Sports Betting Is Legal, and Sportswriting Might Never Recover

Few journalists embody the gambling industry’s capture of sports media quite like Chad Millman, and few media outlets typify the coverage in this new era like the one he runs, the Action Network. It’s a slick website for sports gamblers that offers sophisticated tools and analysis with all the wit and charm of a Walgreens receipt. That’s not a criticism. The Action Network isn’t in the charm business.

Founded by the Chernin Group, a private equity firm that at the time had stakes in Barstool Sports and the Athletic, the website began in January 2018, only four months before the US Supreme Court threw open the doors to legal sports betting. From the start, the Action Network’s goal was to turn casual sports fans into expert bettors. “Sports betting is one of those topics that can be confusing,” Millman, the Action Network’s chief content officer and a former editor-in-chief of ESPN The Magazine, told a reporter in 2019. “We want our readers to be able to understand it at the highest level.”