The NFL: More focused on maximizing profits these days

It is no secret that the NFL creates a ton of revenue, somewhere along the lines of $6 billion in just television advertisement alone. Not to mention all the apparel sales and individual endorsement to go along with that. The league has been labeled “entertainment” in numerous court cases, and I agree with this assessment.  With all the halftime shows, the fireworks and half naked cheerleaders, the game sucks every last penny it can out of every season. The money is shared equally among owners (and I’m sure the media, just in much more discreet methods), and effectively everyone is made happy, except me. I and the rest of the fans of the NFL are being cheated out by one of the biggest scams ever to develop, and there are many clues to add to the notion that the NFL is fixed at least in some way. 

In Las Vegas, bookies win or lose thousands of dollars just based on how much a team wins or losses by, not to mention fantasy football which has turned into a major pastime of the American man (and woman) of the 21st century.  This week’s Sunday night game featuring the Detroit Lions and the New Orleans Saints was the perfect example of the NFL altering the natural path of the season. On three separate calls the Lions were called for personal fouls that should not have been called.  These calls happened at the end of a play where the players were bickering at each other and the referees felt so inclined to pull out the yellow flag, once even when the Lions were on the doorstep to scoring. They had to settle for a field goal. Please do not take my judgment for fact, look up the calls and make your own decision, because I found it obscure. This was not the first time Detroit was ostracized from a win either.  Last season, week one, Lions vs. Bears, Calvin Johnson makes a spectacular TD catch late in the game to win, except, upon further review, Johnson supposedly bobbled the ball to the ground ruling it an incomplete pass. Lions lose; the Bears (a popular team) go on to the NFC championship game.  It is all right in front of us folks.

It is no wonder the NFL altered the rules to protect quarterbacks after what happened to Peyton Manning.  Some fluky neck injury happens on some fluky hit, and the best QB in the league is on the sidelines, possibly forever.  This is the NFL’s worst nightmare, and what do they do? Call bogus roughing calls all season long to various QB’s but fails to include Michael Vick, whose past does not exactly support the role for an NFL poster boy. That spot is reserved for Mr. Brady.

Look at the bigger picture, the media endorses the entire scam, and profits from it as well.  It is entertainment fluff created by the media, for the media.  ESPN’s Sportscenter is the apex this claim. They devote hours of airtime talking about drama in the NFL that could be replaced by other sports (god forbid hockey for all those puck-heads out there). The most obvious example of this is Brett Favre.  Just saying his name and reprinting it on three different jerseys made the NFL enough money to pay off ESPN alone. The NFL has even been compared to a reality show for the amount of drama it creates.  This comparison comes from Patriots owner Robert Kraft according to the New York Times, a comparison that I would not call far from the truth.

Being a fan of the Steelers, it is difficult for me to bring up their name in this article, but it is impossible to ignore they are the franchise possibly benefiting the most from the NFL scam.  Their 2005 title came conveniently as head coach Bill Cowher and hall of fame running back Jerome Bettis announced their retirement at the conclusion of the season. They beat the Seahawks that year in a very controversial game that Seattle fans have not forgotten. 

The Steelers (The second most popular team in the league) are often the beneficiaries of some curious decisions by referees too.  My favorite is week seven of last season against the Dolphins where Ben Roethlisberger fumbles the ball at the one yard line and Miami recovers.  Except the officials ruled that since replay could not determine who recovered the ball, the Steelers were given the ball back and go on to score the game winning touchdown, even though a Miami player had the ball in his hands at the bottom of the pile. Curious.

There are plenty of other clues that support the NFL scam as well that relate to the nation’s morale.  The most classic examples being New Orleans winning the super bowl the year after Katrina devastated the city. Also the Patriots winning the year after 9/11, then two more times in the next three years; coincidence or not, these facts start to make me think.

Teams like Buffalo and Detroit are the biggest victims in this unfair, corrupt system.  When they start winning, the NFL loses money, or at least they do in the system currently in place.  The NFL needs to let the stories, the action, and the sport occur naturally, or else the entire arrangement is set to collapse on one fatal mistake.  The NBA is the next best “entertainment” show on the market, doing their best to make shareholders happy in the face of a lock out. My grandfather, a lifelong Steelers fan and ex-coach of football died believing the NFL is fixed, a claim I always questioned, but have recently begun to bring back into question. It just makes sense.