John Mateer’s ‘Harassment’ Ordeal Forces PayPal Chief to Issue Strong Statement After NCAA’s Urgent Action

John Mateer was staring the Ripper in the face when ‘Venmogate’ cast a dark pall on his Oklahoma future. Fans and Brent Venables would know how indispensable he is to the Sooners squad. The QB came under the scanner for allegedly being involved in sports betting, and his entire future became uncertain. It helped bring to light an important and dark reality troubling college athletes. John Mateer’s fiasco is pushing PayPal to take some strict actions to help curb the issue.

Brent Venables and Oklahoma are walking on a tightrope this season. And Mateer is supposed to be the force that would help him balance during this act. The Washington State transfer joined hands with his OC Ben Arbuckle at Norman this year. The Sooners now seemed to have a great option at QB after 5-star Jackson Arnold failed to impress. However, some viral screenshots of his Venmo transaction history threatened his big break. They implied the QB was involved in sports betting during his time at WSU. One memo was even labelled as “UCLA vs USC.”

John Mateer said in a statement that the memos were “inside jokes” with his friends, and that they were “taken out of context.” Oklahoma swooped in to help lessen a potential blow coming in from the NCAA. Mateer’s case, however, threw light on harassment and abuse cases athletes face on the platform. PayPal SVP David Szuchman said in a press release, “The safety and security of our users remain our highest priority. Harassment or abuse of any kind is not tolerated on the platform, and strict action is taken against users who violate our policies.” Szuchman is also the Head of Global Financial Crime and Customer Protection for the company.

The NCAA conducted a study to find out the gravity of the case and found that college athletes made up 12% of sports-betting harassment and abuse cases. 19% of footballers’ reported complaints of harassment are about sports betting. While college football fans tend to debate the strength of the NCAA now, it surely does have some strict punishments for sports betting. Mateer could have been suspended from some games this year if he had proven guilty, throwing his career and Oklahoma’s in jeopardy. Venmo and the NCAA are partnering up to roll out a strong measure to help tackle this problem this season, so that cases like John Mateer’s can see prompt action.

NCAA collaborates with Venmo to address sports betting abuse

PayPal’s statement says that in some cases, users tend to ask athletes for money when they lose a wager. NCAA President Charlie Baker said, “The harassment we are seeing across various online platforms is unacceptable, and we need fans to do better.” Along with a strong word to the community, the NCAA and Venmo are rolling out a strategy to address future cases of sports-betting-related harassment and abuse. Venmo said that the platform is “strengthening the protections [it has] in place.”

The platform will have a dedicated hotline for athletes to report such incidents. The NCAA will send a best practices guide from Venmo, so that they can take caution on the platform. And, Venmo will also be monitoring athletes’ accounts “to help mitigate an influx of requests based on game performance.” Lastly, the platform will also directly interact with athletes to educate them about the problem.

“We applaud Venmo for taking action, and we need more social media companies and online platforms to do the same. Several states have passed laws to crack down on this behavior to protect student-athletes, and we hope more do the same because stopping this abuse requires action on multiple fronts,” Charlie Baker added in the statement, doubling down on the handling of such cases. John Mateer came close to seeing a brutal end to his bidding career. But with this new plan, maybe we won’t be seeing newer sequels to the Venmogate scandal.