Commercial Sports Foster Cheating and Illegal Gambling
Professional athletes routinely cheat on the court (where traveling and over-and-under fouls are rarely even called these days), on the rink, and on the field (e.g., grabbing a facemask, clipping) to gain unfair advantage; they frequently cheat by using steroids, stimulants and growth-promoting drugs; and occasionally they cheat by throwing games and shading point spreads; and many B-Ball players commonly foul their opponents to regain possession. This is as true of the tarnished Olympic Games as it is for the tawdry NASCAR circuit. What awful examples we display to our children!
Newspapers rarely cover these cheating offenses as fully as they cover winning touchdown passes and home runs, but cheating occurs far more frequently than game-saving catches or quarterback sacks.
As a result of inordinate emphasis on winning to obtain greater marketing revenues, sports officiating has demonstrably been compromised in many leagues. League profit, rather than recreation and personal development, has assumed primacy where it should rank way below tertiary in importance.
It is self-evident that officiating in televised games is crooked, as with a recent football game (Wisconsin/Fresno State) where the last play (a touchdown) was called back and re-adjudicated to favor Las Vegas bookies who had offered a smaller point spread.
An even more egregious example may be seen in the recent Oregon Ducks vs. Oklahoma Sooners game, where two blatantly incorrect calls changed the outcome of the game and left even the Oregon home team's TV crew shaking their heads in disbelief that Oklahoma had lost. (rivals.com September 16, 2006)
News media occasionally are forced to cover this type of corruption, even while burying many other examples. The Seattle TIMES, June 11, 2008, printed the following deplorable story which relates to commercial (NBA) basketball:
"NBA officials allegedly told referees not to call technical fouls on star players so that ticket sales and TV ratings of the games wouldn't be affected," a disgraced ref told the FBI according to court filings Tuesday.
The bombshell letter filed in Brooklyn federal court by the defense attorney for disgraced gambling referee Timothy Donaghy contained claims of favoritism, improper gratuities, conflict of interest, blown foul calls and alleged interference by league officials in the work of refs in the NBA.
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