Do you believe pro sports are scripted/rigged?

[ErikaShougart]

Of course its rigged. They have to make headlines and stunts to grab people ’s attention. Falcons blowing 25 points in a Superbowl these players worked all their lives to win that trophy. And they allow the other team to score 25 points in one quarter in pro football? Warriors blew a 3-1 advantage? Cubs win after 108 years, and their 108 double stitches on a baseball?

[Theladywithcurls]

Maybe in what we call "3rd world" countries because of the high rates of bribery and the hybrid political systems which only increase chances of political leaders and icons being involved in sports

[madhatters4]

no i do not. i believe that at times (few and far between) referees or players may fall prey to rigging, throwing, etc games but i don't believe as a whole pro sports are rigged. otherwise revelations like the FIFA ref fixing, nba refs playing favorites and other revelations wouldn't be so alarming and met with swift punishment

[hahahmm]

Yes & no. Yes: it’s manufactured news, giving sports media reliably scheduled drama/events to cover. Yes: there’s zero loyalty to teams by 99.999% of athletes. It’s all about money so of course bribes are possible.

No: it’s not as scripted as pro wrestling

[WhiteSteve]

As someone who played sports my whole life, I can’t even imagine how you’d pull off the actual throwing of the game, and why you’d even participate. Imagine a football game... you need 53 players and probably a dozen coaches to be in the bag for you. I just don’t see how you make that happen.

You might be able to get to a referee like Tim Donaghy, but even that isn’t a sure thing. You can call bogus penalties/fouls and have some degree of influence, some guy still might just keep balling out despite that.

I’m a New England Patriots fan, a everybody fucking hates us, lmao (which, truth told, is maybe even more satisfying than all the winning lmao... if nobody chirped us fans or tried so hard to disparage what the Pats have done, this wouldn’t even be half as fun😝 So PLEASE keep hating, that’s how you know you’re still on top😎) But anyway, the Patriots are ridiculously good and are playing in the conference championship almost every year, and are play in the super bowl like every other year on average. If I’m the NFL, I don’t want that happening at all. I want new teams every year, parity throughout the league, everyone’s got a shot, the championship excitement would be felt by more fanbases. Theoretically, the Patriots are “bad for business”, they’re monopolizing an entire era of the sport. People who hate the Patriots claim they’re always getting some kind of break to win (I’ll give you guys the Tuck Rule, haha. Correct call at the time by the letter of the law, but the Raiders got jobbed). But that doesn’t make any sense to me, because A) the league has harshly punished the Patriots for a few alleged infractions (that weren’t all that serious [check your facts before you come at me😜], and in one case, it’s questionable if anything happened at all), and if you’re harshly punishing a team, you’re not doing them any favors, period. But people are still convinced everytime the Pats manage to win that someone was in the bag for them, and I just don’t get it. The country suffers from Patriots Fatigue, ratings are better if you get new teams playing for championships. Same thing is going on in the NBA, we’ve watched Warriors-Cavs in the finals the past four years, and that’s only going to change this year because LeBron left Cleveland.

It just doesn’t behoove the leagues to fix games for their already-good teams. As a commissioner you want parity from the biggest market to the smallest market. The NBA is an absolute mess right now. Players being able to practically pick their own teams to join with fellow superstars is a fucking shitshow, NBA sucks now, I have no idea why it’s so popular other than ESPN gives it the most attention after football.

So I don’t think games are rigged except in the rare case of an independently corrupt official. And in terms of scripting, I just don’t know how you script the actual performances of players. You can script all you want, if a guy makes a bad throw or the receiver drops the ball, the script can’t change that. And to point to this year’s NFL playoffs... Rams vs Patriots was the 4th best possible Super Bowl matchup, why would the League script that? Rams vs Chiefs: that’s a story, the “new blood” playing for a title, in a rematch of the biggest offensive game in history during the regular season. Chiefs vs Saints: the likely MVP Mahomes vs 40 year old Drew Brees and the Saints, arguably the best team. Saints vs Patriots: Brees vs Brady in a battle of two of the greatest QBs of all time, both over 40. Pats vs Rams: I guess you have Belichick vs McShay, but really, it’s the team everyone’s sick of vs a team that recently moved and is still establishing a fan base. And we all saw how it turned out. I love defense, so it was a good game to me, but most people want offense, and it was boring as fuck in that regard. I don’t know, I just don’t know how you rig performances of skill.

[dangerDoge]

I would imagine they're real, but only for the most part. I think the players aren't playing to a script apart from special cases like the Black Sox Scandal. I don't believe the players would be good enough actors to not try in a game while still making it constantly believable. They're also making millions or several hundred thousand so they have less motivation.

The people I imagine who have the highest chance of rigging the game are going to be the ref, where they make it sort of "favorable" for a team. Maybe it's calling more fouls for one side. Maybe it's siding with one team if a play is reviewed. There is a lot of money in professional sports, so who knows where some of it changes hands along the way, whether by sponsors, benefactors, etc. Refs, comparatively speaking, get a smaller cut of the pie for the money, so they'd be likely more susceptible to payments.

I don't think all refs are rigged/payed though. I imagine some are just bad. I certainly wouldn't be surprised if some refs had some shady deals made behind the scene though.

[UnknownReflection]

Of course it's real.

People who believe sports would be scripted using the same logic as people who believe earth is flat.

You can buy certain players or refs and try to do fix certain areas but the whole foundation of sports aren't rigged and never will be.

Do you know who is Sir Alex Fergueson? the best coach in the history of soccer/football? he won 13 league titles in 26 years managing the same club. He spent his life on the game and for Manchester United. He worked his ass off to win trophies. His hard work and intelligence never been staged. It's the same for any sport.

The beauty of sport is the unpredictability. Some people can't fathom that and think everything must be rigged.

[MrKinktastic]

I suspect there are odd semi scripted moments but it’s not common because of the public backlash when the fans find out. Early days of MMA (Coleman vs Takada is a prime example) had a lot of that going on while pride and ufc were just starting to build their brands and build up fighters reputations to draw crowds. It’s pretty uncommon though to be asked to take a fall as most fighters would be pissed to be asked.

[ChiTown33]

My question to Reggie is having been in the league (even though you're not the play by play guy) how do YOU miss that! C'mon Reggie! Neither him nor Kevin said a word till the replay.
The NBA refs always miss calls and a lot of time the make "make up" calls later when called out on it by players. Believe me unless they're a ref on the take they're professionals that love the game and just want to make the right call.

[MarketData]

Match fixing happens in a lot of sports, in connection with betting scams. Referees can be bribed, they can make mistakes, and they can cave in to pressure. I don't know what the situation is in America with your weird sports such as basketball and American Football but I think the majority of sports in Europe are clean. The exception is horse racing which has been one huge betting scam from day one.

[Lazarus_1_506]

There are exceptions especially very political and very controversial things like the corrupt boxing commissions, things like that, and individually it's always going to be people looking to make a quick buck, and just like any other profession, they will be those who make that decision to their personal lives that allow people to have leverage over, like gambling or drug debt, infidelity, etc. But though I don't believe that overall sports are rigged...

[jimyee]

You can't script them but you can call more fouls in something like basketball to give a team an advantage, but the other team can still win

[Phanta]

As far as I know the only sport that is rigged is the professional NWA type wrestling. Though in 1919 there was the infamous Black Sox baseball scandal, where they purposely threw the games for pay.

[btbc92]

It's scripted. These days it's about payoffs, not real gaming anymore. Especially in baseball. I believe that the players truly wants to play the game with their own strengths, but because of the million dollar contracts, they are held by that contract. Sad.

[mistixs]

I know that "Professional" Wrestling is, but I don't know about other sports. I never watched sports for my own pleasure, but I watched wrestling as a kid because my family would watch it.

[Dankster96]

Thy're real. Can you imagine if it came out that they were all scripted though? No one would laugh at Wrestling again.

[genericname85]

yup. there's a very strong gambling host lobbys behind popular sports. the less popular a sport, the less rigged.

[Jager66]

I don't think all of it is but I'm sure that it happens with some measure of regularity.

[Liam_Hayden]

I think they are real, but most of them are boring and, unless you have money riding on the event, a waste of energy.

[RobLovesDemi4ever]

of course they're scripted and rigged how else do you think sports betting takes place with point spreads and stuff

[MyExperience]

Here we go, Another conspiracy theorist. Sports are real. Refs are human, mistakes are made. they are not out to get you or hurt your team. SMH

[Eternal_Blizzard]

With modern technology it's harder to rig big games like , football and cricket

[yeeeeeeeet]

I lowkey picked b cuz the patriots are always on some bullshit every season

[janna_jcb]

They’re not rigged, apart from the very rare cases of bribery