# Teams that receive favorable officiating **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [May 3, 2016, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teams-that-receive-favorable-officiating/753753 "2016-05-03T02:49:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![russian\_heel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f05b48/32.png) [@russian\_heel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/russian_heel)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2016, 7:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teams-that-receive-favorable-officiating/753753/21 "2016-05-04T07:02:15Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > Tim Donaghy is not the most reliable of witnesses. Also, the nature of the accusation is not that the Lakers systemically get calls, but that they got calls in this one game so the series would be extended. > > If there was evidence a major North American sports franchise systemically got the calls, it would be laid out in more spreadsheets than you could count, not “oh remember that one bad call from fifteen years ago” anecdotes. The evidence would be well assembled by enterprising sports fans. I hear ya. Worth mentioning considering the topic. ---
**Author:** ![Quercus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/7ab992/32.png) [@Quercus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quercus)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2016, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teams-that-receive-favorable-officiating/753753/22 "2016-05-05T15:43:01Z")
Do you count something that changes from year-to-year, such as “NBA team that includes the (or one of the) most marketable Next-Michael-Jordan (TM, National Basketball Association)”? (e.g. team that included at the appropriate point in time, Dwayne Wade, LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, etc.). If so, then well, I guess I have a suggestion. I mean, the league has basically stopped even pretending that the Next-Michael-Jordan gets called the same way as an awkward-looking white rookie; the only question is how much that carries over to their respective teammates. ---
**Author:** ![Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a587f6/32.png) [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freddy_the_Pig)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2016, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teams-that-receive-favorable-officiating/753753/23 "2016-05-05T17:16:58Z")
> [@Ranger\_Jeff](#): > > When I was stationed in NYC years ago, I made $800 betting on the NFL. I got a very good tip. I got “the word” (that seemed to be accurate) that a certain “Zebra” was going to retire after that season and was working on his retirement plan. Any game that he was officiating in, I’d bet on the underdog to beat the point spread. They always did. 1. What was the official’s name? 2. Why did he only accept payoffs from underdogs? ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2016, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teams-that-receive-favorable-officiating/753753/24 "2016-05-05T20:35:17Z")
I don’t participate in Notre Dame threads. ---
**Author:** ![Thing\_Fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecb155/32.png) [@Thing\_Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing_Fish)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2016, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teams-that-receive-favorable-officiating/753753/25 "2016-05-05T20:40:25Z")
> [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](#): > > 1. What was the official’s name? > 2. Why did he only accept payoffs from underdogs? My assumption would be that he wasn’t getting payoffs directly from the teams, but was betting on the games himself. Doesn’t answer the question of why he always favored the underdog, though; seems like it would be less suspicious to mix it up between helping favorites and dogs. ---
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2016, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teams-that-receive-favorable-officiating/753753/26 "2016-05-05T20:48:49Z")
> [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](#): > > 1. What was the official’s name? > 2. Why did he only accept payoffs from underdogs? Not to speak for **Ranger\_Jeff** but the bribes would come from the gamblers who wanted to affect the betting. Since the underdog teams in question probably lost the game anyway they wouldn’t have interest in this kind of bribe. The problem with this is that it’s pretty hard to subtly affect the outcome of an NFL game with split second timing. If you determine that you’re going to call or not call a penalty on a play to affect the scoring you either have to be blatant, lucky, or exceptionally good at cheating. And betters (who scour results looking for bias like this) would jump all over it if they suspected foul play. ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2016, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teams-that-receive-favorable-officiating/753753/27 "2016-05-05T22:43:16Z")
I believe that Tom Brady fumbled. BRADY thought he’d fumbled too, and never even made a half-hearted attempt to tell the refs that it was an incomplete pass. But regardless, that was just a lucky break for the Pats, not part of a longstanding pattern of refs favoring the Pats. ---
**Author:** ![Fleetwood](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fleetwood/32/271_2.png) [@Fleetwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fleetwood)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2016, 12:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teams-that-receive-favorable-officiating/753753/28 "2016-05-06T12:36:19Z")
Montreal Canadiens. Especially home games. ---
**Author:** ![Sitnam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2016, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teams-that-receive-favorable-officiating/753753/29 "2016-05-06T14:53:17Z")
nm… ---
**Author:** ![racer72](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/racer72/32/3075_2.png) [@racer72](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/racer72)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2016, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teams-that-receive-favorable-officiating/753753/30 "2016-05-06T15:14:13Z")
> [@Omniscient](#): > > Packers. For the love of god. > > (Wait for all the Fail Mary whining to commence) Except when they play in Seattle on Monday nights. They have lost their last 2 MNF games against the Seahawks on contested plays that favored the home team. ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2016, 4:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teams-that-receive-favorable-officiating/753753/31 "2016-05-07T04:54:02Z")
> [@racer72](#): > > Except when they play in Seattle on Monday nights. They have lost their last 2 MNF games against the Seahawks on contested plays that favored the home team. Quite so- and your post reminds me why I have to question my own perceptions. Even though I sincerely believe the Steelers get favorable treatment year in and year out… it’s entirely possible I’m extrapolating from a few incidents and positing a bias that doesn’t really exist. Speaking as a Yankees fan, can I think of bad calls that benefitted the Yankees greatly? Of course! Baltimore fans will never forget the fan interference that MAY have cost them a shot at the World Series! And fans outside New York may well believe “The Yankees always get the breaks.” But I’ve seen too many blown calls that went AGAINST the Yanks to believe the umps are in the tank for the Bronx Bombers. I have to imagine passionate Pittsburghr fans (out there, Airman?) remember numerous times the Steelers got screwed over, and laugh at the notion they get special treatment. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2016, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teams-that-receive-favorable-officiating/753753/32 "2016-05-08T01:17:03Z")
> [@Jim\_s\_Son](#): > > Some umpires’ memoirs (Jocko Conlan, Doug Harvey) say that a lot of these guys who had bad reputations with the press (Williams, Rogers Hornsby, Bill Terry, Dick Allen) were very reasonable men when hitting. No whining, if you missed an occasional one they understood you were human. Some umps might still have been overly impressed with them and gave them more than the benefit of the doubt now and then. There’s [a story](http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1213171-rogers-hornsby-not-musial-or-pujols-was-the-best-cardinals-hitter) about the time a rookie pitcher was facing Rogers Hornsby and complained to umpire Bill Klem about a pitch he though was a strike. _"Klem looked the pitcher straight in the eye and responded, according to Baseball Almanac, “Son, when you pitch a strike, Mr. Hornsby will let you know.”_ 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Munch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/munch/32/5281_2.png) [@Munch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Munch)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2016, 3:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teams-that-receive-favorable-officiating/753753/33 "2016-05-08T03:47:50Z")
> [@Gatopescado](#): > > I don’t participate in Notre Dame threads. Yeah - they really got some great calls their way when the opposing teams got to bring in their own conference officiating crews. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Airman\_Doors\_USAF](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e36b37/32.png) [@Airman\_Doors\_USAF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airman_Doors_USAF)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2016, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teams-that-receive-favorable-officiating/753753/34 "2016-05-08T19:08:48Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > I have to imagine passionate Pittsburghr fans (out there, Airman?) remember numerous times the Steelers got screwed over, and laugh at the notion they get special treatment. Oh, I do laugh at it. If the Steelers get all the calls, why did Joe Nedney get to re-kick a shanked field goal in overtime in 2003 on a dubious running into the kicker penalty? Nedney “joked” that he was acting when he went down. The Titans went on to the AFC Championship Game. Seems to be a big call they didn’t get, isn’t it? I seem to recall a 26-year drought between Super Bowl wins, one with several losing seasons under Noll at the end of his tenure and a whole bunch of playoff appearances under Cowher where they were supposedly the class of the AFC but always came up short. If the Steelers get all the calls, how does that happen? You see what you want to see. I’ve seen almost every game since the Cowher era started and most of the late Noll era games and I can tell you with certainty that the Steelers don’t get all the calls. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2016, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teams-that-receive-favorable-officiating/753753/35 "2016-05-08T20:29:46Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > Quite so- and your post reminds me why I have to question my own perceptions. Even though I sincerely believe the Steelers get favorable treatment year in and year out… it’s entirely possible I’m extrapolating from a few incidents and positing a bias that doesn’t really exist. Given that you accept your perceptions are inherently biased, why do you **sincerely believe** something that, an an intellectual level, is just incredibly unlikely to be true? ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2016, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teams-that-receive-favorable-officiating/753753/36 "2016-05-08T21:44:05Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > Given that you accept your perceptions are inherently biased, why do you **sincerely believe** something that, an an intellectual level, is just incredibly unlikely to be true? What can I tell you, except that I KNOW I can’t always be!leve what I think I see with my own eyes! ---
**Author:** ![Quimby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/22d042/32.png) [@Quimby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quimby)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2016, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teams-that-receive-favorable-officiating/753753/37 "2016-05-08T22:21:27Z")
> [@Thing\_Fish](#): > > My assumption would be that he wasn’t getting payoffs directly from the teams, but was betting on the games himself. Doesn’t answer the question of why he always favored the underdog, though; seems like it would be less suspicious to mix it up between helping favorites and dogs. I imagine he would go with the dogs because it is not easy for calls to make a bad team score but they could certainly keep a good team from scoring past a spread. ---
**Author:** ![Victor\_Charlie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/7ea924/32.png) [@Victor\_Charlie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Victor_Charlie)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2016, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teams-that-receive-favorable-officiating/753753/38 "2016-05-09T02:21:56Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > Stars have always gotten special treatment from officials, in almost every sport. But the only TEAM in any sport that always SEEMS to get all the calls is… > > The Steelers. Velocity is not imagining that. The refs should have been Super Bowl MVP rather than Hines Ward. Sorry, but no way. I won’t get into the debate over those Super Bowl calls because, right or wrong, they don’t prove favoritism. In the playoff game with the Colts that same year the refs overturned an obvious Steelers interception that very nearly cost them the game and the trip to the Super Bowl. It was such a terrible call the league issued a statement acknowledging the error: [http://espn.go.com/nfl/playoffs05/new](http://espn.go.com/nfl/playoffs05/new) The Steelers are victims and beneficiaries of bad calls the same as everyone else. I think some players get the benefit of the doubt more often than others, but I don’t think there’s anything consistently for or against a particular team. (Although, in the 2006 NBA finals the Heat seemed to have a sixth guy on the floor with them wearing a gray shirt.) ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2016, 10:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teams-that-receive-favorable-officiating/753753/39 "2016-05-09T10:35:57Z")
I think Alabama gets the calls. I remember a few years back they played Arkansas and it seemed like Arkansas got penalized for being on the same field with Alabama. Notre Dame is another one that seems to benefit from the refs. In the NFL, I don’t know who gets them but it sure isn’t the Lions. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2016, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teams-that-receive-favorable-officiating/753753/40 "2016-05-09T18:54:01Z")
> [@Fleetwood](#): > > Montreal Canadiens. Especially home games. See, this is the sort of thing I mean. If Montreal got unusually beneficial refereeing, it sure doesn’t show up in the results they get on the ice. There is no evidence at all Montreal gets more calls than other teams. You can look this up; go back year after year on ESPN’s expanded standings site and you can see how many power play opportunities every team gets versus their opponents. Montreal does not get more. Actually, I went back every year to the lockout and since then Montreal has been shorthanded a bit more than they’ve had the advantage, though the total is within random chance. If that refereeing was especially prevalent in Montreal it would be very easy to demonstrate it to be the case; there would be statistical evidence that Montreal had a greater advantage in penalty calling at home than the NHL norm. They would also have more power plays than penalty kills overall, unless there was an equal bias against them in road games. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teams-that-receive-favorable-officiating/753753.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teams-that-receive-favorable-officiating/753753.md?page=3)