The NCAA and the online payment service announced an association on Tuesday with the aim of combating the abuse and harassment of university athletes, some of which reported having received unwanted money requests for losing betrs and requests for internal information.
The NCAA-Vieven association presents a dedicated direct line for athletes to denounce abuse and harassment, security on security and greater monitoring. The Venmo Security team will monitor the trends and events of social networks during the games, such as the field goals lost in the last second, which have caused overthensions in unwanted interactions.
The direct reporting line was launched on Tuesday.
The NCAA says that her research shows that about 20% of abuse and harassment online aimed at university basketball and soccer players on social networks are connected to sports bets. In Venmo, most of the harassment comes in the form of requests for payment of players who lost a commitment related to the athlete, according to an NCAA official.
“We have also heard of the request for privileged information,” Clint Hangebrauck, managing director of Business Risk Management of the NCAA told ESPN. “'Hey, can you let me know if you are going to play or not, and I will provide you with some money', which is obviously problematic for us from a point of view of integrity.”
David Szuchman, senior vice president of the Matrix of Venmo, PayPal, told ESPN that unwanted money -sent requests to athletes are rare on the platform but are still “unacceptable.” He believes that university athletes belong to a unique subset of venmo clients that deserve a higher level of monitoring and protection.
“Harassment or abuse of any kind is not tolerated on the platform, and strict measures are taken against users who violate our policies,” said Szuchman, who supervises financial crime and customer protection for the company.
Szuchman says that if illegal activity is detected, the company is mandatory by federal regulations to inform the application of the law.
“We are monitoring to make sure that we understand what is reaching the accounts of these students who are not desired,” said Szuchman. “Who comes and then, based on our terms and conditions, how do we treat them?”
University and professionals have publicly talked about the payment requests they receive from Venmo players, which has no association with other sports leagues.
Venmo allows customers to send and receive money online, and, if users choose, include a public visualization of the transaction and messages. Customers can choose to make their account private, with transactions hidden to the public, but many enjoy public interactions with friends, Hangbrauck said.
“They have friends who are students, and they want to be able to share pizza money, pay for going to a movie that night or the trip they are doing this weekend,” Hangbrauck said. “I think, in many ways, they just want to be normal university students.
“This is a really unique and interesting population,” he said about athletes. “How do we allow them to operate in a way where they can feel like any other university child but also have those improved measures around them to make sure they have a safe experience on their platforms?”
Hangebrauck said that the association with Venmo is novel for NCAA, but expects other social media companies to take the issue of athletes harassment seriously.
“I hope that in many ways, this will serve as a plan to communicate with other social media platforms,” Hangbrauck said.
