-crime syndicate.
Here is the key 2:17-minute Nightline excerpt and transcript:
Transcript
Jeff Greenfield: Dan Moldea, your principal concern is organized crime’s influence. Wouldn’t legalized gambling diminish the influence of organized crime?
Dan Moldea: No, I don’t think so. I think it’s going to enhance it. . . . I think what’s happening in the NFL is that the NFL owners want to control the gambling themselves. I think they want to have it right in the stadium, just as you would at a horseracing track, where you could go to a pari-mutuel window and make a bet on . . . any game that’s going on. . . .
Michael “Roxy” Roxborough: That’s too bizarre, Dan. Too bizarre.
Warren Welsh: It’ll never happen.
Moldea: I think that’s coming, because I think that’s why Jim Finks is being caught up for NFL commissioner—because they want a commissioner who’s going to be a little more sensitive to the problem of gambling in the NFL.
Roxborough: Totally outrageous. Totally outrageous.
Moldea: We’ll see.
Roxborough: Okay.
Moldea: Remember where you heard it first.
Greenfield: Mr. Welsh, do you have any sense that Mr. Moldea is predicting the future?
Welsh: Absolutely not. I think he’s 100 percent incorrect.
Moldea: Talk to Gene Klein, former owner of the San Diego Chargers. He agrees with that. The NFL owners want to control the gambling. They want to control the vigorish.
Welsh: He’s a former owner.
Moldea: He’s a former owner who wishes he could have controlled the gambling and the vigorish.
Roxborough: (laughing)
Moldea: You have to understand that these new owners, the eleven owners who are stopping Pete Rozelle from finally retiring—after a fine job that he did—are putting themselves in a position where they’re holding a lot of paper, holding a lot of debt. They’re spending $100 million for their teams. Television revenues aren’t going to carry the day for these NFL owners for long. They need the gambling. They need the vigoish.
Welsh: Absolutely incorrect. [Emphasis added]
Coming this Sunday on Mobology: The inside story of the premiere episode of the respected PBS series, Frontline, on January 17, 1983: “An Unauthorized History of the NFL.”
Absolutely a must read from Dan Moldea. You can bet your case money on what he has to say.
The crux of the matter is the difficulty that people ("whistleblowers") face in spreading information into the general public, when that information deals with corruption in the elite or government.
People have written good books or revealed crucial information in lawful manners, but they (books & information) had "hidden" ("censored ") by the said difficulty (phenomenon), which may be a result of conscious and well-organized act of suppression.
√ I am preparing to set up a social media platform to reveal all books and information that are victims of this "censorship" phenomenon.
A Case On Point:
https://rodolphenogbou.substack.com/p/the-cruel-and-unusual-man-made-situation?utm_campaign=comment&utm_medium=email&utm_source=substack&utm_content=post