Quote:
Originally Posted by Rain Man
Because you have orders to increase revenues by 3.5 percent a year, and the easiest way to do that and keep your multi-million dollar salary is to see the league's biggest stars playing in the games with large viewer ratings potential.
Again, I don't think they're fixing games to ensure who'll win. I think they're working to ensure that games are close and exciting and have last-minute scores to pull out victories, preferably by the league's biggest stars. The league isn't sitting down and saying "Listen, the Saints are going to win this year, and they're going to go 13-3 with losses at Green Bay, Houston, and Chicago." They can't do that. But they can say, "We want a passing offense because passes produce more consumer engagement, and we want our biggest stars to be in exciting games, so let's keep 'em close and give those guys every chance to win."
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I can see why the results in recent years would lead some people to those conclusions. After all, the NFL marketing guys get paid millions of dollars to craft storylines out of these results that appeal to the public and spark interest in the sport. If you are a public relations guy after the Saints win the Super Bowl you'd be stupid not to invoke the triumphant spirit of a team giving hope to a city still coming back from a natural disaster. That shit sells, specifically to the more sentimental viewers that the NFL seems keen on attracting. However, the fact that these narratives exist is not evidence that they have been reverse engineered.
As far as the preferential treatment for super star players, no one can pretend to know the individual psychology of each referee, but I don't see it as a policy. Maybe my memories are different, but I don't recall Brady or Manning needing massive intervention from the refs to win their championships. There are so many individual moments in a game that someone could point to in hindsight, but in reality, isn't it much simpler to admit that these players win because they are damn good?