Anyone think pro sports are fixed?

[we can do it]

Anyone think pro sports are fixed and if so to what extent and by whom?

[Awsi Dooger]

1. No, for several reasons

1) Too many variables: the number of players in team sports is high. You would have to get to many of them, IMO. A prominent QB might be enough, otherwise a single athlete doesn't have enough influence on the outcome. There is extreme parity in talent level in pro sports. Teams regularly thrive even with missing or injured personnel. Players performing poorly are routinely replaced since the backup is of comparable caliber. Tell one guy to tank and who is to say the coach won't pull him after a few botched plays? The best opportunity for fixing would seem to be individual-type sports, like boxing.

2) Not enough money at stake: sports betting limits are absurdly low. Trust me, I know, betting sports virtually every day via casinos and offshore. Other than pro football it's very hard to get down a significant amount. Many friends of mine have abandoned sports betting because they couldn't bet the amounts they wanted. Pro athletes or coaches with 6 or 7 figure salaries simply won't be tempted by the puny dollar amounts a fixer(s) could dangle.

3) On display: conspiracies transpire in back rooms, manipulated numbers that won't be discovered for months/years if ever. In bigtime pro sports you're always on TV and sophisticated fans/media know the strengths/weaknesses/tedencies of personnel. You tank significantly and it will be obvious.


Again, boxing would apparently be the #1 target. Two athletes. One ref. Three judges. Plenty of potential to alter the outcome if any of them are influenced. Not to fix big fights, but perhaps lesser ones that set up huge paydays or simply keep a top prospect on the road to opportunity for big success. You wouldn't be fixing the fight to make money by gambling on the fight itself, but to profit down the road, perhaps via the promoter. That's just my theory, no inside info or examples.

I'm probably in the 1% of sports bettors who don't think the games are fixed. Pig farmers think the world revolves around pig farming and bettors think everyone/everything is consumed by the odds or pointspread. I hear it every day. When a guy swishes a 30 footer at the buzzer to cover the spot by a half point, people around me scream fix.

[northzax]

2. the way I see it

it's almost impossible, and unprofitable to try and fix a game to win. You can make an arguement that smaller sports, including college sports like basketball could be fixed to not cover the spread, but you could never fix one to cover the spread.

[Awsi Dooger]

3. I agree, and you actually provided my #4

In my first post I initially included a #4 titled, "one way street." It was exactly what you wrote, that no way you can go to a team or individual and say "do your best ever and dominate." I decided to delete it when I seemed to be rambling aimlessly.

A fix has to be a tank, either a big favorite not to cover or some type of underdog to blow the game by more than the number. So that further limites the opportunities.

Exactly, college sports are more vulnerable. There have been numerous high profile college basketball shaving scandals, from CCNY in the '50s to Tulane and Arizona St and others more recently. This thread asked about pro sports so that's where I focused.

[THUNDER HANDS]

4. NBA games are sometimes

How many times do the refs not give stars like Jordan or Kobe or Shaq foul calls that could have affected the end of a game. That's as good as fixing a game right there.

[HuskerDU]

5. Nope.

Athletes are too arrogant. Heck NFL refs can't even be bought off because of instant replay. NBA refs... maybe, and MLB umpires can really never make enough difference to matter. (Except Hank O'day in the Merkle game 1908.)

[Robeson]

6. Most no. Boxing, yes. It has a history of being fixed.

[H2O Man]

8. There are numberous mismatches

in boxing. And lots of bad decisions. But you couldn't name a single significant "fixed" fight since Jake LaMotta claimed he threw a fight. It doesn't happen.

[Robeson]

11. Sorry, I respectfully disagree. And I don't think I'm the first to...

...come up with the idea of fixed matches. I've seen Jimmy Young beat the living hell out of Ali, and watched the match called for Ali. I've seen Hearns beat the hell out of Sugar Ray, and Hearns not get the match. Fixing fights is not a unique idea. Many movies have been made on the subject. Here's an article from Miami Times Herald on multiple boxing fixes... http://www.boxingsfinest.com/fixed_fights_tarnish_boxing.htm

Just a cursory look in to Google on the topic, will find hundreds of examples. Its not like its a big secret, or anything.

[H2O Man]

12. That's called

bad scoring. It's distinct from "fixed fights." A fixed fight is where promoters have a person who agrees to lose to another. By the two fights you mention, one can see they do not fit the definition of a fixed fight. They meet the definition of what I had mentioned in my post you disagree with -- bad decisions.

I'm not in need of googling. I've written for boxing magazines off and on over a period of decades. I finished an article for a newspaper that I write for, on some of the history of boxing, a couple times per year. Boxing is not a secret to me.

[Robeson]

13. Then you have chosen to believe what you want to believe....

...so I want confuse you with the facts if you choose not to read the article I laid out for you, or suggest you research it yourself. One of the reasons boxing is on the ropes, is precisely because of the credibility issue. But again, I'll try not to confuse you with the facts. Whatever. It really doesn't mean flip to me anyways. I gave up interest in that "sport" a long time ago.

[Awsi Dooger]

14. Those aren't the best examples

Jimmy Young did not beat Ali decisively. The ropes were absurdly loose and he kept ducking backward on them, sometimes a foot or two off the ground. Not exactly dominating an immortal champion. A decision that could have gone either way, like many late in Ali's career.

Hearns-Leoanard II was a DRAW. That is the very definition of something that was obviously not fixed. On a draw, NO ONE COLLECTS. Pure refund.

Hearns knocked Leonard down twice and I thought he won, but it was undenably close. Leonard actually had Hearns in big trouble a few times, winning rounds by large margins even while never knocking Hearns off his feet.

As I wrote in a previous post, I believe lesser fights have more potential for fixing, and have been influenced.

[kick-ass-bob]

7. No team sports are.

Individual ones - especially with judges - are a different story.

[Ravenseye]

9. I think there's some occasionally pushing

but no outright rigging in team sports. It's just too hard, and if it had been done we'd have known about it. Too many people to keep a secret.

Still, leagues have their favorites, and they'll do things to either protect them, or take them down. They'll schedule games in ways to hurt certain owners, or they'll do things that are outright unfair to an entire conference (like giving the Giants and extra home game)

As far as fixing a game and paying off players. The only reason I don't believe it is because if they were doing that someone would have talked by now.

[LSK]

10. umpires or nba refs can have influence

A home plate ump calling balls and strikes differently for each team can have a big impact on a game.

An NBA ref getting a star such as KG or Shaq in foul trouble can impact a game.

I think players make too much money to be paid off by gamblers.