Indianapolis – Online abuses linked to sports betting decreased during the NCAA March Madness basketball tournaments compared to the previous year, but the people involved in the competition received more than 3,000 threatening messages, the NCAA announced on Tuesday.
The NCAA has hired Signy Group to monitor the messages directed against athletes, coaches, game managers, members of the selection committee and others with official roles in the tournament. Members have used both artificial intelligence and human analysts to confirm threats and, if necessary, report them to the police.
Overall, the abuses linked to sports betting fell by 23%, NCAA said in a press release.
The male support of March Madness was remarkable this year for the scarcity of upheavals, the four heads of standard n ° 1 passing in the Final Four and Florida, a popular choice to win everything, claim the national title. On the female side, three heads of production did the national semi-finals and the seeded n ° 2 UCONN, among the favorites of Pré-Tournoi, won the championship.
The NCAA analysis revealed that the overall abusive declarations intended for people involved in the male tournament increased by 140% – a large part intended for the selection committee and the coaches – while the abuses linked to sports betting fell by 36%.
The abuses fell 83% on the side of women and the abuses linked to betting decreased by 66%.
A female player who was targeted online was Chandler Prater from the state of Mississippi, who kept the star of southern California Juju Watkins when She suffered a knee injury at the end of the season.
“I received all kinds of messages, many of them hateful and abusive,” said Prater in a press release. “It was different from everything I had ever known before.”
The AI of Signoy reported more than 54,000 jobs, and its human analysts confirmed that 3,161 messages were abusive or threatening, said NCAA. These messages have been reported to social media platforms and sometimes to the police. The reports have led to the abolition of abusive publications and restrictions on social media accounts.
NCAA president Charlie Baker said he had reduced online harassment an absolute priority.
“We were encouraged to record a reduction in abuse and threat linked to sports betting during the 2025 event,” said CEO Jonathan Hirshler, “because it is often the trigger of the most glaring and most threatening content that we detect.”
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