Why Are Sports so Corrupt?

As a big sports fan I have noticed that there has been a lot of cheating and corruption in some of the most popular sports in America over the last couple of years. The three most popular sports in America are the NFL, MLB, and NBA. These sports have all suffered through major cheating scandals that have impacted the integrity of the game. The MLB problems with steriods and HGH use has been the most talked about of these issues. Steriod and HGH use in MLB has led many fans to believe that most of the records and statistics of this era are tainted because so many people have been found taking these illegal drugs. Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens, who were once thought of as the best hitter and pitcher of this generation have both been linked to steriods. While I feel baseball has done a better job trying to clean up steriod use in the sport many fans believe that the game has already been damaged and historic records have been broken unfairly.

While the NFL has suffered through minimal steriod use problems in its sport, the major scandal in football was spygate. The New England Patriots were caught taping the New York Jets signals illegaly in the first game of the regular season. While many people said they felt the taping did not really help the Patriots win the game, they still broke rules. Other fans said that this was only a one time thing and should not effect the way the Patriots dynasty should be viewed winning three Super Bowls in four years. Now I would agree with that if reports had not come out that the Patriots also did some illegal taping in two of those Super Bowl victories. The NFL did penalize the Patriots by fining the team and taking away a first-round draft pick but I think Patriots dynasty has to be looked at with some suspicion. They won each of their three Super Bowls which they gained some illegal advantage by only three points and this year when they were playing by the rules after getting caught they lost the Super Bowl by three points.

The scandal that has affected the NBA is by far the least talked about of these three. Last summer it had been confirmed by the FBI that one NBA referee Tim Donahue was being indicted because of gambling and betting on basketball games he officiated. I felt this was very serious news when it came out because the referee is supposed to be impartial on the court and in a sport where so many players and coaches complain about calls by referees this was definitely shocking news. The thing that was good for the NBA was it had been confirmed that it was only one referee doing this and the league has of course fired and banned the ref from the NBA. Even though it appears that the NBA does not and will not have this problem anymore it still affected all the games that referee officiated in and raised some suspicion about the integrity of their sport.

Popular sports have definitely been affected by cheating scandals in the last few years. As a fan of these sports I am happy that the commissioners in these leagues have taken strides to help improve their sports. As fans of the game I feel we should want to see good and clean competetion regardless of who we root for.