College basketballers received approximately 50,000 offensive or abusive posts and messages during March Madness according to the NCAA.

Mark Hicks, Managing Director of the NCAA, cited the data collected by ethical data group Signify during a live recording of the Martin Lycka Safe Bet Show at the SBC Summit North America Player Protection Symposium.

He added: “About 4000 of those were turned over to social media companies and law enforcement and about 50% of those were directly tied to language around sports betting. We’ve seen where people will send their Venmo account to a student-athlete saying you owe me.” 

“The women athletes experienced three times more harassment than the men. Not all sports betting related but you can just imagine some of the terrible things that are said on the women’s side.”

In the 40-minute episode, Hicks outlines how the NCAA’s approach to sports betting has changed post-PASPA to focus on protecting student-athletes and also the efforts of the NCAA to implement a blanket ban on college prop bets.

Other topics discussed include the NCAA’s partnership with Epic Global Solutions to help educate students about responsible gambling and protecting sports integrity in the world of NIL.

You can watch the episode by pressing play at the top of the article, on YouTube, or wherever you get your favourite podcasts from.