I feel stupid for even asking this, but I recently had a conversation (with a pro-wrestling fan) who claimed that it’s ironic that fans of actual sports complain about wrestling being fake when the owners of professional sports clubs already know all the results beforehand (including minor results between teams who have nothing at stake). I proceeded to explain that for such a conspiracy to be effective, it would require a lot of loyalty and effort, especially considering the number of players in a particular league including the number of new players entering the field very year.
I also explained that even if what he said was true, then it would still require some real sporting skill (such as with Tennis). Now I know that match fixing does happen, but for an entire league to be completely predetermined before hand seems farfetched, though, as sports fan, the possibility has been ruining my enjoyment of the games recently, and I feel like I need to have it cleared once and for all. Thanks in advance.
I think that’s a pretty commonly-held conspiracy theory (and it seems to be especially held among people who like to wager on sports), but, aside from the occasional athlete (or, in the case of the NBA, referee) who gets nabbed trying to shave points, I’ve never seen any credible evidence of it.
You hit on the crux of it: it’d require an ongoing secret conspiracy among thousands of people, a lot of whom, frankly, are not terribly sharp. I just don’t think it’d be possible to keep it quiet for any length of time.
(Also, reporting this for a forum change to The Game Room.)
You’re going to have thousands of people put in ten thousand hours, at a minimum, of practice before they ever sniff the pros, then throw a game so that they can be a bigger millionaire? Hell, it wouldn’t even make financial sense for a lot of people in on it. You can get a bigger salary by winning. You could bet against the “predetermined” outcome.
No, it’s insane to believe professional sports are fixed.
Tom Hicks must be some kind of uber-masochist, ordering his team to get within one strike from winning the World Series, tying the game, then ordering them to do it again one inning later.
Some professional games have definitely been fixed, in the early days of the MLB and possibly a few times later on. I can’t remember his name but a professional tennis player was hit with a lifetime ban for match making in recent years. I believe it is commonly accepted that many professional boxing fights throughout history have been fixed, but I think that’s with a caveat. I think a lot of small time ‘club fights’ were historically fixed and probably many still are depending on how heavily involved the criminal element are. But for major headliners, I don’t think there have been many fixed fights between name competitors in a long time.
However, the thing is at least since the early 20th century almost all of the major match-fixing incidents in professional sports have been isolated to one or two teams in a given sport, usually for a few games in a year, and often only a few players were involved.
Point-shaving is more common, in which players intentionally manipulate the final point spread in a game. It’s especially common in basketball historically where a good team can win but still intentionally keep it close if they choose to do so, thus providing a fairly consistent result to organized crime that will be involved in the scheme. Both Boston College and Arizona State were involved in basketball point shaving.
This is flatly insane, to be quite honest. It’s hard to even begin explaining why it’s a ridiculous idea because there’s so many problems with it.
Aside from the fact that it would require a conspiracy of thousands upon thousand upon thousands of people, none of whom EVER spoke of this remarkable conspiracy, it defies any sort of logic with regards to motivation. Why on earth would Major League Baseball risk the possibility of exposure and downfall in order to arrange a Cardinals-Rangers World Series? What do they get from that that they don’t get from just letting the players play honestly?
Just look at the World Series match-ups for say, the last 20 years or so. I imagine that while some of the winners of their division or their league were celebrating, the top brass were in the bathroom crying or vomiting. The amount of money lost because of some of these match-ups is almost beyond calculation. So much for baseball.
Same thing for some of the Super Bowl match-ups except that the SB will draw no matter who is playing. On the NFL side, there is no need to put in the fix so why go to the trouble. Also, there are too many players and coaches.
Boxing is easy to fix. Been done many times
A tennis match would be easy to fix. Only one player has to be in on it.
I think that what your “friend” is smoking has put him into the paranoia stage.
It’s not about there being a possibility of match fixing (which obviously does happen, sadly), but the implication that all matches are fixed, and all members of the board, team and staff are involved.
Another point is that professional sports that are run without “fixing” are extremely lucrative. Rigging the results would be extraordinarily difficult, almost impossible to keep secret, and would in the long run not be nearly as profitable.
Yes, and don’t confuse match fixing with point shaving. It’s a lot easier to shave points than fix a game. I have my suspicions regarding point shaving in a few NFL games from years ago but that doesn’t mean that the NFL is fixed and outcomes are predetermined.
There have been any number of point shaving scandals in basketball. If there have been fixes it probably has mostly to do with extending playoff series’ by a game or two to produce additional revenue. Again, that doesn’t mean the games are fixed or that the overall outcome is predetermined.
Back to baseball, look at all the playoff series that have only gone 4 or 5 games. Each game represents millions of dollars of revenue. The players only get revenue from the first four games. While they would never admit it, the owners want their team to win but wish for a 7 game series.
I heard a hearsay story that a QB from my alma mater threw an interception late in a game that affected the betting on the spread. It didn’t affect the outcome of the game and he was completely innocent. However, the FBI showed up to question him just because there was an appearance of possible point shaving. The Feds do keep an eye on these things. If there is any truth to the story it helps to negate any contention of predetermined outcomes.
Hockey, as a team sport in North America, has probably spared itself the most from accusations of fixes and shaving. Hockey players are just too intense when they are on the ice. Telling them not to score is like telling a hound dog not to use his nose.
Honestly, it didn’t go anywhere and Davydenko is a strong player who doesn’t frequently blow it and there were not a series of “weird bet incidents” found as time went on.
I can’t pull up a cite but I read an article some time ago about how, with computers and sophisticated algorithms, something that looks like a fix will appear on the radar screen almost immediately. Cheating isn’t as easy as it used to be. That being said, if it’s true, those in possession of those algorithms could use them for betting purposes. That might be a construed as a form of cheating. Or maybe you could just label it a hedge fund and then it would be totally legal. Nonetheless, the idea that leagues such as the NFL, NBA, MLB, and the NHL have predetermined outcomes to their games is just absurd.