NFL Officiating

A lot of the natural contact in the game has been made illegal. Too many P.I. and defensive holding calls for things that would be seen as part of the game in past eras.

DripTooHard said:

The NFL is entertainment and not a sport. This is written on the back of every game ticket.

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uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh no. I have a lot of old tickets laying around and cannot find that statements - or anything similar - anywhere. I think you're thinking of the WWE.

Point-of-the-Star said:

This is so spot on !!!!! 4- part series I watched years ago so I gave you 2 parts but there is soooo many other compelling videos just on Youtube.

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There are so many inaccuracies in that video, it is hilarious. There is a reason you can go to Vegas and bet on Cowboys-Giants but you can't bet on Hulk Hogan.

Atrocious calls happen in every single sport. The NFL is no different.

I have had this argument before with the same old ridiculous conspiracy theorists. I don't even have to look up the rebuttals since I already know them.

FACT: There is nothing on the back of an NFL ticket which defines the event as "entertainment" and not "sport". You do sometimes see the NFL call themselves "sporting and entertainment" but the word "sport" is always there.

FACT: The NFL Company Overview specifically defines the League as a sport and a sports league. (By contrast, the WWE Company Overview never uses the word "sport" once)

FACT: If the League was systematically rigging contests while claiming to be a sports league, that would be fraudulent activity and would be illegal. Any claim that it is not illegal for the League to rig outcomes is ignorance at the highest level.

FACT: Please note there is a difference between the League systematically rigging contests and a rogue player/referee operating on his own without the League's knowledge or consent.

FACT: Anyone who thinks the Tuck Rule Game was rigged for the Patriots is a complete moron. Let's ignore the fact that it was the right call according to the rules at the time (I am not going to get into that almost-20-year-old discussion). Let's pretend it was a bad call. When you consider what the Patriots still had to do to win that game makes any suggestion of rigging absurd. Vinatieri still had to kick a miracle 45 yard FG in a blizzard just to get to OT (which he did). If the game was really rigged, it would not have come down to a crazy miracle. What would have happened would be, say, a couple holding penalties scattered throughout the game against the Raiders offense to kill drives. Plus a couple DPI calls scattered throughout the game to help the Patriots score more. If that game really was rigged, then the mastermind behind the plan was the single biggest idiot on the planet considering everything that had to go down for NE to win.

Ummmkay


https://www.mediapost.com/publicati...e NFL,professional wrestling and roller derby.

Clarification on how the NFL defines itself in legal proceedings:

Throughout that case, the NFL repeatedly positioned itself legally as a “sports entertainment” business, not a genuinely contested “sport.” College football, for example, is legally classified as a “collegiate sport.” The only other “sports entertainment” businesses are professional wrestling and roller derby. "

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sports_entertainment

Your "facts" are, in fact, your opinions. The fact is the NFL is exempt from anti-trust laws which can allow for game outcomes to be manipulated. It is, in fact, like the WWF in that respect.

Point-of-the-Star said:

Ummmkay


https://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/313959/string-theories-is-the-nfl-broken-because-its-fi.html#:~:text=Throughout that case, the NFL,professional wrestling and roller derby.

Clarification on how the NFL defines itself in legal proceedings:

Throughout that case, the NFL repeatedly positioned itself legally as a “sports entertainment” business, not a genuinely contested “sport.” College football, for example, is legally classified as a “collegiate sport.” The only other “sports entertainment” businesses are professional wrestling and roller derby. "

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sports_entertainment

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LOL!! Your own link here destroys the point you are trying to make. It lists "sports entertainment" as things like the WWE and Harlem Globetrotters. If the NFL really was "sports entertainment" (as you are desperately trying to define the term) then don'tcha think that article just might mention them???

Point-of-the-Star said:

Your "facts" are, in fact, your opinions. The fact is the NFL is exempt from anti-trust laws which can allow for game outcomes to be manipulated. It is, in fact, like the WWF in that respect.

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No, my facts are facts. You have nothing but conspiracy theory BS from some website no one has ever heard of and a bunch of broken links. I have the actual, official NFL Company Overview.

https://www.nfl.com/news/nfl-company-overview#:~:text=Founded in 1920, the NFL,.nfl.com/history.

The National Football League is comprised of 32 US-based franchises that compete each year to win the Super Bowl, the world's most famous annual sporting event. Attracting fans from around the world, the NFL developed the model for the successful modern sports league, including extensive revenue sharing, competitive excellence, strong franchises across the board, and national distribution.

BTW, if you think the anti-trust exemption means the League can rig games, then you don't have the first f'ing clue what the antitrust exemption really does. Baseball has an antitrust exemption, are they rigged too?

Here is one last clue for you: "sport" and "entertainment" are not mutually exclusive. Just because they sometimes call themselves "entertainment" in no way whatsoever implies they are not also a "sport". An organization can be both.

Point-of-the-Star said:

Ummmkay


https://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/313959/string-theories-is-the-nfl-broken-because-its-fi.html#:~:text=Throughout that case, the NFL,professional wrestling and roller derby.

Clarification on how the NFL defines itself in legal proceedings:

Throughout that case, the NFL repeatedly positioned itself legally as a “sports entertainment” business, not a genuinely contested “sport.” College football, for example, is legally classified as a “collegiate sport.” The only other “sports entertainment” businesses are professional wrestling and roller derby. "

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sports_entertainment

Your "facts" are, in fact, your opinions. The fact is the NFL is exempt from anti-trust laws which can allow for game outcomes to be manipulated. It is, in fact, like the WWF in that respect.

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First thing - the article you posted is an op-ed piece - Its clearly labled Commentary at the top of the article ... its opinion based, not fact based. and its full of BS... the article is piled high with a bunch of conjecture, what-if and made up "facts" ... it truly is, in the parlance of the day, Fake News.

What the court decision says in Mayer vs Belichick is simply that the ticket holder to an event has the right to enter the stadium and watch the event. Thats it. A ticket offers nothing more than a license to be a spectator. Everything else in that Commentary is just an opinion of a guy pushing an agenda.

Secondly, in the decision by the court, The NFL was never characterized as "Sports Entertainment". In fact the judge writing the decision called the NFL a "professional sport" multiple times. The NFL never characterized itself as "Sports Entertainment", nor was it found to be anything but a professional sporting organization by the court in its decision.

here is the decision --> https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-3rd-circuit/1524532.html Read it. Educate yourself. Or don't & continue to be intellectually lazy.

And lastly, the Holy Grail of the "NFL is Rigged" Conspiracy hacks... The Antitrust Exemption... Do you even know what Antitrust Exemption means? Did you ever bother to look it up?

The NFL has a limited antitrust exemption that's based on a 1965 ruling by the courts. The exemption allows the NFL to package its games and sell them as one product to individual broadcast companies. Based on the structure of the NFL, 32 individual teams, it is technically illegal for the league to package its product and sell it to the bidder of choice as it promotes consolidation and theoretically stifles competition between the 32 independently owned franchises. The NFL anti-trust exemption allows the teams to act as one organization and package and sell its product accordingly. That's it.

The NFL Antitrust exemption is monitored by the Justice Department, and any attempts to stifle competition ( THIS CLAUSE PROHIBITS MATCH FIXING!!!!!! ) and/or influence competing leagues (which is why the USFL won its court case vs the NFL) would be a violation, and the NFL could potentially lose its exemption, and with it, lose the ability to generate Billions of Dollars on an annual basis.

I love a good conspiracy theorist smackdown. I wonder if they get all their information from "news" outlets branded as "entertainment." Lol.

MarcusRock said:

I love a good conspiracy theorist smackdown. I wonder if they get all their information from "news" outlets branded as "entertainment." Lol.

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i swear to god some people believe anything they read... i don't understand the whole conspiracy theory mindset in regards to the NFL being scripted / partially scripted...

seriously, Jerry Jones has made the NFL more money than god thru his ability to work deals, create marketing opportunities etc... does anyone honestly believe if the league were rigging/manipulating outcomes, he would sit on the sidelines watching team after team win super bowls when he is desperate, still to this day, to best jimmy johnson by proving his football acumen by winning a super bowl while the team is under his direct stewardship? as an aside, 13 individual teams have won championships, and of those 13 teams, 6 have won multiple times...

Or that long time franchise owners like the Ford family would sit idly by, watching, reaching a conference championship only once in the super bowl era? Or that the NFL would let the LA market get so sour that every team that played there left the market (both the rams and raiders left LA in 1994) for over two decades?

MarcusRock said:

I love a good conspiracy theorist smackdown. I wonder if they get all their information from "news" outlets branded as "entertainment." Lol.

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I was bored.

Now I'm bored with this thread.