Let's address the NFL's trust crisis

Football games aren't fixed, but the perception is still a problem.

Welcome back to Club Sportico, where we breakdown the intersection of sports and money—with an extra bit of humor and opinion. Jacob leads off this week…

There have probably been complaints that sports are rigged since 1876, when William McLean became the first professional baseball umpire. But boy do they seem louder now.

After last Thursday’s 35-34 Ravens/Bengals barnburner, my social feeds were mainly filled with clips of uncalled roughing the passer and defensive holding penalties on Cincinnati’s final two-point conversion attempt.

On the broadcast, Al Michaels decried the misses, though he didn’t go so far to say they were intentional. Leave that to the fans. 

Following Saturday’s epic 22-21 win by BYU over Utah in the Holy War¹, Utes athletic director Mark Harlan didn’t hold back. 

"This game was absolutely stolen from us," he said, intimating that the Big 12 was behind his team’s loss, either by negligence or premeditation, following a controversial holding call during BYU’s game-winning drive.

On Sunday, when a burst of Patrick Mahomes’ distinctive voice was caught on the zebra’s live mic, CBS commentator Trent Green assumed, almost certainly incorrectly, that Mahomes was asking the official to tell the QB when a defender gets close to him. Without further evidence, the NFL on Fox account blasted the sound—and allegation—to more than five million TikTok viewers. The clip got another 15 million-plus watches on X.² 

Just another weekend of watching football spreading conspiracy theories.

The NFL has laughed off the “scripting” allegations before—even using the concept to anchor its 2023 kickoff marketing campaign. But I think this is actually a serious issue. We’re not just talking about a handful of social media cranks. Depending on how the question is phrased, polls have often shown roughly half of NFL fans think a game could be or has been rigged, or at least that officials play favorites or aren’t fair. And I’m positive those numbers are only going up.

If 30 percent of Americans think elections are manipulated (to be on the low side!), why wouldn’t they think the same of what is essentially a TV show filmed in front of a live audience? And if they do think the fix is in, why would they watch?

Aggressive betting growth alongside a couple scandals has worsened the issue. So has the proliferation of instant replay angles, which allow skeptics to unearth angles that inspire doubt. Then there are the social media platforms, which spread falsehoods at six times the speed of truths, promoting the most salacious, controversial opinions algorithms can find.

The NFL is not rigged. I’m confident of that.³ But that doesn’t mean that the chatter isn’t a problem. 

As an early career journalist, you are lectured repeatedly about proper conduct. Bias can be destructive not only to your own brand but to your newsroom’s and your industry’s. And perception of bias is just as dangerous. Athletes and administrators need to hear the same. 

Sure—there will always be some allegations of malfeasance as long as humans are relied upon to enforce the rules.⁴ But there are also changes leagues could make.

In many cases, the rules themselves need to updated. These were statutes created 100 years ago and generally not intended to be enforced down to the millimeter. Doing so was simply impossible at the time.

Safety and entertainment factors are regularly weighed in annual rules updates; clear enforceability ought to be considered too, both for new and existing game rules. 

Let’s humanize the refs too. Enough Netflix docuseries about athletes, give me one from the officials’ perspective, to remind fans just how difficult their gigs are.

If leagues really wanted to crack down, they could try to ban the spread of clips portending to highlight missed calls or shenanigans under copyright regulations, requiring the level of decorum expected of jumbotron operators for all of us posting online. 

In the meantime, us fans have a role to play, too. Can we take half the negative energy we currently direct towards officials and send that vitriol towards the people complaining about calls after a loss? They are the ones actually ruining the fun.

tl;dr: Stop whining, before it’s too late.

Want free access to the entire Club Sportico experience, including exclusive trivia contests and Monday missives? Start by referring friends!

P.S. We’re now on Bluesky, if you’re looking for another place to rant about refs!

---

Now turning it over to Eben for additional thoughts on guerilla merchandise, angry fliers, name confusion, and more for our favorite people, Club Sportico’s paid members…

Story of the Week 👕: I’ve said for a long time that the best fan gear isn’t in the official team shop, but rather made by smaller shops who operate in the licensing grey are. I’d buy from this guerilla Jaguars shop, for example, before even looking at Fanatics. Our legal expert Michael McCann wrote this week about a lawsuit between Penn State and Vintage Brand, an online retailer of vintage fan gear, that could upend the current delicate licensing balance. The headline doesn’t lie when it says the lawsuit, which just got through jury selection, “Could Rock the Sports Licensing World.”

Story of the Week (Non-Sportico Division) 🏀: Most longform journalism in this industry focuses on the athletes, but I loved Michael Scotto’s HoopsHype piece about the lifestyle of NBA coaches. Scotto embedded with the Indiana Pacers staff on a recent road trip, and gives a whole host of intimate details, including what coaches say during timeouts, and just how little they sleep.

What Made Me Laugh 🤡: I legit laughed out loud at this video 👇, where a flight attendant on a Detroit-bound aircraft tries to make an announcement while the Lions are lining up a game-winning field goal (h/t hbomm).

(The rest of this edition is solely for paid Club Sportico members….)