NYT looked at specific universities:
a top executive at Caesars Sportsbook, said in an interview that the email was sent to underage students by mistake. “We were very disappointed that it happened
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The deals came together largely in private, The Times found, with minimal discussion on campus about their potential impact on students, athletes and the integrity of college sports.
To secure these partnerships, athletic departments depend on the companies that handle the promotional and advertising rights for their teams. These companies, which arrange all kinds of deals with sponsors, act as middlemen. They negotiate the agreements with betting companies and take a cut, sometimes in the millions of dollars, of whatever money changes hands.
Unlike public universities, which are subject to government disclosure rules and freedom of information requests, the sports-marketing companies are privately held. That means the terms of the deals they strike don’t have to be publicly disclosed if the universities are not a party to the contracts. (University athletic departments have routinely sought to shield their dealings and often route some of their most complicated contracts, including lucrative television agreements, through intermediaries like athletic conferences.)
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“With the multimedia rights holder, public institutions ... no longer have to disclose all those sponsorship deals,” he said in an interview. “This helps with the sponsors being able to spend what they feel is appropriate without having the public or employees or stockholders question that investment.”