Fixing Sports "Fixes" Proves Vexing

This year's Super Bowl was marked by a blackout whose cause remains unstated. One of the funnier conspiracy theories about the incident is that it was caused by disgruntled San Francisco 49er fans based in Silicon Valley. I'm skeptical about that particular interpretation of events, but it makes more sense than the NFL's retreat into the Cone of Silence.

Meanwhile, the day after the Super Bowl provided us with the dreaded shadow all who enjoy professional and collegiate sports fear most -- the "fix." It's happened before in the United States, when college basketball was tainted for years, thanks to a point shaving scandal. The current iteration of the "fix" involves international soccer.

The BBC reported that European police identified a massive fixing campaign, orchestrated by certain Asian gambling interests, had essentially corrupted big-time, global soccer. Some major matches, the equivalent of a Super Bowl or World Series, were rigged. The fixing went beyond players and referees and included front offices.

It was a shocking report, especially in light of Italy's two recent soccer fixing scandals. What the police discovered was that the corruption was far deeper, and far more extensive, than investigators initially suspected. The news also takes some heart out of the sport's entertainment value and degrades the concept of fair play, sport's essential dramatic value.

That soccer, the world's leading sport, could be so thoroughly compromised, should give Americans pause. (Of course, Americans are familiar with financial corruption from the housing crisis.) The NFL, NBA, and MLB are far from immune to the siren song of easy money or the darker rhythms of blackmail. There's tremendous amounts of money at stake, from corporate interests to mom and pop gamblers. If the NFL, and especially its Super Bowl, is perceived as "dirty," the sport is finished. People will have to find some other opportunity to lose money in exciting ways.