Are Sports Rigged
1.Roy Jones, Jr. Olympics and boxing appear a lot on this list, so it seems fitting to. This went to the Supreme Court and they ruled that NFL football is not a sport, it's entertainment, so therefore it can legally be rigged. All professional sports are run by gangsters. Sports fans don't want to believe this. It's like telling a 3 year old Santa doesn't exist.
Are fantasy sports rigged?
That's what millions of fantasy players are wondering after it was revealed this week that a DraftKings employee won $350,000 in a weekly NFL contest on rival FanDuel. That same employee had access to company data that could have given him an unfair advantage.
If enough fans start to wonder whether fantasy sports is a scam, the multi-billion industry with virtually no government oversight could go bust.
'I knew it. ... I knew it. ... I knew it. They are cheating people like me out of billions of dollars,' fantasy player Chad Levinger told CNNMoney. 'I've virtually given up on ever winning. You cannot win no matter how good or lucky you are when employees and owners of these companies are rigging the lineups.'
And it's not just the fans who are wondering.
New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has announced a probe of the practices at DraftKings and FanDuel -- the two highest-profile players in the business.
Disney's ESPN said Tuesday that it's pulling on-air segments sponsored by DraftKings, and DraftKings pulled it ads from the sports network.
DraftKings and FanDuel took the unusual step of issuing a joint statement Monday when the scandal broke. They said they were both committed to the integrity of the games, and instituted a temporary ban on their employees playing fantasy games for money.
Both companies followed that up on Wednesday by issuing separate statements to say they have permanently banned their employees from playing games for money, and will take steps to ensure their customers don't work for a competing fantasy site before they're allowed to play.
NFL games are routinely “rigged” by officials working on behalf of the league to choose the outcomes of games, according to Oakland Raiders linebacker Vontaze Burfict. I don't believe the NBA is rigged for example. My friend wonders how I can believe in NWO and Elites controlling the narrative of the world but not believe the NBA is rigged which he believes. I have read a few threads on rigged sports on this subreddit and people seem to think: Obviously its rigged Tim Donague was caught rigging games as a ref.
FanDuel also confirmed that it paid out a $350,000 prize to the DraftKing employee, andthat it has found no evidence that the contest in question was in any way compromised, or that 'non-public information was used for unfair advantage.'
FanDuel's statement suggests that it may not have been prepared for fantasy sports' explosion in popularity.
'FanDuel is one of the fastest growing companies in the world,' it said. 'It's our job to ensure that as our company grows, so does our ability to ensure that our fans can be confident in the sanctity and integrity of every game, every day.'
Indeed, the number of fantasy players has soared 78% in the last five years to nearly 57 million in the U.S. and Canada, according to STATS Inc.
While many people play private games with groups of friends, the fastest growing part of the industry are big-money contests played online by huge pools of strangers. Fans choose from real players in a draft or an online selection process to assemble a fantasy team. Then the players' real-game statistics are compiled and compared to see whose fantasy team has done the best.
DraftKings and FanDuel have each recently raised about $300 million from investors including Major League Baseball, the NBA, owners of both NFL and NBA teams, and major media companies, including CNN parent Time Warner(TWX), which has a stake in FanDuel.
The games might seem like gambling, but a series of court decisions and a 63-word provision of federal law allows fantasy sports because they are classified as a game of skill rather than a game of chance. Still, not everyone is convinced, including the man who invented fantasy sports.
'I consider it gambling at the level it is now played,' said Daniel Okrent, who came up with the idea of fantasy baseball as something to do with other baseball fan friends 36 years ago. 'We learned this [week] it's not so much a game of skill, it's a game of inside information.'
Are Professional Sports Rigged
-- CNNMoney's Ahiza Garcia contributed to this report.
Author Says Evidence Proves Pro Sports Rigged
By Victor Thorn
The American landscape is littered with crooked politicians, corrupt judges, corporate conmen, sleazy televangelists and stolen elections. Could the manipulation of professional sports, including the National Football League (NFL), also be added to this list? Oh, say it ain’t so, Joe.
During a July 21 interview, Brian Tuohy, author of The Fix Is In, told this writer: “In a May 20 NFL court case concerning the New England Patriots ‘Spygate’ scandal, Sr. U.S. Circuit Judge Robert E. Cowen ruled that, at best, tickets to a football game don’t come with the promise that the contest will be a fair one. Fans only have the legal right to see a game, and nothing more. The league doesn’t have to follow any certain rules or laws regarding the outcome of these games.”
This decision arose because the NFL is a self-contained entity that exists without any meaningful oversight from any outside body looking over its shoulder.
The NFL is a not-for-profit corporation, a 501(c)6 business “league,” that pulls in nearly $8 billion annually and pays its head, who is called a “commissioner,” $11 million a year.
Since television networks and advertisers funnel millions of dollars into sporting events, each league is acutely aware that they have to keep their “show business product” filled with intrigue to boost ratings.
Tuohy concedes that the vast majority of games are legitimate, but if a good storyline develops, similar to a soap opera or professional wrestling, the league will help this drama along.
One way to shave points or alter an outcome is via the referees. Tuohy notes that since these officials are employees of each league, it’s not considered bribery, or even an illegality, if a referee does or doesn’t make a certain call. They’re nothing more than paid company men following a script.
To prevent whistleblowers, the NFL instituted a profit-sharing program where every team in the league, even the worst ones, benefits as more money is generated.
They’re all in the same boat, and no one wants to poison the message by saying specific games are fixed. In addition, Tuohy points out that many NFL team owners have organized-crime backgrounds and direct connections to gambling outfits.
With huge amounts of money at stake, the situation becomes political. Similar to congressmen who’ve been compromised, players with gambling problems, drug arrests or other legal entanglements become much more vulnerable to the pressures of throwing a game. If a quarterback is faced with prison time, losing millions in endorsements or being banished by the league for illegal steroid use, tossing a few deliberate interceptions is a small price to pay.
To bolster his argument, Tuohy provides examples. After Super Bowl III where Joe Namath became a superstar, Colts lineman Bubba Smith snapped, “The game was set up for the Jets to win.”
Tuohy cites other sports venues, too Racecar driver Tony Stewart admitted in 2007: “It’s like playing God. [NASCAR] can almost dictate the race instead of the drivers doing it. . . . I don’t know that they’ve run a fair race all year.”
Then there’s NBA referee Tim Donaghy, who provided inside information to gamblers, allowing them an 80 percent accuracy rate in predicting the outcome of games. Like dishonest Wall Street investment bankers, Donaghy naturally received financial compensation for his secretive revelations.
One other parallel to the corporate-political world exists. Akin to a docile White House press corps, Tuohy asserts that the sports media is afraid to expose offending players or coaches because the reporters would be blackballed by the league. It’s well known that one of the largest sports networks, ESPN, doesn’t engage in investigative journalism because the network would potentially lose millions in revenue if spectators sensed that the Super Bowl and World Series were rigged.
The longer this writer spoke with Tuohy, the clearer it became that the realm of political conspiracies and fixed sporting events were closely related. Whereas Fox News or NBC won’t reveal the truth about 9-11, Tuohy is thwarted by corrupt owners and monolithic sports departments, who all circle their wagons to keep their secrets secret.
And don’t forget Council on Foreign Relations man George Mitchell appearing out of nowhere more than once in recent years to investigate steroid use in professional sports. That is a rather curious shifting of gears from the CFR—the premier private outlet for directing U.S. foreign policy and supplying key personnel for government policy-making jobs—to professional sports.
When asked if he faced any repercussions regarding his book, Tuohy explained: “I think I’m being censored by the sports media. After interviewing me, ESPN refused to publish any articles about sports conspiracies. Plus, they’ve banned me from their big radio networks and sports talk shows.”
Victor Thorn is a hard-hitting researcher, journalist and the author of many books on 9-11 and the New World Order. These include 9-11 Evil: The Israeli Role in 9-11 and Phantom Flight 93.
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Are All-pro Sports Rigged
(Issue # 33, August 16, 2010)