NCAA joins Bad Actor Program as first sports governing body

The National Collegiate Athletic Association announced on October 29 that it had joined the Bad Actor Program, becoming the first sports governing body to participate in the initiative developed by IC360 and Signify Group.

The program combines social media monitoring with investigative tools to identify individuals who send abusive messages or threats to athletes, coaches, and officials. Participating organizations can use the findings to ban offenders from betting platforms, exclude them from live events, or refer cases to law enforcement. Fanatics and DraftKings are already partners in the program.

The NCAA's decision follows its own research with Signify Group that verified more than 5,000 abusive social media posts directed at college athletes, approximately 80% of them targeting March Madness participants. Female athletes received substantially more threats than male counterparts. A separate strand of NCAA research linked a significant share of that negative activity to sports betting losses.

NCAA President Charlie Baker said the organization intends to work across the sports betting ecosystem to address harassment that has followed the expansion of wagering into college athletics.