If you like or pay attention to sports, you probably know that they have problems with either being terribly officiated, or maybe rigged in some cases. Recently, it seems as if officiating is at an all-time low for sports like basketball. Every week there is a terrible call that decides the fate of the game, and it ends up going viral on social media. The most recent occurrence of this was the holding call during the Superbowl that cost the Eagles the game. There’s no doubt that officiated can be awful, but are professional sports rigged? There are many fans who believe in the “NFL script”. People think that the games are set up, and that the winners are already determined before the games actually happen. Sometimes this can seem believable, like when the Minnesota Vikings came back from down 33-0. Even though an entire league being scripted is highly unlikely, it is still possible that some games are rigged, and several fans are wondering if they are.
There have been cases in the past where games have been rigged. As an example, game 6 of the 2002 Western Conference Finals between the Los Angeles Lakers and the Sacramento KIngs. The referee, Tim Donaghy, was confirmed to have been betting on games he officiated, and he ended up going to jail for it. It is a known fact that this game was rigged, and it cost a great team a potential championship. The Kings were the team that they called most of the fouls on. The Lakers got 40 free throws and the Kings only got 25. 27 of those free throws for the Lakers came in the fourth quarter. There were also a plethora of terrible calls during this game. This game is often looked back on as one of the worst officiated games of all time, and it was definitely rigged.
The next example is a conspiracy. The 1985 draft was the first year they introduced a lottery system to prevent tanking. This draft class contained one of the most promising big men to come out of college ever. Patrick Ewing from Georgetown was a stud, and he was almost guaranteed to be the number 1 pick, but you had to win the lottery to get him. The way the lottery worked was that Jack Wagner would place envelopes, with the team's logo inside of them, into a plastic ball. Then he would spin the ball, and after that, the commissioner, David Stern, would take out an envelope and that team would have the number 1 pick and get Ewing. This is where the conspiracy starts. Jack Wagner was part of the accounting firm that was part of the auditing firm for the ownership group of the Knicks. People believe that when he put the Knick's envelope into the ball, he bent the corner of it so David Stern could easily identify it, and give the Knicks the number 1 pick. This conspiracy theory makes sense because at the time the NBA needed a big market team to be good to take away from all the drug usage going on in the sport. Also, the Knicks were a struggling team, and they wanted New York to do well.
Those were two examples of how professional sports were seen as rigged in the past. Recently, there is a lot of buzz about the NFL script being leaked. It was said to make the Eagles win the Superbowl 37-34, but this didn’t happen. There is also a lot of talk from the players about the script. A former player from the Texans, Arain Foster, jokingly mentioned in a podcast about how the NFL is scripted. Also, in a playoff game, the Jaguars completed an improbable comeback, and their quarterback, Trevor Lawrence, said that they couldn’t have scripted it any better. This seems like a joke, but some people might actually believe it. Along with the script, there is terrible officiating lately, and a lot of people may think the holding call in the Superbowl was rigged for the Chiefs to win.
Personally, I think that professional sports aren’t rigged anymore. I think that there are questionable calls from officials from time to time, but they have a hard job. I believe that the only reason sports have been rigged is because of marketing and that they’re trying to create more revenue opportunities. I feel as if today, sports are heading in the right direction, and that less scummy things are happening.
http://https://www.espn.com/nba/news/story?id=3436401
Do you think professional sports like the NFL and NBA are rigged?
Do you think bad officiating is hurting sports?
Do you think we will see more conspiracy theories about how sports are rigged in the future?
Replies
I disagree. I don't think it's rigged just because some teams win every year. I agree that bad officiating can cause people to think it's rigged.
I don't think that professional sports are rigged because if it was scripted it would be harder for the athletes to perfect it in a little bit of time. If they scripted sports then it would be more obvious to us if they mess up. I think that some refs can be bias to certain teams but I dont think that thye could rigg it for one team to win without error.
I think that professional sports are ocasionally rigged because fans want their favorite team to win and i'm sure that they are willing to do anything for that to happen. whether it's paying a large sum of money or making the players cheat.
I personally don't think professional sports are rigged anymore. I understand that there have been rigged games in the past, but they have made it far too hard now to completely rig the game. Although, I do think that some of the officials are really bad and should be fired. But, I think that bad officiating does make the game a lot less enjoyable.
I don't think that sports are rigged. I think that fans are taking their theories way to far and blaming their favortie teams' losses on absurd theories. However I do think that officating could be improved with better training.
I don't think they are rigged, and I also think that fans could be taking the scripting too far. If both leagues are scripted then they are relying on human perfection to get the script right. I think there will be millions of conspiracy theories from hundreds of people that think the game didn't go their way.
I do not think that major league sports are rigged. There have been a lot of rumors lately that the NFL is fake. I think that bad officiating is ruining the games. However, I think that officiating also brings excitement to the game because you never know what will happen.
I agree with you that major league sports aren't rigged. Also, I think officiating brings excitement as well, but I would prefer if they got the calls right so the team that deserves to win actually does.
I would have to agree that there are sometimes in sports that the refs tend to target certain teams. For example if the team that is winning does a penaltie then they call a cheap one but if it is the other way around then they call it. I feel like refs get paid more if they call more penalties.
I personally think that there is some rigging going on in any sport. I feel this because sometimes a certain team tends to get targeted with penalties that benefit the opposing team. Officiating is a hard job, so I feel that someone will hate you for what you do either way.
-
1
-
2
-
3
-
4
-
5
of 6 Next