Ever since sports gambling became legal in 2018 (SCOTUS: You bet!), the hardworking staff has laid plenty of 8 to 5 that the sports book-industrial complex would go sideways in no time flat.

Cue Jared Diamond’s piece in today’s Wall Street Journal under the headline, “A Reporter’s Tweet Moved NBA Draft Odds. He Also Works for a Gambling Company.”

The story revolves around this pre-draft tweet from Shams Charania, “a reporter for the sports journalism website the Athletic [owned by the New York Times] who is known as one of the industry’s premier news-breakers about the NBA.”

Drive Timesniks nuts graf:

Charania has a commercial partnership agreement with FanDuel, a prominent online sportsbook that allows customers to wager on the sport Charania covers for the Athletic. Though Charania isn’t a FanDuel employee, he regularly appears on FanDuel’s TV channel and is compensated by the company. The banner atop Charania’s Twitter profile features the Athletic logo, sandwiched between the logos of FanDuel and Stadium, the sports television network he also works for.

Despite disclaimers all around, Diamond adds, “the episode served as a stark example of the thorny situations that will no doubt continue to arise as sports leagues, sports media and sports gambling enterprises become increasingly intertwined. ”

Our kissin’ cousin (Frog Division) Dr. Ads has been on this like Brown on Williamson, dubbing the sports book/sports league/sports media hookup the Axis of Wheedle.

Here’s just FanDuel’s list of besties.

The Doc’s diagnosis: “Multiply that by umpteen sports books, and you have the future: Games = Gambling. And then, all bets on the integrity of sports are off.”

Eight-to-five he’s right.