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AB #1

Citation:
Aaron. "Is the NFL Rigging Football Games Every Year?" - A New World
Society. NING, 14 Aug. 2014. Web. 12 Mar. 2016.
<http://anewworldsociety.ning.com/profiles/blogs/is-the-nfl-riggingfootball-games-every-year-even-the-super-bowl>.

Summary:
Aaron, a blog poster, has been researching the topic about whether or
not the NFL has been rigging their games for many years. His thoughts about
conspiracies started in 2008 when he watched the first Zeitgeist movie. It
made him look deeper into the Venus Project and the skeptics behind it. That
led him to look deeper into different conspiracy subjects including 911, the
Nwo, and the Illuminati. He then looked deeper into the NFL to see if what

was going on was actually the truth. This is where he found out about all the
sketchy happenings within the league. Aarons blog post included multiple
examples of happenings within the NFL that could have been part of a
cheating scandal. Aaron say, Alot of people like myself, have worshiped this
giant organization for many years, and once people finally see who they
really are, then that is when the huge boycott begins.. This is a perfect
example of how once fans start to look deeper into the games and start to
realize that the NFL could really be rigged, they will start to agree more and
more with this inquiry. People just dont look deep enough into the subject
yet to realize what they are trying to do.
I really enjoyed reading this blog post because it helped give me more
examples to use to help back up my topic. It also agreed with my idea how
fans should start to look more into the sport to start to realize what the NFL
is doing. This blog post gave me confidence to block out the critics who
dont agree with me. Aaron started just the same as how I am now, and it
showed me that if I keep with my subject, I will continue to learn more and
more conspiracy theories about the NFL.
AB #2

Peter Alexander

Lester Holt

Citation:
NFL Suspends Tom Brady Four Games over Deflate-Gate Scandal. By Lester
Holt. Perf. Peter Alexander. NBCUniversal Media, 2015. EVideo.
Summary:
Lester Holt, a news anchor for NBC Nightly News, and Peter Alexander,
an award winning journalist, gave a report on how the New England Patriots
were accused of deflating their footballs that were used during the 2015 AFC
Championship game. Both reporters have years of experience in the field of
sports and controversy. They explained that the Patriots won that game
because of the deflated footballs because the Indianapolis Colts were not
used to using footballs with the air pressure that was in them. The Patriots
then went on to win the Super Bowl that year which made everyone even
more upset because they believed that they did not deserve to win. Tom

Brady was then suspended for the first four games of the 2015-2016 season.
The NFL even considered taking away the Patriots Super Bowl trophy. This
controversy has since made the NFL stricter about checking the footballs and
their pressure before each game to make sure that they meet regulation.
Lester Holt explains found team personnel probably intentionally deflated
footballs and suggested Tom Brady was at least genuinely aware. This tells
us that it wasnt Tom Brady that deflated the footballs, it was the personnel,
but he was still okay with it. Both him and the franchise received
consequences.
This was a big shock to me that a team would do this to try to win
during such a big game of the season. It could have been something that the
league could have cleared but once it went public, they had to provide a
consequence to make the fans and other teams happy. This video was very
interesting for me to listen to because I wasnt very informed on the subject
until now. This opens my eyes up to the topic even more because this could
just be one of many things that people actually caught. There could be many
more instances that the NFL did that no one knows about
AB #3

Elliot Kalb
Citation:
Kalb, Elliott, and Mark Weinstein. The 30 Greatest Sports Conspiracy Theories of All
Time: Ranking Sports' Most Notorious Fixes, Cover-ups, and Scandals. New
York: Skyhorse Pub., 2009. Print.
Summary:
Elliot Kalb, senior editorial director for the MLB Network, explains his views on
the conspiracys that happen throughout all sports, not just the NFL. Elliot Kalb went to
the University of Massachusetts at Amherst to study mass communication and media
studies. Kalb explains a lot of the different questions that people have about
conspiracies with every sport. He has some specific examples of every sport of events

that seem to be a little sketchy. Some of the questions Kalb answers throughout his
book are: Was Super Bowl III a fixed game? Was the NBAs first-ever draft lottery fixed?
Are some NASCAR race outcomes too good to be true? and many many more. Kalb
even goes as far as the Olympics to see if a world wide event held every four years
could possibly be staged for the enjoyment of each country instead of individual fans.
Kalb also helps determine which conspiracies are true, and which ones are just myths.
He digs deeper into each story to find out the truth behind everything.
This book was very helpful to me for my studies because it showed me that
cheating not only happens in the NFL. I can now look deeper into other sports to see if I
see the same pattern. This helps my topic because it proves that cheating does go on in
other leagues and therefore it is possible for cheating to be going on in the NFL. This
book also helped me by giving me a couple extra example choices to choose from
within my paper. If others were to read this book, I believe it would help them enjoy my
paper better because it would help them better understand the topic.
AB #4
Peer Reviewed***

John Vrooman
Citation:
Vrooman, John. "Theory of the Perfect Game: Competitive Balance in
Monopoly Sports Leagues." Review of Industrial Organization Rev Ind
Organ 34.1 (2009): 5-44. Springer, 3 June 2009. Web. 20 Mar. 2016.
<http://www.vanderbilt.edu/econ/faculty/Vrooman/vrooman-rio-sportsspecial.pdf>.
Summary:
John Vrooman, a professor at the University of Vanderbilt, explained
more in depth the sharing of the profit between the players and the owners.
Vrooman got his Ph. D from the University of Texas at Austin in 1976. He also
played football at Kansas State University from 1964-68 on a scholarship.
Vrooman has a lot of experience with football and the logistics how the game
is played which helps him look deeper into each game. He can pick out every
sketchy event that happens during the game to see if the game is rigged. In
his article, he explains how the profit is split between the players and the

owners, but the owners get a majority of the profit due to their position. In
one of his first paragraphs, he states, The practical economic problem is
that games in professional sports leagues are played between teams from
asymmetric home markets that form imperfectly competitive natural
cartels.. This quote explains how teams from different cities have different
incomes and the ones with the larger incomes control the league.
Vrooman gave me a better idea on how the profit was distributed
throughout the team. It backed up my point about how the owner could
control how much money he makes because most of it goes to him. The
more profit brought in from all the sources I stated in paper, the more money
in his pocket at the end of the day whether or not his team won or loss. This
is sad to see because the players could be playing their hearts out for
nothing. This is just a hypothesis I have about the owners, but hypothesis
sometimes are true.
AB #5
Peer Reviewed***

Fran Zimniuch
Citation:
Zimniuch, Fran. Crooked: A History of
Cheating in Sports. Vol. 134. Lanham,
MD: Taylor Trade Pub., 2009. Print.
Summary:
Fran Zimniuch, a Temple University graduate, writes about how
cheating has gone on in sports for many of years but it has gone so
unnoticed by fans. Zimniuch is a sales manager for Smartwork Media during
the week, but when he has free time he writes about sports and all aspects
of the games. He not only follows the NFL, but he has a huge passion for the
MLB. He has been a Phillies fan since he could remember and has always had
a passion for sports in general. In his quote, As long as people have played
games, there has been a temptation to win (or intentionally lose) by
cheating. he talks about how in every player, they have always had a
thought about cheating in some way, whether it is to win, or lose for the
best. His range of examples range from the 1919 World Series, all the way to
the track star Marion Jones and his thoughtful confessions. There are a lot
more incidents of cheating that has happened throughout the leagues that
not many people have heard about. Either owners paid to make the cases be
low-key, or people just didnt believe what they were hearing.

Zimniuch helped me realize that this problem of cheating has been


going on for longer than I thought. It gave me the idea to look deeper in time
to the old days to look for examples from back then. Also, back then I bet it
was harder for it to hide cheating so it will probably be easier to spot. He also
proved a good point when he talked about cheating has always been in the
back of everyones head because everyone wants to succeed and be the
best. Also, him having a real job and researching sports in his free time
shows me that it doesnt take a person long to find out patterns of cheating
within sports. This idea should give readers the courage to look for
themselves and be informed.
AB #6

Peter King
Citation:
King, Peter. "Inside the NFL A Quick Fix." Sports Illustrated, 10 Feb. 1989.
Web. 23 Mar. 2016. <sportsillustrated.com>.

Summary:
Peter King, NFL reporter of Sports Illustrated since 1989, explains the
problems that go on within the league that many people may not be aware
of. Peter King has a large range of experience in the field of reporting after
covering pro-football for almost a quarter century. He is not the EC(Editor-inchief) of The MMQB (Monday Morning Quarterback) which is a site for fans
that love to follow pro-football. He talks about the more in-depth rules of the
NFL that try to prevent the league from rigging their games. This includes
bribing referees, bidding on games, etc. He explains how he realizes there
are breaks in the rules where there could be a possibility to cheat, but he
gives ways the NFL could fix them. Since King has been involved in
researching and reporting the NFL for so long, he knows a lot about the
conspiracies that have come up in the past years and the ways to go about
each of them. King also has many other articles that relate to the NFL and
give a pleather of information of anything having to do with the NFL.
King gives the facts that no one wants to face; the NFL has flaws that
some people can take advantage of. But the question is whether or not the
NFL has tried to fix those flaws or left them the way they are, on purpose.
King has been in the game of sport watching for many years and has seen
almost all of the moves of cheating there are to play. This article helped me
learn more about to loopholes the NFL consists of and how cheating is
actually possible within the league.
AB #7

Albert J. Figone
Citation:
Figone, Albert J. Cheating the Spread: Gamblers, Point Shavers, and Game
Fixers in College Football and Basketball. N.p.: U of Illinois, 2012. Print.
Summary:
Albert Figone, a professor of kinesiology, explained the different types
of cheating that goes on in different sports leagues. Figone was also a former
head coach for the baseball team and the assistant coach for the football
team at Humboldt State University. He was very involved with the school and
their biggest sports. He explains the differences between bribing and rigging
and betting, which are all related to cheating. A important question he asks
is Do the players involved in point shaving scandals typically show remorse
when they are implicated?. Figone answers it by saying, Yes, because 90%
of them believe they can beat the human sports betting system.. This goes
to show that its not the players choice to rig the games, its the owners. This

is because the owners will be benefitting way more than the players would.
The players are worried about their position on the team and whether or not
they will be there the next year. They try their hardest to win each game, but
if the owners already decided the outcome, there is nothing they can do. The
owners are the ones who control the league.
I found this piece extremely helpful because it answered a lot of
questions I had about the whys. It answered why else they would cheat
besides the money aspect, it answered if they players were in on it too, and
even more. He also explained to me that cheating and shaving points even
happens in college sports. This gives me to chance to expand my research to
college sports to find out more.

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