This is a look at the absurd story that is now circulating in the right-wing idiot-sphere: the NFL is rigging games so that the chiefs win so that Taylor Swift and her boyfriend (Chiefs TE Travis Kelce) can promote President Biden. www.cnn.com/… greatawakening.win/…
I’m going to ignore the more idiotic reasons that this is silly (it’s a massive consiparcy no one has direct knowledge of, rich NFL owners love Democrats, as they did by so famously supporting players kneeling during the anthem, dating a TE no one who isn’t a fairly serious football fan has heard of is making Swift famous, etc) to focus on one of the more mundane- fixing sporting events is hard and observable.
For examples, I’ll use two historical cases that involved criminal prosecutions involving a referee and a player (I like white collar crime stories and sports, so it’s in my wheelhouse).
First, there is the mostly forgotten scandal of ASU basketball player Stevin (Hedake) Smith. cronkitenews.azpbs.org/… Smith was a star shooting guard who agreed to shave points. Shaving points means that the team can win or lose, so long as they do not cover the spread. After being caught and prosecuted, Smith explained how he could do it without being obvious. He would just miss a few extra freethrows or stay a step off of a jump shooter (he mentioned, as an excellent shooter himself, he could give just enough space to not really contest a shot). Either way, a casual observer really wouldn’t know he was shaving points (he wasn’t throwing the ball into the stands).
In the case of a referee, the Donaghy NBA scandal is the best reported. www.espn.com/… He figured out two ways to fix games. If he wanted a total game score to go over the over/under (total points scored), he just called a few extra fouls each quarter to get teams more free-throws (there’s enough bumping on any NBA play to allow legit calls, and Donaghy was consistently graded as an excellent ref). Or, if he wanted one team to win, he could call two quick fouls in the 1st or third quarter of a game on a star player, almost forcing the team to bench him for large parts of the game.
So, if it’s hard to observe, how did they get caught? Money. There’s a lot of it in sports and there are those who make their money gambling on games. The individuals paying the cheaters were betting heavily on the games. This was moving the lines. The ‘smart’ gamblers noticed this movement (they have algorithm based computer programs tracking data like this) as did the books taking the bests (with the same models). When lines were moving outrageously (think 7 point swings on random PAC-10 college basketball game in January), it was obvious something was fishy and prompted investigation and exposure.
Do you see massive movement on Chiefs’ lines? No. The people who actually bet on this stuff for a living think its an idiotic idea, or they would be betting the Chiefs to the moon. They may bet the Chiefs and they may win, but it has nothing to do with right wing news talking points. The people who spew stupidity can do so for free (hello, Vivek) and then prance around no matter no wins the superbowl saying they were right. If the chiefs win, it was rigged for them. If the 49ers win, the NFL and cabal saw that the conspiracy was out and changed the outcome. It’s Schrodinger’s (sorry, sp) conspiracy.
Besides, for anyone who actually watches and understands football, Dan Campell’s (the lions coach) reprehensible decision to run with under 2 minutes left in a two score game (and burn a timeout) was the closest anyone who watches thought ‘wait, does he have money on the 49res’ decision of the weekend. :)