NCAA Efforts Lead To Decline In Betting-Related Harassment Of Student-Athletes
Tuesday, June 10, 2025 at 05:18PM By Barry Janoff
June 10, 2025: The NCAA has released the summary analysis from this year's Div. I men's and women's basketball study, which monitored public comments targeting the online profiles of student-athletes, coaches, officials and committee members associated with the Men's and Women's Championships.
In December 2023, the NCAA began working with Signify Group — using its Threat Matrix service powered by artificial intelligence — to investigate online harassment in college sports.
In 2024, Signify found that 42% of social media abuse during March Madness directly targeted student-athletes, while in 2025 this number decreased to 15%.
Across the March Madness project, Threat Matrix coverage monitored the accounts of 2,032 players, 346 coaches, 136 teams and 269 game officials and selection committee members.
More than one million posts and comments across Twitter (X), Instagram and TikTok that mentioned players, teams, officials and stakeholders involved in 2025 March Madness were analyzed. Of the 54,096 posts and comments flagged by Signify AI for potential abuse or threat, 3,161 were confirmed as abusive or threatening by Signify human analysts.
These messages were reported to the relevant social media platforms “and where necessary sent to law enforcement, leading to restrictions on social media accounts and abusive posts removed from the platform.”
Signify said it conducted 103 investigations into accounts posting threatening content and referred ten matters to law enforcement.
As part of its umbrella “Draw the Line” platform, the NCAA launched “Don’t Be a Loser,” anchored by a spot that ran during the Div. I Men’s and Women’s Basketball Tournaments on media partners CBS, TNT, TBS, truTV, ESPN and ABC; as well as online and social media.
The focus of the NCAA’s multi-media PSA campaign is to “call attention to the alarming prevalence of abuse and harassment student-athletes face from angry fans who lost a bet.”
In 2025 during March Madness, on the women's side, total abuse was down approximately 83%, and betting-related abuse declined 66%.
On the men's side, total abuse increased 140%, while abuse related to sports betting decreased 36%.
Across all participants, abuse related to sports betting was down 23%.
"One of the first things student-athletes told me when I became NCAA president was that they were being harassed online by people who are following or betting on their games," NCAA president Charlie Baker said via the organization.
"From day one, it's been a priority to study this issue, monitor the public interactions, protect student-athletes and allow them to focus on being students and competing at the highest level on the court with their teammates."
According to the American Gaming Assn., people legally wagered $3.1 billion on the men's and women's college basketball tournaments this year, up from $2.7 billion in 2024.
However, the $3.1 billion figure is only part of the estimated total amount that could be wagered this season.
In 2023, the American Gaming Assn. report indicated that $15.5 billion could be wagered on the NCAA tournaments, but that estimate also included bracket pools and wagers with unlicensed sportsbooks and bookmakers.
"March Madness is one of the most exciting times in American sports, with fans fired up for both the men's and women's NCAA tournaments," Joe Maloney, American Gaming Assn. svp-strategic communications, said via the organization. “This growth underscores the expanding legal sports betting market and the growing trust in legal wagering options.”
The NCAA has collaborated with EPIC Global Solutions since 2022 to provide betting harm education available to every NCAA school with a blend of delivery options, and in March announced an extension of that collaboration.
More than 100,000 student-athletes, coaches and administrators have been part of the NCAA's educational efforts 
"Online abuse isn't an issue the NCAA can solve on its own, so it's been critical to form strong relationships with a variety of stakeholders to make progress," Clint Hangebrauck, NCAA managing director of enterprise risk management, said via the organization
"While the data shows some progress has been made in areas of focus, there is clearly still a lot of collaborative work to be done to create a better environment for our student-athletes and other NCAA stakeholders."
The NCAA earlier this year also crated a dedicated Web site for people who want to learn more about the resources the NCAA is making available regrading wagering and student-athlete harassment.
Said Baker, “We need fans to do better. We need states to do better and ban player props that target student-athletes and enable detrimental abuse."
NCAA Effort Targets Betting-Related Harassment Of Student-Athletes
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