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 agree.
New Orleans won the Super Bowl in 2009 ... 3+ years after Hurricane Katrina. How does that suggest a "fixed" result?
The Cowboys fell from power because the Salary Cap finished going into effect and Jones quite simply didn’t know how to build a team with a hard cap. One of the first things he started doing was signing players with deferred salary, which is pretty much the dumbest thing you can do in a capped league (losing cap next year for play this year is handicapping yourself). That was part of his continued obsession with BIG NAME players, which can work in an uncapped world where you can throw money around, but doesn’t work so well in a cap where you suddenly find you’ve got no money for an offensive line. He seems to have figured it out the last couple of years as he’s finally started building his lines and not running after old stars. We’ll see how next year pans out.
If the Post 9-11 SB was a “geographic trick” then why was it Pats (source of the terror flights but not actually a victim) - Rams (completely uninvolved in 9-11). Sure the Pats have that name, but if somebody wanted to orchestrate a 9-11 “tribute” SB each conference has 3 teams geographically close to where 9-11 victims were killed. A “Skins- Jets SB would have been much more “geographical” for that one.
Penalties aren’t random, so there should be a pattern. Some teams coach better than other teams. Some teams draft better than other teams. Some teams bring in NFL refs to officiate scrimmages and teach players the rules better, and some teams are too stupid to partake of this obviously smart move.
There are way too many blowouts every year, especially in the prime time games, to think the refs control the game to avoid them. Just look at this year’s Thursday night scores, CBS paid extra to get half those games, and they were all broadcast on the NFL’s very network, and most of them were complete snorers over by half time.