Isn’t it. Especially when you look now and see the increasingly pervasive presence of gambling-related content in our sports media.

I wasn’t much of a gambler, but I’d always thought that this type of thing was limited to just boxing and tennis.

I still watch all the sports, and I’m definitely entertained but I’ve stopped betting on them entirely.

It starts with the 2007 NBA betting scandal, which you can get a good understanding of here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZOLwxCStAc

And to which you can get Tim Donaghy’s perspective:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZOLwxCStAchttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3xMmPht_gw

You can even hear him admitting to refs colluding to target specific players (and subsequently place bets against that player’s team):

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/IK6t_Mx_a_0

I said Tim was texting Scott Foster a whole bunch during suspect moments of games in the middle of this scandal, but I was wrong - he called him. 134 times to be exact. In the same time period, he called no other ref more than a total of 13 times:

https://www.cbsnews.com/boston/news/scott-foster-recipient-of-134-tim-donaghy-phone-calls-refereeing-celtics-heat-game-3/

There’s a great Netflix documentary about this whole thing that covers any new information in this next bit, but here’s the conspiracy in a nutshell:

We are not sold sports - we are sold sports entertainment.

As a cooperating witness with the FBI, Tim Donaghy had agreed to wear a wire and go undercover to gather evidence against the multiple referees involved.

The NBA was informed by the FBI of this investigation, under the misguided (but totally natural) assumption that the league would choose to cooperate.

Instead, before anything could happen, the NBA blew the lid on the operation and fingered Donaghy as a lone wolf acting against the league - when he was in fact acting in accordance with the direction given to him by his bosses and upper management in the NBA.

It’s really just self-preservation of the remaining conspirators - they sacrificed a sheep to save the flock. This it was only Tim that received any punishment whatsoever because he was the one unlucky enough to get caught first.

He’s gotten away with doing what he wants for decades, why stop now? The man was texting Tim Donaghy - who went to jail for this - hundreds of times in the most suspect of moments around games he was reffing, while Tim maintained virtually zero unnecessary contact over text with any other referee. He’s untouchable.

^^ Second only to future Lebron James?