“Remove equestrian events from the Olympic Games.”

The statement from the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), a United States-based animal rights group, did not pull any punches.

“Horses don’t volunteer — they can only submit to violence and coercion. It’s time for the Olympics to move into the modern era.”

This was after a video emerged, two days before the 2024 Paris Olympics’ opening ceremony, of Great Britain’s three-time dressage gold medallist Charlotte Dujardin “excessively” whipping a horse during a coaching session four years ago.

Charlotte Dujardin, Britain’s joint-most decorated female Olympian, has been provisionally suspended & will not compete at Paris 2024.

This video has emerged of the dressage star which she said showed her ‘making an error of judgement’. pic.twitter.com/PQ9rPQTD04

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— Good Morning Britain (@GMB) July 24, 2024

Dujardin announced her withdrawal from all competitions — including the Paris Games — while under investigation by the International Federation for Equestrian Sports (FEI), who later confirmed she had been provisionally banned for six months.

The sport has since come under intense scrutiny and the question being asked is: do equestrian sports have a place at the modern Olympic Games?

While animal rights activists believe there should be a blanket ban on all horse sports, others in the Olympic industry believe their place as a sport at the Games is not under “immediate threat” and would be surprised if they were dropped. They did, however, describe the Dujardin scandal as a “wake-up call” and underlined how the equestrian world should not be complacent.

What has the reaction been within the sport?

The video of Dujardin was a huge shock to her long-time team-mate and mentor Carl Hester, whose Gloucestershire yard is where Dujardin trains.

“It’s difficult, of course it is,” said the Olympian, who signed a statement from the board members of the International Dressage Riders Club last week that “universally condemned” Dujardin’s actions.

Hester, who said the incident did not take place at his yard, is competing in the dressage competition in Paris. “I have known her for 17 years. She’s a mum, she has a small child. She has paid very heavily in a way that you wouldn’t believe.

“That video is fairly obvious and nobody is going to support that. You can’t (support it). But over 17 years, I have not seen that, that is not her.”

In her statement, Dujardin apologised in what she described as an “error of judgment” and said she was “deeply ashamed and should have set a better example”.

“She obviously accepts what she did, which she had to do and I am glad she has done that, for her,” added Hester. “This is four years ago, people do make mistakes — what do we do, never forgive people for all the things that have happened?

“It’s going to be a long road for her and a lesson for everybody in the horse world. We have to put horses first and show that.”

The shockwaves rippled throughout the equestrian world, according to Tom McEwen, who won gold for Team GB in the team eventing alongside Laura Collett and Ros Canter this week.

“I didn’t like the look of it and I didn’t like to see her persisting with the use of the whip,” Mary King, who won three Olympic medals in eventing with Team GB, tells The Athletic. “The length of time she did it was wrong.” King also added the timing of the video’s release to stop Dujardin competing at the Olympics was “horrible”.

“We all know it needs to change if this is out there,” said Hester. “We are going to have to do that but as we have seen from the last few days of sport here (in Paris), we’ve seen the care, the grooms who work incredibly hard, how they love and look after the horses and I hope that starts to show how that works.”

Is this an isolated incident or a wider problem?

PETA’s vice president, Kathy Guillermo, was “horrified” but “not surprised” by the video, explaining the group frequently receives whistleblower videos from grassroots to professional riders in each discipline: dressage, showjumping and eventing. “It’s become so commonplace that I’m surprised when somebody isn’t abusing a horse,” she says. “That sounds harsh, but it is more common than not.”

According to Guillermo, the volume of evidence PETA receives shows dressage is the most “problematic” of equestrian events. “Dressage is not natural to a horse. It started out to be the training of a horse to use their balance and physical attributes in a normal way, and it grew into something very distorted.”

King refutes that dressage has overstepped the mark. “A rider can only produce a horse to what they are capable of doing,” she says.

But the issue goes beyond dressage. PETA also wrote to the FEI calling for the elimination of Brazilian event rider Carlos Parro after photographs showed him allegedly performing “hyperflexion of the horse’s neck so severe that it appears deformed”, a practice known as rollkur that violates FEI rules. The FEI issued a warning for causing “unnecessary discomfort to a horse” but allowed Parro to compete.

One of the photos of Parro that PETA submitted to FEI (PETA)

Austria showjumper Max Kuehner is also facing a charge in Germany for committing an offence in May 2023 against the Animal Welfare Act for “poling” or “rapping”, a technique whereby the horse’s legs are hit with a pole as they go over the jump to make it think it hit the fence, so the animal will pick his legs up higher the next time. The Munich court will not provide more information on the matter until September 2024 and the FEI told The Athletic it will await the procedure’s outcome.

In April 2024, the European Equestrian Federation surveyed more than 9,000 people, the majority of whom were European national-level riders, and revealed that 90 per cent of participants, from grassroots to international level, had witnessed instances of poor horse welfare at home, and more than half of those instances had occurred in the past six months. The survey also reported comments focused on dressage and the sentiment that judging rules and standards are affecting training methods.

Yet the FEI president Ingmar De Vos told the BBC: “You need to put it (Dujardin’s case) into context. We have many riders, athletes and horses and it’s a very low percentage. But every case is a case too much. We need to constantly educate our athletes because what was allowed 30 years ago is not allowed today. We want people to speak up because we as the FEI, the guardian of our sport and horses, need to work with our community to make our sport better.”

The chief executive of global equine charity World Horse Welfare, Roly Owers, does not believe the issue is “systemic” but it does go beyond the incident with Dujardin.

“There is a real challenge,” he says. “This case needs to be treated as another real wake-up call. If horse sport is to have a future, it has to show at all times, both on the competition field and at home, that the horse is the key stakeholder. Their welfare is the number one priority and sadly, that wasn’t the case here (referring to the Dujardin video).

“There’s a huge difference between considering a whip as almost an extension of the arm, where you’re using it as an aid, either tickling or tapping, allowing the horse time to respond, and using the whip as a weapon to strike where the horse will not only not understand, but as you saw in that video, will get frightened as well.”

From his six-month stint in the equestrian world as former interim chair of British Equestrian, Ed Warner noted certain attitudes in the sport needed modernisation, including horse welfare.

“Most owners, riders, coaches are clearly completely devoted to the welfare of their horses,” says Warner, writer of Sport Inc and a former UK Athletics chair. “As in many sports, there are some bad apples, rotten apples, or just people with outdated views at the margin that let the sport down. I found it to be a rather closed world. It would do no harm shining a brighter spotlight onto it for the good of the sport.”

King maintains that mistreatment of horses is not commonplace and they are treated like “kings and queens” to help them perform at their best. Benefiting from nutritionists and physiotherapists, top-level horses “live a life of luxury,” she says.

“This cruelty isn’t involved in what we do. The better they are cared for, the better they’re going to go to competition. We all absolutely adore our horses. We’re training them to trust us.

“There are times when, like bringing up children, they need to know black and white, what’s right and wrong, for them to progress happily and confidently.”

King on Imperial Cavalier at the 2012 London Olympics (John Macdougall/AFP/GettyImages)

King adds total trust between human and animal is essential to a successful partnership — and that takes time. “They’re much bigger and stronger than we are,” she says. “If they don’t want to do something, they won’t. There’s not much we can do about it.”

But PETA’s Guillermo, who used to compete in equestrian events as a teenager and played polo, disagrees. “That’s a nice fantasy, the idea that because somebody knows a horse, that horse is working hard for them. It is equally true a horse will work hard when coerced into doing so, when treated violently to do so, as we have seen with Dujardin.”

The status of equestrianism as an Olympic sport

PETA is steadfast in its approach to banning horse sports from the Olympics and Paralympics (the latter only includes dressage).

“I don’t think they’re going to last much longer,” says Guillermo. “Too much of the truth is coming out. The history of the use of horses in the Olympic Games is rife with scandal. It’s just that most of it didn’t make the headlines.

“There have been drugging issues, issues with injuries, horses whose tongues have been tied down into their mouths to keep the tongues from coming above the bit.

“The Olympics are going to modernise and realise that this kind of abuse scandal is not worth it and that it really has no place in the modern world.”

At the 2028 Olympics, obstacle course racing will replace showjumping as one of the disciplines of the modern pentathlon after a German coach was seen striking a horse at the Tokyo Olympics three years ago. However, comparing that part of modern pentathlon to the designated dressage, eventing or showjumping events is like comparing apples and oranges — in the multi-event version, it is a lottery which horse is assigned to which rider and there is no opportunity for a partnership to be formed.

Saint Boy, the horse struck by a coach in Tokyo. Rider Annika Schleu faced criticism for her repeated whip use (Marijan Murat/picture alliance via Getty Images)

Such a precedent is concerning for those involved in equestrianism, which first featured at the Games in 1900 and has been included in every edition since 1912, but Owers believes the sport shows the “ultimate benefit of the horse-human relationship working in harmony”, which he says should be cherished and presented on the world stage.

Its historical place at the Olympics, too, should not be disregarded. “It would be wrong to downgrade the importance of heritage in the roster of Olympic sports,” says Warner, now chair of GB Wheelchair Rugby, who also notes equestrian events’ relatively strong popularity with the global television audience.

“They’re not the most popular sports, but they are far from the least popular either,” he says.

There is a royal element at play too. Members of the Dutch, Spanish, Jordanian and British royal families have been FEI presidents over the years, including Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, and Princess Anne. The Princess Royal competed at the 1976 Olympics in team eventing and presented the medals to the eventers on Monday. Her daughter, Zara Phillips, won Olympic silver in the same event at London 2012.

But as well as the pressing issue of horse welfare, King, along with others, raises the concern of the high financial costs of hosting equestrian events at an Olympics, given horses need to be flown around the world, not to mention the facilities required.

What factors are considered when dropping or reintroducing sports?

Beyond the traditional Olympic sports, such as cycling, swimming, athletics, gymnastics and rowing, every event is fighting to keep its spot, according to Warner.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has been challenged over recent years by the decrease in the number of cities willing to host the Olympic Games, given the ever-increasing number of athletes and participating sports.

It constantly reviews the sports programme and looks for a mix of the traditional and the new to remain relevant to today’s youth. In Paris, there has been the addition of breaking and the return of skateboarding, surfing and sport climbing from Tokyo. The 2028 Games will feature flag football and squash for the first time, as well as the return of baseball, softball, cricket and lacrosse.

At the end of each Games, the IOC looks at a Rubik’s Cube of factors for all sports: ticket sales, broadcast views, the sport’s success between games, the world championship of a non-Olympic sport, the appeal to a young and global audience. As you can imagine, it gets highly political.

Many sports have come under pressure for different reasons. Modern pentathlon was on the cusp of being dropped from the 2028 Olympic programme, and the inclusion of boxing is yet to be confirmed because of governance issues.

Will equestrian events be at the 2028 Olympics?

The IOC works one Games in advance so the sports programme for the 2028 Olympics has already been locked in, including equestrian events. But it has the power to remove any event if it wishes and will review formats and quotas after Paris.

Simon Clegg, former CEO of the British Olympic Association (BOA) and a former Team GB chef de mission, warns against a “knee-jerk reaction” to the incident with Dujardin, and would be very surprised if the IOC dropped an individual discipline, such as dressage, or an entire sport. Instead, he encourages the FEI to investigate the case properly and let due process take its course. It will be up to the IOC if it wants to follow through on horse welfare issues.

Warner does not believe equestrian events are under any “immediate threat” but thinks those involved in the sport cannot get complacent.

“The IOC is acutely conscious of its reputation and how any mistreatment of horses will look to the wider public that doesn’t understand horse sport and just watches it every four years when the Olympics comes around,” he says.

The key for Warner is for the sport not to lose perspective of how it might appear from the outside and ensure the highest standards of horse welfare are delivered.

“If that can be done, and if the FEI is suitably hard on those that transgress, it’ll be fine,” Warner says. “The initial suspension for Dujardin shows meaningful intent. The onus is on the FEI to ensure it doesn’t think that out of sight means out of mind when it comes to finalising the case.”

Where does the sport go from here?

“Any horse abuse case is unacceptable and will always be acted upon by the FEI,” a spokesperson for the international governing body told The Athletic.

“The FEI has a robust legal system to sanction those that violate the rules and seek to abuse their horses. The IOC has full trust in the FEI and also has confidence we will address these cases properly.”

They also have a new action plan for equine welfare strategy, comprising six priority areas that include training, riding and recognising physical and emotional stress.

The challenge equestrianism faces, according to Owers of World Horse Welfare, is showing the public that “equine welfare is the priority above any competitive or commercial influence”.

Owers and Warner believe it is about building a culture where people call out malpractice to bring about change. Just like any other sport, it is unrealistic for a governing body to attend every individual training session and often riders will have their horses on their private yard.

Education — from top riders to grassroots — awareness of issues, competition stewards and active bystanders all play a role. King advocates for quality trainers to be more accessible to young riders to enhance their education.

“Be very clear about what is an acceptable training method and what is not,” Owers says. “That has to come very, very quickly.”

PETA, however, calls for a more objective stewarding approach.

“The FEI needs a person present with deep experience in equine medicine and animal welfare who is not involved in these sports. The coaches and the veterinarians are so wrapped up in this world that what is clearly abuse to others ceases to look like abuse to them. We need an observer who understands horses and abuse who is not part of that world.”

Owers also suggests the implementation of an anonymous reporting framework across all levels from the FEI to riding schools. The survey mentioned earlier found that 60 per cent of respondents did not know who to contact if they wanted to report a horse welfare issue, and grooms at private yards were in a vulnerable position if they raised reports against their employer.

“The regulators have got a role to play, but it starts with the individual rider,” he says. “If we don’t place equine welfare at the centre of horse sport, then it has no place on the international stage.

“But you place it at the centre and we believe it has a wonderful example of the horse-human relationship which has been going on for millennia.

“But it’s got to earn that right.”

(Top photos: Getty Images/Design: Dan Goldfarb)

Late in 2023, a delegation of senior Liverpool staff were visiting the college town of Columbia, South Carolina, when they wondered if it might be possible to work out early the following morning. Their hosts from the athletics department of the University of South Carolina swiftly sensed an opportunity.

Chance Miller, at the time the deputy athletics director at the University of South Carolina , arranged a personal 6am pick-up for the Liverpool staff and access to the South Carolina Gamecocks college football team’s weights room. The Gamecocks’ strength and conditioning coach, Luke Day, put the Liverpool staff through their paces. As for the soundtrack, Miller ensured that Liverpool’s anthem You’ll Never Walk Alone played in the background, before working through some classics from The Beatles.

It was all part of a mighty charm offensive that culminated in the University of South Carolina hosting its first major exhibition match between European football teams at the 77,599-seater Williams-Brice Stadium. On Saturday evening, Columbia, with a population of less than 140,000, will host one of the sport’s most famous rivalries when Liverpool face Manchester United for the final leg of their Rivals in Red tour of the United States, which has also seen both teams play against Arsenal. United faced Arsenal in Los Angeles and Liverpool played Mikel Arteta’s team in Philadelphia. This will be the first time any English Premier League team has played in Columbia.

Los Angeles, where more than 62,000 supporters attended United’s 2-1 defeat by Arsenal at SoFi stadium, and Philadelphia, where Lincoln Financial Field sold out for Wednesday evening’s match between Liverpool and Arsenal (which Liverpool won 2-1), are ranked No 2 and No 4 in media researchers Nielsen’s list of designated market area rankings. That is essentially a formula that lists the size of television markets within the U.S.

Columbia, however, ranks 76th and has no track record in hosting soccer events. This selection, therefore, represented a leap into the unknown.

According to Miller, who only recently departed the University of South Carolina to join Coastal Carolina University, thoughts turned to hosting these matches during the Covid-19 pandemic.

“It really stretched us and the university because we were reducing attendance at our college football games,” he says. “It was the most difficult time in our professional careers because there was so much uncertainty; whether or not we were even going to play the games. So it was a question of: how are we going to be able to provide for our student athletes and for their wellbeing?

“When you are looking at the financials, big-time college athletics depends on football, basketball and baseball. Attendance, selling tickets, putting games on TV… it is essential to produce the revenue that helps us fund the rest of our sports, such as swimming, diving, track and field, tennis and golf. I kept sitting there thinking, ‘We have all these beautiful facilities. Our football stadium holds 75,000 people, but we only use it seven days a year’. So what could we do to diversify, produce revenue, and also just bring really cool events into the capital city of South Carolina?”

The conversation around this match started in autumn, when TEG, a live events promotion company, reached out to Miller. TEG have organised the Rivals in Red tour, as well as Wrexham’s tour of the west coast in the U.S. this summer. The company, which originated in Australia, has also brought the New Zealand rugby All Blacks to play Fiji in San Diego this year, as well as organising and promoting T20 cricket games on the east coast, including the hot-ticket India fixture against Pakistan in New Jersey.

(Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images)

Miller says: “Hugh Nicholson from TEG reached out to me and his idea was to bring professional soccer at the highest level to some of these big university towns that had great followings of college football. I jumped all over it.”

Miller had another conversation that same night. “Carson, my eight-year-old son and Manchester United fan, is my soccer expert,” he laughs. “And I said, ‘Carson, what if I was able to get Manchester United and Liverpool to play in the stadium?’. He started screaming and running around the house. So I figured we had something successful in the works.”

Nicholson expands on the theory: “There’s been huge success with events at the University of Michigan with Real Madrid and Manchester United previously. I’ve always thought, when you look at college stadiums, they are absolutely massive, but they also have loyal fans and people that are passionate about their university, town and region.

“The teams were heading east at the end of the tour, so geographically it made sense. I immediately started looking into the Southeastern Conference for venues that had the size and scale that could accommodate a match of this magnitude, but also universities that had a loyal fan base who would really buy in and support.”

The University of South Carolina considered hosting other games this summer but eventually decided that if they were to be venturing into football, they ought to go big.

Miller said: “Let’s try to bring two of the top teams here, really sell it and show that the fanbase of college athletics will support something like this. What they liked more than anything is when we talked to the teams, we were able to show them that we have world-class facilities.

“We have some of the best grounds crew and turf management people in the industry. They came over here to look at our grounds and our turf guy, Clark Cox, he’s done some of the world’s biggest events. He’s done the Major League Baseball All-Star game. He’s worked at the Super Bowl and he was really able to show them that we can pull this off at the highest level.”

For United, it suited them well. The club wanted their pre-season to be commercially advantageous — the tour, as a ballpark figure, is worth around £15million to the club — but also performance-driven. This meant avoiding any exhausting zigzagging across the U.S.

Erik ten Hag’s team have used a single training base in Los Angeles and will fly into South Carolina on Friday for an overnight stay and then head straight back to Manchester after the game on Saturday.

The United squad in training in Los Angeles (Ash Donelon/Manchester United via Getty Images)

There were some logistics to resolve. Miller explains that college football teams traditionally leave the visiting team’s locker rooms in a less luxurious state than that of the home team, so as to really press home territorial advantage.

“When we looked at ours, we said, ‘We can’t put Liverpool or Manchester United in this’. So we actually ripped out the lockers, the carpet and the lighting and replaced it all to make it a whole lot nicer for them because this is something where we want to be able to say, ‘Hey, we’d love to have you back here in the future’.”

As for the pitch, there was no issue with the length of the college football field. The width was adequate but tight. Miller says: “The only modification we had to make inside the stadium is that our grounds crew purchased a little bit of ready-to-play grass, not for the actual playing surface, but just outside of the playing surface, so that there was a little bit more room for corner kicks because the way our stadium is, on both the east and west side, there’s a patch of concrete. It’s a natural grass turf, which is not common in the U.S., especially not at the professional level. I was watching Man United against Arsenal (in Los Angeles). I noticed that the TV commentators were talking about the turf having some dead spots and patchy spots in it. I don’t think you’re going to see that here.”

Officials from United and Liverpool’s operations, marketing and grounds teams made multiple trips to the facilities. They were taken to South Carolina’s college football team’s match against Kentucky Wildcats in November, where they discovered a bouncing atmosphere. The stadium, they were told, would be lit up in red when United and Liverpool are in town.

The match in November between South Carolina Gamecocks and Kentucky Wildcats (Joe Robbins/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

Dinner reservations were made, first at Halls Chophouse, a high-end steak restaurant, and then Di Vino Rosso, a white tablecloth Northern Italian joint.

A clear plan was presented, explaining the hotels available to teams in the college town, how and where pre and post-game meals would be prepared, how ownership groups and VIPs would be catered for in premium areas, and how the teams would travel in and out of the stadium. These games yield vast returns for European soccer teams, attracting multi-million-pound match fees, but also formulas for revenue sharing with the promoter on ticket sales, and sometimes for media rights, parking fees and merchandise sales.

A rental fee is paid by the promoter, in this case TEG, to the venue and Miller says the University of South Carolina in this case were paid between $400k-$500k for the usual operational and security costs of hosting an event, as well as a cut of the fees for the ticket sales, rather than a cut of the ticket sales themselves.

“Then we put a lot of data in front of them,” Miller said. “From our fan base, we have data from ticket sales, sponsorships and donations. And then we also have online retail partners in Fanatics (the sports apparel and fan equipment store). And we were able to cross-reference our data with Fanatics to create a Venn diagram of Gamecock fans, who also had purchased Manchester United or Liverpool gear. Our partnership with Ticketmaster was able to help us identify that as well.

“One of the concerns the team had was about coming to a smaller metropolitan area and if we were going to be able to sell enough tickets. We were able to show them that on a college football Saturday, we’re able to pull from four different major metropolitan areas within the southeast of the U.S. — Atlanta (Georgia), Charlotte (North Carolina), Jacksonville (Florida) and the Raleigh-Durham area (North Carolina).”

Tickets went on sale on Tuesday, March 27, at 9am. Miller recalls: “At 8.45am, I signed in just to see what the queue looked like. I was 14,000th in line. It brought home to me the level of excitement around Premier League soccer.”

Tickets sold at a lightning pace, faster even than when Beyonce previously played the same venue seven years ago. Of all tickets sold, 40% have been sold to fans from outside South Carolina, Georgia and North Carolina. TEG promoter Nicholson says: “South Carolina is strategically positioned between Charlotte and Atlanta, so we expected there to be a significant amount of interest from two traditional soccer markets. The game sold out almost immediately. We’ve got folks coming from all 50 states in the United States as well as international fans.

“The the University of South Carolina alumni came through; as well as current students who wanted to be a part of the event. Even though the match sold through within 36 hours, we’ve continued to push just the awareness that this is coming. It is a big deal to the city of Columbia and the state of South Carolina. The governor of South Carolina, Henry McMaster, was tweeting about the match the day that we announced it. And if you want to talk about atypical, that’s about as good as it gets.”

The buzz is continuing. On Ticketmaster this week, the cheapest resale ticket appeared to be $89, but the vast majority were in substantial three figures and some were reselling for more than $1,000. This will be the biggest soccer crowd either North or South Carolina have ever seen.

The deal was signed early, which meant tickets for the match went on sale before rival fixtures — including Real Madrid vs Barcelona at MetLife Stadium, New Jersey, and Manchester City v Chelsea at Ohio Stadium, Columbus — which are taking place on the same day, as well as other showpiece fixtures slated in Charlotte, Atlanta and Raleigh across the summer. It will be the biggest-ever grossing event at Williams-Brice Stadium and the largest attendance for a non-American football event at the venue.

United, who have never played in the region before, have maximised the opportunity. They have established new official supporters’ clubs in North and South Carolina. Five thousand fans are expected at a free fan zone outside the stadium before the game, with the FA Cup, won in May against Manchester City, on display for supporters.

As for Miller’s young son Carson, he was first in line. “When we got the game, he was the first person I told.”

(Top photo: Lance King/Getty Images)

As 18-year-old Montreal Canadiens draft pick Michael Hage searched for words to honor his father, who had died in a swimming pool accident a year earlier, Sportsnet broadcaster Jeff Marek placed his hand on Hage’s arm, helped him move his microphone up so he could be heard and then put a reassuring hand on Hage’s back as he held back tears.

“The whole hockey world is cheering for you,” Marek said. “You know that, right?”

That moment from Sportsnet’s live broadcast of the 2024 NHL Draft in Las Vegas was widely praised for its tenderness — a warm, empathetic gesture by Marek, 55, a veteran broadcaster who over a 30-year career had endeared himself to television and radio audiences.

Marek’s affable, beer-with-a-buddy demeanor and encyclopedic knowledge of hockey made him one of the sport’s most beloved and widely respected voices. He had worked his way up from an entry-level radio station gig to hosting the “The Jeff Marek Show” every day at noon on the same station where he got his start and for the last 13 years was one of Sportsnet’s signature talents.

He ran against type in the usually staid broadcast culture, with full-arm tattoos, and he wore jeans and T-shirts when he wasn’t wearing a suit for Sportsnet broadcasts. Before landing as a full-time hockey analyst, Marek hosted a popular professional wrestling radio show in Toronto. Yet he was so talented, so beloved, that former Sportsnet president Scott Moore, who hired Marek in 2011, viewed him as a potential future host of “Hockey Night in Canada,” the sport’s iconic Saturday night broadcast.

But draft night — June 28, 2024 — would be Marek’s last appearance for Sportsnet. He was absent from the post-draft taping of “32 Thoughts,” the popular hockey podcast he hosts with Elliotte Friedman. Then the following week, Marek missed the final two episodes of his daily radio show, before a summer hiatus.

Those absences didn’t garner significant attention, but Marek also went dark on social media. On July 9, one fan wished the broadcaster happy birthday on X but got no response from Marek, known for his friendly engagement. Another user commented on Marek’s unusual silence. “Jeff Marek of 32 Thoughts has completely disappeared from the face of the earth since the evening of the draft,” wrote @NHLJackManning on July 23.

A few Marek fans had intuited something was amiss, and they were correct. In July, Sportsnet quietly parted ways with Marek.

It was the kind of move that normally would have warranted a public statement, but the reason behind it led both parties to choose silence. Marek had come under scrutiny from the NHL during the first round of the draft for allegedly revealing to a friend which players teams were drafting moments before those picks were publicly announced, according to league and media industry sources. The NHL shared concerns about the situation with the Nevada Gaming Control Board, which probed further, according to multiple sources briefed on that investigation.

A spokesperson for the Nevada Gaming Control Board, when asked about the matter, said in a statement provided to The Athletic:

“As a law enforcement and regulatory agency, the Nevada Gaming Control Board does not comment on whether it is, or isn’t, investigating particular persons or entities.”

The NHL and Sportsnet both declined to comment on the matter. Marek did not respond to requests for comment.

The draft has long been an event where Marek stood out given his decades of experience reporting on junior hockey. In Las Vegas, Marek was a key part of Sportsnet’s live broadcast and its pre-draft coverage, possessing a keen understanding of how to balance informing the audience while keeping them entertained. In one pre-draft podcast with Friedman, he was ebullient, ribbing his podcasting partner about a fashion mishap earlier in the week, sharing stories about cheekily named “hockey dogs” and predicting (incorrectly it would turn out) that the Anaheim Ducks would select prospect Zeev Buium with the third overall pick.

The NHL’s decision to host its annual draft at the Sphere — a futuristic orb-like arena at the Venetian resort in Las Vegas — made the 2024 draft seem bigger, the spectacle of it ramped up. It was also slated to be the last centralized NHL Draft, with the league allowing teams to draft from their home bases next year.

On the first night of the draft, Marek sat at a clear desk next to the main floor, where team executives and scouts conferred before making their picks. Throughout the broadcast, he interviewed each newly drafted player.

As part of Sportsnet’s crew that night, Marek was privy to the draft selections before they were publicly announced. This is common practice for broadcast rightsholders. The production truck is notified of the pick approximately one or two minutes before it’s made so that graphics can be prepared, video clips readied and cameras trained on the player about to find out he has been selected.

That was why Sportsnet cameras were in the perfect position to capture the memorable reaction from Beckett Sennecke, whose stunning selection at No. 3 by the Anaheim Ducks prompted him to stand up, bewildered, before uttering “Holy f—.”

Moments later, Marek spoke to Sennecke about his teary-eyed parents, overwhelmed by his selection.

When Hage went No. 21 to Montreal, Marek delivered one of the night’s signature moments and it highlighted his ability to make interview subjects comfortable.

Also under the Sphere that evening working the draft was Mark Seidel, a former NHL scout with the Minnesota Wild who for the past five years worked in scouting and player personnel roles with the Ontario Hockey League’s Barrie Colts. He also runs his own scouting service, branded the North American Central Scouting Independent Bureau (not to be confused with the NHL’s Central Scouting Bureau) and has occasionally provided draft content for ESPN.

Seidel and Marek have known each other for years, according to two people with knowledge of their relationship. Seidel has made multiple appearances on podcasts with Marek, including to talk about prospects in advance of the annual draft.

In Las Vegas, Seidel correctly predicted several picks on X, which prompted concerns that Marek had informed Seidel who those teams were picking.

The nearly five-hour broadcast ended around 8:15 p.m. local time, and Marek was scheduled to leave Las Vegas that night on a red-eye flight. But before he left, at least one NHL official approached Marek about wanting to speak with him.

The league was concerned about the potential misuse or dissemination of insider information, league and media sources said. Gaming industry experts said that draft “leakage” and “tipping” is relatively common. Possessing what’s deemed “insider information” is not inherently problematic; only if that information is used as a means of financial gain does it become an integrity issue. According to a publicly available document from the Nevada Gaming Control Board on requirements licensed books must adhere to regarding wagers on the NHL Draft, “acceptance of wagers which involve a specific player must cease 24 hours prior to the start of the first round. Acceptance of all other wagers must cease prior to the start of their respective round.”

League and media sources said that Marek gave Seidel a heads up on the picks so that Seidel could better prepare and offer analysis of those selections on social media. Professional sports leagues are known to monitor social media during live events such as drafts; it is also common for leagues to partner with external integrity and compliance firms to monitor social media activity.

When contacted by The Athletic, Seidel declined to answer questions on the situation, including why he deleted a number of social media posts he made on the night of the draft.

During prior drafts, Seidel showed a knack for predicting picks just before they happened, delivering those scoops on his X account. The wording in those posts were often couched, appearing to be an insider’s intuition. “Philadelphia and Cutter Gauthier were made for each other … I’d lay money on him,” he tweeted during the 2022 draft, nailing the Flyers’ pick just before it was announced.

In the 2020 draft, he predicted or heavily insinuated the first 12 picks correctly. Leading up to the event, he sent out a tweet highlighting that he had correctly predicted the top of the first round in other drafts.

Asked about picks he predicted at earlier drafts, Seidel did not answer.

Four people close to Marek, who declined to speak on the record because of the legal sensitivity of the situation, said he is not known to gamble. Two of those four said he has, on multiple occasions, expressed an aversion to promoting gambling on air. On his eponymous radio show, his producer generally handles the betting segments.

One source briefed on the draft night situation said that no gambling impropriety was discovered or any intent for Marek to gain financially from what happened.

However, because Marek was alleged to have shared proprietary information with someone outside the company, and given the company’s partnership with the NHL — Sportsnet has two years left on a 12-year deal as the league’s national rightsholder — the network was in a difficult position involving one of its most prominent broadcasters.

As speculation about his prolonged absence from the airwaves persisted, Canadian sports media commentator Jonah Sigel broke news of Marek’s departure last week. That same day, a Sportsnet spokesperson confirmed he was no longer with the company.

The next day, Marek addressed his departure on X, though he did not publicly share the reasons behind it. (Multiple sources said Marek signed a confidentiality agreement prior to exiting the company.)

“After 13 great years at Sportsnet, I’m moving on,” he wrote. “It’s been an incredible journey and I’m thankful to have worked alongside so many great people and played a role in bringing sports and hockey news to fans across Canada and the world. More to come soon.”

The news of his departure prompted an outpouring of support from within the hockey and sports media community, with many lamenting Marek’s departure and sharing anecdotes of how he’d endeared himself to his audience — including encouraging messages he’d sent to one listener as they battled cancer — and mentored young journalists and others starting their careers in hockey.

Nick Alberga, who now hosts the “Leafs Morning Take” on The Nation Network, said he didn’t know Marek well when Marek offered up his name as a potential host for Sportsnet’s “Hockey Central Saturday” in 2017, helping him land a spot on the weekly syndicated show.

“That essentially got my foot in the door,” said Alberga.

At Sportsnet, Marek’s absence is already being felt. He had a reputation for championing producers and technical staff, and for welcoming new voices onto his many shows.

“Jeff is a great advocate of diversifying the voices that talk about the sport,” said Dave Cadeau, the former director of programming at Sportsnet Radio. “He really appreciated the value that it can bring to the conversation.”

Moore recalled meeting Marek for breakfast in Toronto before hiring him for the first time while Moore was an executive at CBC.

“As soon as I met him, I thought this guy is going to be a quirky star,” Moore said. “He wasn’t your standard ‘Hockey Night in Canada’ anchor type. He’s got a little bit of an edge to him, a little bit of character to him.”

Moore later hired Marek at Sportsnet and made him one of the network’s marquee talents.

“I know he’ll do well in whatever his next triumph is,” said Moore, who is now chairman of Uninterrupted Canada and CEO of the 2025 Invictus Games.

After Marek addressed his departure on Friday, Friedman, his longtime podcast partner, wrote on X: “Life throws curveballs at you. I will miss being his teammate, and thank him for being a tremendous co-pilot to our 32 thoughts podcasting voyage — which will continue.”

Friedman, when contacted about the details of Marek’s departure, declined to comment.

Sportsnet has yet to name Marek’s replacement on the podcast or who might fill his roles on television and radio.

In a 2012 newspaper profile, Marek noted the odd trajectory of his career. His first job was working at a graveyard. He postponed a planned Ph.D. in English to take an entry-level job at TheFan 590 — the network that would become Sportsnet radio.

“It’s been kind of an accidental career,” Marek told the Stouffville Examiner, shortly after being hired by Sportsnet. “It’s been a little surreal and bizarre. … And I’m thankful for that.”

— The Athletic’s Corey Pronman contributed to this story.

(Illustration: Dan Goldfarb / The Athletic)