Alright, all you lovers of the National Football League. You’ve been warned.
The NFL is not a sport. I repeat, the NFL is not a sport. It is, like the WWE, a platform for entertainment. I repeat, the NFL is for entertainment only.
Let’s put aside the revelation in the 1980s that, according to Dan E. Moldea’s book, “Interference: How Organized Crime Influences Professional Football” more than 70 NFL games were fixed. League officials denied that the outcome of any game was influenced.
Let’s also forget that the FBI investigated NFL referees and officials. According to FBI-302 report, two or three referees were paid $100,000 by a New York mafia individual for their involvement in eight allegedly fixed games. Their job? Ensure that the mob figure covered the spread and won his bets.
What about the New York Jets ticket holder, who in 2007 sued the NFL for $185 million, and the case went all the way up to the Supreme Court. The fan argued that all Jets fans were entitled to refunds because they paid for a ticket to a legitimate sporting event.
NFL attorneys argued that the fan merely “purchased a ticket which gives him a contractual right to a seat in a stadium to watch an NFL game between the Patriots and Jets, and this right was honored.” The judge agreed with the NFL.
The fan’s lawyer, Bruce Afran disagreed and said the NFL committed consumer fraud. He said, “This seems to suggest that no matter how much ticket holders pay, they can be frauded by NFL teams which puts the NFL on the same level as professional wrestling.”
And… the NFL has an Anti-Trust Exemption which allows the league to classify itself as “entertainment” rather than sport. It also incorporates itself as a single entity instead of 32 separate franchises. The NFL admitted this in 2004 in response to a lawsuit against the NFL when NFL attorney Gregg H. Levy argued that “the NFL is not a collection of 32 individual teams, but rather a single entity. And as long as the NFL teams are a unit, and they compete as a unit in the entertainment marketplace, then they should be deemed a single unit and not subject to any Anti-Trust laws.”
Why? Money. In 2023, the NFL’s revenue was a whopping $13 billion.
So, in this context, who cares who wins? The NFL makes tons of money. The owners get paid, the front office gets paid, and the players get paid. Who cares if a team wins or loses? In 2023, the Las Vegas Raiders – which played to a pathetic 4-13 record, had a revenue of $779 million. That was second to the Dallas Cowboys, which has won a total of two playoff games since its Super Bowl-winning season of 1995. The ‘Boys raked in $1.2 billion in 2023.
I’m sure Dallas owner Jerry Jones cries all the way to the bank after a season like that. In 2023, the NFC East champion Cowboys lost to the Green Bay Packers, 48-32, in the Wild-Card round.
To all those lovers of the NFL, who mortgage their houses to see their favorite team play in the Super Bowl, miss work the next day and lose their job, spend obscene amounts of money on NFL merchandise, get into fights with fans of opposing teams, destroy their television sets after their favorite team loses in the playoffs (or regular season), who lose money week after week betting on games, you’ve been had.
But you won’t stop watching games. You refuse to realize that the NFL is not a sport like high school football (which probably isn’t squeaky clean). And, when the NFL partnered with Draft Kings, Caesars Entertainment and Fan Duel, the bell tolled for the “integrity of the game” in an epic way.
It’s amazing the NFL’s affinity for vice. From the sale of alcohol at games, which all but ensures fights in the stands, corridors and parking lots, and, of course, to gambling to its subservience to the entertainment industry, to which the NFL belongs. Is it any wonder why players play roles in commercials, TV series and movies?
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