"With the recent rise of sports gambling, there have been a lot of theories floating around that leagues like the NBA and NFL are scripted. While this theory mostly originates from disgruntled fans, it’s not implausible that the leagues play some sort of role in the outcome of games beyond simply holding them. The question is, to what extent?" -- Isaiah Kahn, 8th Grade
Sports leagues, while being competitive and culturally significant, remain business entertainment and are largely monetarily motivated. Due to this, it’s commonly thought that these leagues, and especially the people in them, are willing to sacrifice integrity for monetary gain. There have been many instances of corruption in these leagues, backing up these theories.
In 2007, NBA referee Tim Donaghy bet on over a hundred games, including 57 that he himself officiated, with an 88% success rate. Donaghy was eventually caught “when an FBI investigation into organized crime revealed his participation,” reported a 2023 article by NewsNation, and served 15 months in prison.
In 2007, NBA referee Tim Donaghy bet on over a hundred games, including 57 that he himself officiated, with an 88% success rate. Donaghy was eventually caught “when an FBI investigation into organized crime revealed his participation,” reported a 2023 article by NewsNation, and served 15 months in prison.
In a Netflix documentary on the scandal, Donaghy claims that he didn’t fix games and only used inside knowledge to guess the outcome, which is still not allowed by the NBA. This claim is dubious anyway as Donaghy does partly admit that he may have been subconsciously influenced to favor a team. Interestingly, Donaghy called Scott Foster, a ref still in the NBA, on the phone over 100 times during the period when he was betting on his games. This has aroused suspicions of Foster, though nothing has ever been proven.
“The only reason I could see why a referee would have bias was if they had something to gain,” says Kai Vejsada, an 8th grader at OSA. “Like, if they were rooting for a team or bet on something, they might be subconsciously influenced to make more unfair calls. But then again, they risk everything by doing that.”
In that same documentary, Donaghy and others cast doubt on the ethics of the NBA. While he may not be the most reliable source, his comments on the subject are definitely not inconceivable.
“They were cracking down on a spin move that they wanted officials to call traveling on, and Michael Jordan did the spin move and I made the call,” says Donaghy. “Phil Jackson comes flying off the bench, giving me sh*t. I say ‘Wait a minute Phil, you know as well as I do that’s the spin move they’re telling us to call.’ He says ‘They may want that play called but they certainly don’t want it called on him.’”
This is one of the top theories on how sports leagues could be scripted. In leagues like the NFL and NBA among others, a common idea is that the referees favor star players disproportionately. Players like Patrick Mahomes and Lebron James are cited as some of the worst offenders of this. This could be explained as opposing fans being upset when a player or team is too good and winning too much, but it does definitely help the leagues make more money if star players don’t get injured and have better stats.
It’s also often assumed that, at least in the NBA where the playoffs aren’t a single game, refs will try and prolong a playoff series if a team is down some games. Donaghy supports this idea. “Every playoff game is tens of millions of dollars for the league so they wanted the series to go towards seven games as often as possible. If there was a sweep, it was not good for the league’s bottom line,” he says in the same Netflix documentary, Operation Flagrant Foul, covering the disgraced referee’s exploits.
A more outlandish theory that was circulating recently was that the colors in the NFL Super Bowl logo, which gets revealed far before the season starts, predicted who would make and win the superbowl that year. The evidence for this is that the past two years, whoever made the Super Bowlsuperbowl had had their primary colors on the logo, with the bottom color winning each time. This one is very, very unlikely to be true, as this year the theory was incorrect, along with there being no real incentive for the NFL to do this.
“The only reason I could see why a referee would have bias was if they had something to gain,” says Kai Vejsada, an 8th grader at OSA. “Like, if they were rooting for a team or bet on something, they might be subconsciously influenced to make more unfair calls. But then again, they risk everything by doing that.”
In that same documentary, Donaghy and others cast doubt on the ethics of the NBA. While he may not be the most reliable source, his comments on the subject are definitely not inconceivable.
“They were cracking down on a spin move that they wanted officials to call traveling on, and Michael Jordan did the spin move and I made the call,” says Donaghy. “Phil Jackson comes flying off the bench, giving me sh*t. I say ‘Wait a minute Phil, you know as well as I do that’s the spin move they’re telling us to call.’ He says ‘They may want that play called but they certainly don’t want it called on him.’”
This is one of the top theories on how sports leagues could be scripted. In leagues like the NFL and NBA among others, a common idea is that the referees favor star players disproportionately. Players like Patrick Mahomes and Lebron James are cited as some of the worst offenders of this. This could be explained as opposing fans being upset when a player or team is too good and winning too much, but it does definitely help the leagues make more money if star players don’t get injured and have better stats.
It’s also often assumed that, at least in the NBA where the playoffs aren’t a single game, refs will try and prolong a playoff series if a team is down some games. Donaghy supports this idea. “Every playoff game is tens of millions of dollars for the league so they wanted the series to go towards seven games as often as possible. If there was a sweep, it was not good for the league’s bottom line,” he says in the same Netflix documentary, Operation Flagrant Foul, covering the disgraced referee’s exploits.
A more outlandish theory that was circulating recently was that the colors in the NFL Super Bowl logo, which gets revealed far before the season starts, predicted who would make and win the superbowl that year. The evidence for this is that the past two years, whoever made the Super Bowlsuperbowl had had their primary colors on the logo, with the bottom color winning each time. This one is very, very unlikely to be true, as this year the theory was incorrect, along with there being no real incentive for the NFL to do this.
A main reason why theories like these are getting so popular is due to the spread on sites like Youtube and TikTok. “Social media definitely helps spread the theory,” says Vejsada. “Fans are looking for someone or something to blame.”
Another theory talked about lately is that the NFL heavily favors the Chiefs, especially now that Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift are dating. Although it was likely blown out of proportion, many fans were upset at the amount she was featured on TV during the games. The NFL certainly has reason to do this, although it’s up for debate whether or not they should. Swift has added an estimated value of 331.5 million to the brand of the Kansas City Chiefs, along with likely being one of the main factors raising female viewership, and viewership in general, to an all-time high. The NFL wouldn’t want to turn all of their new female viewers off of their sport, so the theory goes that they made sure the Chiefs would win to keep everyone happy.
While that’s assuming the worst, the leagues are definitely aware of this drama. Former NBA player Evan Turner said this in a 2023 interview: “I remember we were about to play game seven, 2012, and I’m hype as hell like this gonna be lit. So Adam is like ‘Y’know, we’re gonna have to win by 15 just to win by 1,’ and I’m like ‘What do you mean?’ and he’s like ‘Bro, the NBA is entertainment… would you rather watch the Celtics or the Sixers play the Heat, “I’m gonna be honest with you, I’m on the team I wouldn’t even watch… they’re well aware of the storyline.”
It’s very unlikely that the leagues are 100% scripted, though. “There’s too much emotion from the players,” says Rafi Ponet, an 8th grader at OSA. Ponet says that if the leagues were scripted, the players would be far less upset after their losses. “If a player retired 15 years ago, what's their motive for not telling everyone the league is scripted? No one’s really done that,” he added as another reason to believe that the leagues are not scripted.
The truth is that if these games were somehow scripted, it would have to be on such an unreasonably large scale that we would have found out by now. Either that, or it’s every government’s first interest that the population thinks these leagues are real and covering up any evidence, which just doesn’t make sense.
The last theory, called the “frozen envelope theory,” involves the NBA draft lottery, where the 14 teams with the worst records enter a lottery with odds based off of their wins, from least to greatest. This is to prevent teams from purposely tanking their seasons so that they can get the top talent in that year’s draft. Towards the beginning of this tradition, the New York Knicks landed the top pick and got future Hall of Famer Patrick Ewing. Some suspected that the NBA wanted a New York team as a top franchise and rigged the draft by freezing or potentially creasing the Knick’s envelope. This would make it easier for the commissioner David Stern to know that he was pulling the Knick’s envelope from the pile rather than another team’s and would allow them to secure the first pick.
Another theory talked about lately is that the NFL heavily favors the Chiefs, especially now that Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift are dating. Although it was likely blown out of proportion, many fans were upset at the amount she was featured on TV during the games. The NFL certainly has reason to do this, although it’s up for debate whether or not they should. Swift has added an estimated value of 331.5 million to the brand of the Kansas City Chiefs, along with likely being one of the main factors raising female viewership, and viewership in general, to an all-time high. The NFL wouldn’t want to turn all of their new female viewers off of their sport, so the theory goes that they made sure the Chiefs would win to keep everyone happy.
While that’s assuming the worst, the leagues are definitely aware of this drama. Former NBA player Evan Turner said this in a 2023 interview: “I remember we were about to play game seven, 2012, and I’m hype as hell like this gonna be lit. So Adam is like ‘Y’know, we’re gonna have to win by 15 just to win by 1,’ and I’m like ‘What do you mean?’ and he’s like ‘Bro, the NBA is entertainment… would you rather watch the Celtics or the Sixers play the Heat, “I’m gonna be honest with you, I’m on the team I wouldn’t even watch… they’re well aware of the storyline.”
It’s very unlikely that the leagues are 100% scripted, though. “There’s too much emotion from the players,” says Rafi Ponet, an 8th grader at OSA. Ponet says that if the leagues were scripted, the players would be far less upset after their losses. “If a player retired 15 years ago, what's their motive for not telling everyone the league is scripted? No one’s really done that,” he added as another reason to believe that the leagues are not scripted.
The truth is that if these games were somehow scripted, it would have to be on such an unreasonably large scale that we would have found out by now. Either that, or it’s every government’s first interest that the population thinks these leagues are real and covering up any evidence, which just doesn’t make sense.
The last theory, called the “frozen envelope theory,” involves the NBA draft lottery, where the 14 teams with the worst records enter a lottery with odds based off of their wins, from least to greatest. This is to prevent teams from purposely tanking their seasons so that they can get the top talent in that year’s draft. Towards the beginning of this tradition, the New York Knicks landed the top pick and got future Hall of Famer Patrick Ewing. Some suspected that the NBA wanted a New York team as a top franchise and rigged the draft by freezing or potentially creasing the Knick’s envelope. This would make it easier for the commissioner David Stern to know that he was pulling the Knick’s envelope from the pile rather than another team’s and would allow them to secure the first pick.
This theory has not been proven, apart from a Hawk’s general manager’s claims that a league official told him it was and the NBA lottery and Knicks coincidentally sharing an accounting company. There have been other instances with the lottery, such as LeBron James going to his hometown team despite their odds of getting him being much lower, but these have also not been proven.
Once again, these theories are all very hard to prove and should be taken with a grain of salt. They could be chalked up to the competitive nature of sports and potential corruption that money brings to anything, which causes fans to jump to conclusions when unhappy with outcomes and plays. The complete rigging of games is impossible and illegal, so next time your team loses you’re probably safe to blame it on the teams.
Once again, these theories are all very hard to prove and should be taken with a grain of salt. They could be chalked up to the competitive nature of sports and potential corruption that money brings to anything, which causes fans to jump to conclusions when unhappy with outcomes and plays. The complete rigging of games is impossible and illegal, so next time your team loses you’re probably safe to blame it on the teams.
