I have suspected this about Basketball in particular for some time. The score never seems to reflect runaway victories; it often comes down to last-second shots. Ditto with Cricket, where “sixers” needed to push a score over a certain number at the end of a game suddenly seem effortless.
I would imagine such scripting would be more difficult for Football and Baseball, due to the number of variables and “moving parts” in a game. Hence the wider win margins. I guess in those sports it’s more a case of the coaches making sure that their team, if the designated “loser”, is not performing better than the opponent.
Too many people and organizations make too much money off of professional sports to allow “fixes”. Their fine lifestyles would simply go away if hardcore fans, advertisers and networks knew same for sure. To say nothing of the gaming world and its participants.
Hard to imagine.
Next you’ll be telling me that WWE isn’t real...
There’s definitely too much money on the table for there not to be cheating and match ‘fixing’. It’s probably very difficult to ‘fix’ an entire match, but there are surely ways to ‘tip’ the balance. A crooked referee could have a huge impact on a game without being obvious.
If they were fixed wins, and championships, would be much more evenly distributed. Parity is the ultimate fan base builder, dynasties kill fan interest. And yet every league regularly has dynasties. Also if they were fixed there’d be a lot fewer blowouts, especially in the prime time and playoffs.
Maybe we should ask Pete Rose.
Probably, just like politics. Why should sports be any different?
Professional wrasslin’ is real.
Duh!
Is there money involved or do they play for Free , LOL
Ok, ‘professional sports’ has to be distinguished from individuals vs. teams.
I don’t see how bowling, golf, etc. or any one of the “individual” sports can be “fixed”.
The Black Sox Trial1919:
http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/blacksox/blacksoxaccount.html
Does it require a very small number of people to throw a game, like 2 or 3?
If only such a small number of people would know about it, then I could believe the conspiracy is possible.
If lots of people are in on it, I really doubt it could be kept quiet for a long time
I definitely think there are big fixes. I also think there should be more public discussion of these possibilities. It is self serving but I have looked at this with the Dallas Cowboys and the NFL. They “used to be” America’s team. They had a massive media market and dominance across the NFL. In the 1990s they won three superbowls and established a dominance that threatened the NFL as a national market.
I think Jerry Jones made an agreement with the NFL to engage in a power-sharing agreement with the NFL that would prevent the Cowboys from maintaining dominance. Ever since that era, it stuns me how the most expensive 2 billion dollar sports roster of the Cowboys continually ends up like Charlie Brown in the playoffs while neat geographic tricks like the Patriots 911 and the New Orleans Katrina win happen.
It is a marketing manipulation. I think at the heart of this is officiating.
I think more people should examine sites such as:
http://www.teamrankings.com/nfl/stat/penalties-per-game
When you start studying not just how often teams are penalized but even how infrequently their opponents are penalized, you begin to see patterns— especially over the years that are not random.
If these non-random patterns were discussed, it would make it more difficult for manipulations to be achieved.
I do think the NFL owners know and have agreed that it would be bad to allow one team to dominate or even a few. The winners need to be spread around.
I also think referees control the games so that they don’t get out of hand in the first half. Blowouts reduce viewers. Penalize dominant teams in the first half enough to get to the halftime show and most of the commercials. Otherwise, the NFL is losing money on blowouts not watched.
I don’t think it is scripted like pro wrestling but I thin referees make certain calls (ahem pass interference calls magically overturned or completions magically turned into incompletions) that affect the outcome of pro football games. We all know how easy it is to rig NBA games and baseball games. I tend to think the NHL is on the up and up.
I believe a lot of NFL players throw games. The psychopath class.
My Dad taught me,
“Whenever there is big money involved, someone is going to find a way to cheat.”
Like the NCAA?