Other schools, too, have struck deals to bring betting to campus. It was, a member of the negotiating team said in another email, “the largest sportsbook deal in college athletics.”
In the end, the company proposed a deal worth $8.4 million over five years. The offer from Caesars Sportsbook turned out to be even bigger than that, according to emails obtained by The New York Times. “Alan, if we are willing to take an aggressive position, we have a $1 M/year deal on the table with Caesar’s,” Paul Schager wrote to Alan Haller, the university’s athletic director. In September 2021, an official in Michigan State University’s athletic department sent an email to his boss with exciting news: An online betting company was willing to pay handsomely for the right to promote gambling at the university. By Anna Betts, Andrew Little, Elizabeth Sander, Alexandra Tremayne-Pengelly and Walt Bogdanich
