USA TODAY is publishing automated sports stories that serve as SEO-targeted vehicles for sports gambling ads, toeing ethical lines and blurring the boundaries between sports journalism and the rapidly growing sports betting industry, the rise of which has been linked to a tidal wave of gambling addiction.
At a quick glance, the posts — which list the day's Major League Baseball (MLB) schedule in a minimal, bullet-pointed list — look like any other USA TODAY sports article. They have fairly normal headlines, underneath which are a USA TODAY editor's name and headshot; then comes an opening few sentences and the skeletal list of professional baseball games slated for that day.
"Here is the full Major League Baseball schedule for May 5 and how to watch all the games," reads the opening line of a typical post. It's identical to the one in the post that came before it, and the one before that. The only thing that changes is the date, and of course, the schedule that follows. There are dozens of these articles, which date back to March of this year.
That's not where the posts end, though. After scrolling through the short schedule, the reader is met with a barrage of prominent links to popular sports betting services, including Fanduel, BetMGM, Caesar's, and Fanatics, each advertising sign-up bonuses and big deals.
"Bet $5, Get $250 in Bonus Bets If Your Bet Wins," waves the Fanduel ad, while the Caesar's promotion calls on potential gamblers to "Bet $1, Double Your Winnings Your Next 10 Bets."
The links are covered in logos for credit cards, online payment portals, and banking apps.
Underneath those, multiple disclaimers appear. The first is a somewhat standard affiliate explainer stating that a USA TODAY team of "savvy editors independently handpicks all recommendations," which in this case are the gambling platforms. The next vaguely denotes the use of automation technology to produce the story.
"This schedule was generated automatically using information from Stats Perform and a template written and reviewed by a USA TODAY Sports editor," reads the disclaimer. "What did you think of it? Our News Automation and AI team would love to hear from you."
And for the grand finale, following the automation caveat, is a two-paragraph, 330-word disclaimer warning that "gambling involves risk" and that readers should only gamble with "funds they can afford to use," later noting that USA TODAY's owner, the newspaper giant Gannett, may "earn revenue from sports betting operators for audience referrals to betting services."
"All forms of betting carry financial risk and it is up to the individual to make bets with or without the assistance of information provided on this site," it adds at another point, "and we cannot be held responsible for any loss that may be incurred as a result of following the betting tips provided on this site."
In short, should you place a bet after following one of the Gannett-published links, the news publisher will likely get a financial kickback. And if you lose any money, they warn, that's not on them.
It's pretty wild: the actual body of the post doesn't even crack 200 words, even when you include the headline. Combined, the disclaimers — nevermind the advertisements! — ring in at over 400 words, more than doubling the length of the actual article.
The caveats are a version of the fast-talk babble at the end of a pharmaceutical commercial, and to be clear, they should definitely be there.
There was something about this content, though, that just felt off, no matter how many caveats Gannett was willing to heap on top of it.
Though the posts are housed under the USA TODAY sports section, and visually framed like any other article, they don't actually show up on the section's general landing page, nor do they crop up when you click the paper's MLB-specific tab — signaling that the idea here seems to be that someone will find one of these posts by way of a search engine, perhaps while googling a query like "baseball games today," and click.
To that end, it's impossible to ignore that the Gannett editor bylining these articles, Richard Morin, is specifically referred to by the newspaper as an "Editor of Sports Betting Partnerships" — and not a reporter, editor, or producer explicitly tasked with covering baseball or broadcasting, or sports more generally. That detail raises even bigger questions about the primary purpose of this content: is it to inform readers, or to serve as many people as possible with lucrative sports betting affiliate links?
Through one lens, the USA TODAY content is just the latest — if journalistically depressing — manifestation of the near-inescapable inrush of sports betting advertising within the modern sports media landscape. As has been widely reported, the 2018 legalization of sports gambling resulted in its swift cultural explosion and normalization, including within a younger, college-aged demographic. Now you can bet on almost everything, from major American events like professional playoffs and college championships to wildly obscure competitions, and there's almost always a betting platform willing to facilitate the wager. Digital sportsbooks, as a result, have become incredibly profitable — and they've used much of that cash to cement a dominant advertising presence in the sports media complex, where you're hard pressed to watch a broadcast or look up game highlights without encountering celebrity-packed betting ads.
But the expansion and normalization of legal sports betting has also been met by a concerning uptick in sports gambling addiction. And these colder realities of sports gambling, and the ethical and moral quandaries they raise, have collided with sports journalism in a big way. The questions are endless: should journalists be allowed to bet on the sports they cover? Should publishers and broadcasters allow sportsbooks to sponsor or advertise journalism or broadcasts that involve actionable reporting or prediction-making that could influence a bettor's decision? Is a sports publisher's reliance on ad dollars from sportsbooks more akin to a food magazine running a Don Julio-sponsored advertorial about summertime tequila recipes, or is it more like a health website publishing an article about stress relievers and featuring referral links to purchase cigarettes at the bottom?
And in addition to all of that, USA TODAY's sportsbook spoonfeeding poses yet another question: should efforts by news publishers to use AI or any kind of automation technology go anywhere near sports gambling, another landscape riddled with blurry ethical landmines?
To make sense of the Gannett articles, we reached out to Brian Moritz, a professor of journalism at St. Bonaventure University who's written extensively about sports betting's seepage into the sports media complex. At one point in our conversation, when considering how to summarize his thoughts and feelings about Gannett's automated betting referrals, he simply let out an audible groan.
It's "straying on the line," said Moritz, after reviewing the USA TODAY articles. On the one hand, he said, "there's no real reporting here. It's literally just: here are the games, and here are the links where you can bet on them if you so choose."
Ethically speaking, Moritz said it would be more concerning to see Gannett automate articles that included actionable reporting or information that could influence a gambler's choices. The hypothetical he used was an AI-generated article about Aaron Judge getting injured before a Yankee's game and being unable to play — and slapping referral links to betting sites on that.
Still, he said, it's a slippery slope. It's certainly not journalism, and though it doesn't represent a total collapse of journalistic ethics, it may well represent an erosion.
"Sports media wants to cover gambling because there's an audience for it. People do it and it's popular and it makes money," the professor continued. "But again, looking at this list of 'here's the full schedule for April 27, how to watch all the games,' and then the betting ads on it... this just feels to me — and before you even get to the word salad below — this just feels so sterile."
It's "almost a naked cash grab," he added.
We reached out to Gannett with a list of questions about this story, including questions regarding how these posts are "automatically generated" and whether generative AI tools were involved. Gannett responded that the articles were "created through automation," as opposed to generative AI, and doubled down on the claim that every automated post is reviewed by a Gannett journalist before publishing.
Asked whether these articles are considered editorial or advertorial, a spokesperson for Gannett stated that "as part of our affiliate model, we have strategic partnerships that reinforce our commitment to serving consumers with the content they need and want."
"We will continue to seek out additional opportunities to monetize the vast array of content we already produce," they added, "as we invest in our mission to support journalism."
This isn't Gannett's first attempt to infuse automation into its sports reporting. Back in 2023, Gannett was forced to issue mass corrections after its newspapers were found publishing weird, botched AI-generated roundups of local high school sports scores.
Gannett was also at the center of Futurism's investigation into the third-party media contractor AdVon Commerce, which we found had published AI-generated articles bylined by fake AI writers at dozens of publications including USA TODAY's since-shuttered commerce site Reviewed, as well as Sports Illustrated, The Los Angeles Times, many local newspapers owned by McClatchy, and more.
This recent history in mind, maybe it's unsurprising to see Gannett publish its unholy lovechild of sports betting, SEO-hunting, and automation. Even so, reflected Moritz, Gannett is a major publisher of news, and its historic USA TODAY paper was a genuine innovator in the world of sports journalism in the pre-internet '80s and '90s. And while these posts might not constitute a complete fall from grace, they're a bleak signpost in USA TODAY's decades-long history. (Maybe "McPaper" was a fitting nickname after all.)
"Sports journalism is good. Sports journalism can be great. It can do incredible stories, not just the big stuff — the little stuff that connects us to our teams, that connects us to our homes... that's why we love sports," said Moritz. "And when I look at a page like this on USA TODAY, which was a revolutionary sports news page back when it started... to see it become this list of games and ads for sportsbooks is just sad."
"It's like, 'oh, this is where we are now,'" said Moritz. "This is not what sports journalism should be aspiring to."
More on automation in journalism: Newspaper Fires Two AI Reporters After Bizarre Behavior
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