Last week, Canadian network Sportsnet parted ways with Jeff Marek. Marek had been at that company for more than a decade, and had been a key part of their coverage across Hockey Night In Canada , other NHL broadcasts, radio, podcasts, and more. But both he and Sportsnet parent Rogers offered little comment on what was behind the parting of ways, which came after an unusual month-plus absence from Sportsnet platforms and X/Twitter for Marek.
That absence began after the first night of the NHL Draft on June 28. It saw Marek not work the rest of that event, and not hosting his radio show or co-hosting the 32 Thoughts podcast (with Elliotte Friedman) since then. And while both Marek and Sportsnet didn’t say much about his exit, many (including Jonah Siegel of Toronto Sports Media, who broke the news of Marek leaving) suggested this was about something that happened during or around that draft in Las Vegas.
Well, we now have some reported details on this, thanks to Katie Strang and Dan Robson of The Athletic. And they are about that draft. But they’re highly unusual.
Apparently, the issue here was Marek providing advance notice of picks to a friend. As Sportsnet’s draft pick interviewer, he got heads-ups the NHL gave to TV partners when selections were in but before they were officially announced, a lead time of one to two minutes. As per this piece, Marek allegedly passed on some of those heads-ups to a friend, former NHL scout and Barrie Colts’ director of player personnel Mark Seidel (who also runs the North American Central Scouting Independent Bureau scouting service), who then tweeted about the picks before they were announced. Here’s more from that piece:
In Las Vegas, Seidel correctly predicted several picks on X, which prompted concerns that Marek had informed Seidel who those teams were picking.
The nearly five-hour broadcast ended around 8:15 p.m. local time, and Marek was scheduled to leave Las Vegas that night on a red-eye flight. But before he left, at least one NHL official approached Marek about wanting to speak with him.
The league was concerned about the potential misuse or dissemination of insider information, league and media sources said.
…League and media sources said that Marek gave Seidel a heads up on the picks so that Seidel could better prepare and offer analysis of those selections on social media. Professional sports leagues are known to monitor social media during live events such as drafts; it is also common for leagues to partner with external integrity and compliance firms to monitor social media activity.
As Robson and Strang note, while the immediate thoughts of many may turn to gambling around insider information, there aren’t any reports yet of that being involved here. Nevada mandated that sports books cut off bets on specific picks 24 hours ahead of the first round. Thus, a one- to two-minute heads-up would not help place a bet there.
There may have been specific player bets available later in other jurisdictions. But Seidel was also in Vegas. And there’s no suggestion of actual betting here yet. As per that piece, “One source briefed on the draft night situation said that no gambling impropriety was discovered or any intent for Marek to gain financially from what happened.” (One other curious thing here is that while many initially pointed to Marek appearing on the first night of the draft and not anything further as key evidence something went wrong that night, Strang and Robson indicate that he was already planned to leave on that red-eye before any controversy erupted here.)
So, what’s the problem? The combined issue seems to be the league being upset its broadcaster heads-ups were leaked and Sportsnet both being upset this information got leaked outside of their organization and wanting to placate the NHL. (On that front, it may be notable that they have two seasons left on their current 12-year deal as the national NHL rightsholder in Canada.) And some of that’s understandable from both parties, but, as with some other past firings over leaks , the punishment here seems disproportionate to what actually happened.
Broadcasters can obviously employ who they want; there’s no mandate that Sportsnet had to keep Marek. But they clearly valued him on their NHL coverage for a long time. And it’s curious to see that relationship ending over Marek allegedly providing heads-ups of one to two minutes on draft picks to a friend.
Whether Marek should have done that clearly can be debated. And there are a lot of angles there: the general debate over if reporters should report draft information or save it for TV is never – ending , there’s a specific weird thing here with Marek getting this information from the league for particular broadcast purposes rather than through his own reporting, and there’s further oddness with the information going to someone outside the company who used it to bolster their own Twitter/X clout. But this feels below much of what we’ve seen networks suspend people for, much less part ways with them over.
And there are major questions about the NHL’s involvement here. It’s valid for league officials to speak to Marek over concerns about “the potential misuse or dissemination of insider information.” That makes sense; they’re monitoring their draft (themselves and with compliance services) for any irregularities, and that’s probably how they got wind of this.
But the questions are if the NHL put pressure on Sportsnet to part ways with Marek over this, either overtly or subtly. A league should not be influencing who broadcasters employ to cover it. And past cases along those lines have kicked up quite the storm. There’s no specific “A NHL executive told Sportsnet to get rid of Marek” smoking gun in this report, but it will be interesting to see if future reporting emerges to clarify the league’s role in Marek’s time at Sportsnet ending.
There are also wider discussions to be had here about spreading insider information. Yes, there absolutely is potential for a gambling scandal there , and some of the scandals to date (including those with Jontay Porter and Brad Bohannon ) have revolved around that. And there have been discussions around potential problems with insiders who partly work for gambling companies, although no evidence has yet emerged of improper connections between reports and offered odds.
There’s also been talk about people looking to bet trying to find out insider information from journalists . And that can pose plenty of problems. And the Marek situation can be seen as something reinforcing leagues’ desires to crack down on leaks, and can be seen as a warning to journalists to be careful what information they spread. But there doesn’t seem to be a plausible path to the limited heads-up allegedly here impacting betting in any way. So while this can be a “don’t leak information” case, it is not a gambling scandal (at least, not with what’s been reported so far).
This case is also interesting for the importance of information actually coming to light. It’s understandable why neither Sportsnet nor Marek could say much officially given the particular circumstances supposedly involved here. But the lack of detail from anyone led to a lot of speculation flying around, with some of that about much more serious things than the actual allegations here.
And there is a public interest in knowing what happened here. That’s valuable information both for discussion of the decision Sportsnet made here (and discussion of how they’ll replace Marek) and for discussion of any further media jobs Marek gets. So it’s good to see illuminating reporting here, which should squash some of the rumors and make all of those discussions more informed.
[ The Athletic ]
The post Jeff Marek’s Sportsnet exit reportedly centered around tipping NHL Draft picks to a friend appeared first on Awful Announcing .
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