NFL being like WWE in that officials controls games? (1 Viewer)

[bobad]

Just browsing through the posts and articles the past 2 years, the NFL has a serious credibility problem. It seems to be growing rapidly. The NFL better get out in front of this by creating an initiative to rehab their reputations. They can start by apologizing to the Saints, and giving us an extra first and an extra second round pick.

 

[duckjr78]

I wont let my gut rule my common sense. My common sense tells me that a conspiracy of this scope would be impossible to maintain in this day and age, year after year, without some inkling of it escaping into the public light of day. Somebody's conscience would eventually get the better of them, they would hold a press conference and reveal the conspiracy, and the media would eat it up.

For instance, as small as some of the scandals/conspiracies affecting teams like the Saints and Patriots have been, they eventually came to light and the media has gone nuts with them. Something bigger and more wide spread than those scandals could not have been contained all these years without leaking out.

That's the part of it all that you are missing is that the Patriots and Saints scandals are part of the bigger and more wide spread scandal.

Little pieces of it does leak out and we do hear about it.

Appeals court upholds dismissal of fan lawsuit over Patriots' taping | NFL.com

Read this and then ask yourself. Why did the NFL choose to argue that the only thing a ticket provided the right to was sit in a seat, not to an honest game?

In fact "But fix a sporting event for entertainment purposes? Completely legal.

What’s worse, the lawyer representing the NFL, Shepard Goldfein, actually argued in court that “fans likely would buy tickets even if they knew the Patriots were stealing signals.” In other words, the NFL realizes that much like pro wrestling, even if fans knew the football was rigged, they still pay their money to see it. " - from an article about the same subject.

Think about all that for a second. It is completely legal for a sporting event to be fixed, as long as the sporting event is for entertainment purposes.

"NFL lawyer Gregg H. Levy said the league is making a narrower argument, as "long as the NFL clubs are members of a unit; if they compete as a unit in the entertainment marketplace ... they should be deemed a single entity" and not subject to antitrust law."

The NFL argued before the Supreme Court, the highest court in the entire country, that they were an "entertainment" company.

Read those again, in order. Here, I'll help:

1. It is perfectly legal to fix "entertainment"
2. NFL lawyer argues in Circuit Court that fans don't have a right to a "fair contest," only to the seat they sit in.
3. NFL lawyer then argues in Supreme Court that the NFL is an "entertainment marketplace."

So, twice in the last 6 years, a NFL lawyer has had to go before a judge and decide how to defend their golden goose and both times, the option they chose was to basically throw their hands up and basically say "We get to keep our money because it's not real!"


The MLB and NBA are also listed on their taxes exactly like the NFL and WWE. They all pay taxes as entertainment industries. I know, wow, right?

Ask yourself this: Why was Draymond Green suspended for a groin shot in the NBA Finals, but not for a groin shot in the Western Conference Finals? Do you honestly think it didn't have anything to do with the fact that the Warriors were losing to the Thunder, but were beating the Cavs?!?!?!?!

50 years later, we know that boxing was/is dirty, but if I had told you that back in the '60's you would have ridiculed me.

We also know that soccer games are routinely fixed around the world and FIFA is considered to be the most transparently corrupt governing body running a sporting league/event. And that is the largest sport in the world.


It's all there, in little chunks. You have to look and want to see. I know, I know, conspiracy theory this and that. And yet we all agree it's dirty. We are just arguing about how dirty it is. You are saying only the coaches and players and recruiters and equipment managers and teams and general managers and owners are cheating. We are simply saying that the refs and leagues are in on it too. Is that so hard to believe?

You aren't going to convince me, and I'm not going to convince you, so why don't we just agree to disagree?

 

[duckjr78]

Just browsing through the posts and articles the past 2 years, the NFL has a serious credibility problem. It seems to be growing rapidly. The NFL better get out in front of this by creating an initiative to rehab their reputations. They can start by apologizing to the Saints, and giving us an extra first and an extra second round pick.

I think it worked the other way around.

Tom Benson donated $11M to the NFL HOF field so that his team would get off the "list" and be allowed to compete for Super Bowls again before he died.

I'm still not sure what tack the media will take to help paint the Saints in a good light though? Benson, Payton, and Loomis are all still at the helm.

Something tells me it will be entirely Drew Brees related.

If they can make half of the country like Cam Newton for a year, imagine what they can do with Drew Brees!!! And Brees is now the 2nd biggest QB stud again. It would be a shame if he didn't get to go up against Brady in a Super Bowl.....................

 

[WhoDatPhan78]

Are your eyes and ears deceiving you? You are watching the same games but you won't allow your mind to comprehend what you see on the field. You can't be that naive to think every game is played straight and there is no tampering.

I'm watching the same games.

There is no evidence to support this paranoia.

You can call me naïve, but that isn't evidence.

The addition of new rules has made the refs more involved. That doesn't equate to intentionally effecting the outcome of games.

 

[Surviving Saint]

I'm watching the same games.

There is no evidence to support this paranoia.

You can call me naïve, but that isn't evidence.

The addition of new rules has made the refs more involved. That doesn't equate to intentionally effecting the outcome of games.

Everyone on this forum knows the rules in football but the refs don't. It's a joke. If you gamble on the games you will see just how scripted some are.

 

[BoNcHiE]

People that don't bet, that don't understand lines, over/unders, and the various ebbs and flows that games take that ultimately lead to the house winning won't understand. Until you start to see the trends and how things start to play out, you will not understand and I'm not gonna try to break it down for you because you still won't understand. It's why anyone who starts to bet football should spend a few years just betting $1 a game. It's a learned thing.

If there was stark, in your face evidence of influencing games, then they'd be caught and no longer influencing games. They were caught in the NBA. They were caught in FIFA. The idea that the NFL can't be influenced is wishful thinking at best. But if it makes you feel better to maintain the facade, that's fine.

Like I said, everyone has their own theories. I think it's some refs that are crooked, not players, and I'm not sure they are fixing games as much as keeping them close so that certain outcomes remain a high probability. Sports books don't need to win every game. They just need enough games to have a high probability of going there way. And as long as enough of them fall, the house always wins. Notice how every week almost every blowout is suddenly a close game in the 4th quarter? Why do officials routinely start to enforce PI and holding more tightly in the 2nd half? You think that just happens? And then the NFL goes and brags about all it's close games on twitter. Everyone wins. NFL officials have zero accountability. It's basically a life-time appointment once you are in and we've had many of the same officials for decades in this league.

The NFL itself has different goals. They want to hit 25 billion in revenue in the next dozen years. I think the NFL sets rules, schedules, assigns ref crews with certain "tendencies", etc. all in an effort to influence outcomes without actually "fixing" games. They want "close" games and they ultimately want the biggest money making fanbases to stay engaged. Anyone that thinks the NFL is ok with the Jaguars or Saints being perennial winners is kidding themselves. And they never will be. Ratings are their life blood. Without them, they are nothing. It's common thought on this forum that the Saints were punished so harshly because of who they are. You think they'd of done the Packers that way? Or Giants? If the NFL is willing to treat a team like that, what makes you think they are otherwise completely pure?

Black Sunday occurred in 2012. It was the worst week for sports books ever. Some had to close their doors, others nearly went bankrupt, including the big Vegas books. 2012 overall was the worst year for sports books in history in regards to the NFL. What happened in 2012? We had replacement refs. Such a coincidence.

 

[natedog]

Not really. I haven't watched the last two Saints games. I have them on DVR and still haven't watched them. Decided to go play Golf last Sunday. Sunday before that I was on a flight. This is coming from someone that has spent the last 10 years watching the redzone channel on one tv and the Saints game on the other.

It's just not the same.

Threads like these used to get red thumbed and one starred to death. Now, not a red thumb to be found and 5 stars. There is little doubt the games are being over officiated and money is the best player in the league.

I am becoming the same way. . . the question is are we all just getting older and realizing that being a slave to the couch and three to four hours watching our beloved Saints, with 60 minutes of commercials and flags is just a waste of time ?

Before we won the SB it was just like a right of passage of some sort, that we needed to watch every week, never miss your team. Now I feel this loyalty wearing off, maybe because our defense and just the plain working defense out of the game has ruined it.

It's a tuff one to figure out. I wonder if fans of say that Pats that are great year in year out feel this same loss of interest as we do. I think it is definitely a pre and post Super Bowl issue though, or maybe we are just becoming bored with the way the games flow, or lack there of.

My goal is to quit the game when Drew is done, then find something more productive to do with my time rather than watch refs throw flags. It almost seems like they each have three flags. . . through the start of the game they throw them left and right. Then they all have one left, they hold onto them tight while our Offense mounts a comeback. Then right when we almost are in a position to catch up they all use their last flags to cause some drama, which usually involves the other team securing a win.

Maybe that is the resolution to this mess, two flags per ref, max.

 

[WhoDatPhan78]

Oh, this is about gambling. yea, I don't care then.

 

[Caleb462]

Randy Jones, what you are doing is spitting out the highly generalized and equally speculative talking points about the psychological motives of those who choose to be skeptical about the mainstream narratives the public is fed. You are also giving far too much credit to the media, a consistently unreliable and corrupt media, and making assumptions about the way such an arrangement would work that ignores a few things - namely the powerful motivator that millions of dollars and high status provides those in the know, as well as the important role that widespread compartmentalization would likely play in such an arrangement. And yes, we are certainly engaging in a certain degree of speculation. No one has any 'smoking gun' here. But there is more than enough compelling circumstantial evidence and reasonable lines of inquiry involved to make it a very worthwhile topic to explore.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compartmentalization_(information_security)

 

[wnelson]

It's scary that so many people think the NFL is rigged.

Our politics has poisoned our minds.

We don't believe anything anymore.

"If voting mattered they wouldn't let us do it"

And

See the refs over the last 10 years - it's a joke and people are no longer willing to accept the BS anymore

 

[WhoDatPhan78]

"If voting mattered they wouldn't let us do it"

And

See the refs over the last 10 years - it's a joke and people are no longer willing to accept the BS anymore

You provide no evidence other than "Look at it, come on man. You would see it if you looked".


The NFL rules have led to the refs being more involved. This makes games less predictable because their is more room for the human element to impact outcomes.

It makes the outcome of games harder to predict, and I could see that impacting the game from a gamblers perspective.

No on has any evidence at all the outcomes of games are being intentionally impacted. Not one bit of evidence.

 

[BoNcHiE]

You provide no evidence other than "Look at it, come on man. You would see it if you looked".


The NFL rules have led to the refs being more involved. This makes games less predictable because their is more room for the human element to impact outcomes.

It makes the outcome of games harder to predict, and I could see that impacting the game from a gamblers perspective.

No on has any evidence at all the outcomes of games are being intentionally impacted. Not one bit of evidence.

Of course we don't. So what?

That's the point of opining on it now. We didn't have hard evidence in the NBA and FIFA after decades of corruption until it actually came out. Just because no one has non-circumstantial evidence to offer at this point in time doesn't mean nothing is going on. It's precisely why we are discussing all the funny business that goes on and how it appears to us.

Like I said. If it makes you feel better to maintain a facade of total purity of the league, do it. Nothing wrong with that.

And as for gambling, you've got it backwards. It's easier to bet games now precisely because there's so much human influence going on IF you do your homework and know what to look for. If you think it's totally unintentional and the NFL doesn't at the very least promote keeping the games close (which ultimately benefits the NFL via ratings and sports books if you understand how lines work), then whatever. Believe what you want. No one is stopping you.

 

[WhoDatPhan78]

Believe what you want. No one is stopping you.

We are both believing what we want.

 

[LiterOCola]

Proof can't be provided either way. You can't prove that is doesn't exist.

The burden of proof is on the entity making a claim.

For example, if I were to make a claim that gravity is caused by gnomes that live under the earth that pull invisible strings on all objects on the surface. The burden on proof is on me to prove the gnomes exist, not on my audience to prove the gnomes don't exist.

If NFL games were being systematically influenced, it should be easy enough to produce a statistical proof that it's taking place.

I don't doubt individuals refs have been gotten to; however, I'm skeptical of it being a league directed policy driven process. I just don't see how the owners of the smaller market teams would tolerate operating their franchises under a weighted system.

Owners meeting: OK, so we're all good with this year being New England's year? The story with Brady being suspended and still winning it all is just too good to pass up. We've also got the seeds planted to allow Dallas to finally break through to be next year's team.

Lerner: Um, what about the Browns.

Owners: Shut up Lerner, it'll never be the Browns year.

Lerner: OK *sad face*

 

[duckjr78]

Maybe it goes something more like this..............

Owners meeting: OK, so we're all good with this year being New England's year? The story with Brady being suspended and still winning it all is just too good to pass up. We've also got the seeds planted to allow Dallas to finally break through to be next year's team.

Lerner: Um, what about the Browns.

Owners: Shut up Lerner, it'll never be the Browns year. We don't generate 6 Billion a year in TV revenues if the Browns are consistently competitive. Do you want your $187 MILLION dollar check this year, or not?

Lerner: OK *sad face*