Rigged or Real?
August 24, 2025
During a recent conversation with a friend, he mentioned having talked to someone connected with one of the big sports leagues. The guy said he doesn’t know why people watch professional sports because it’s all rigged.
Is it true? Damned if I know.
But it got me thinking.
Consider the following:
- Is it a coincidence that as the NHL has tried to establish itself in the lucrative Las Vegas market that the Golden Knights have been an instant success with a previously unheard of Stanley Cup Final appearance in their first season and a championship in their sixth year?
- Is it a coincidence that as the NHL, a league which is still looking up at the NBA in terms of revenue, tries to gain a foothold in southern states, so many teams in nontraditional markets have been winning Stanley Cup championships?
- Is it a coincidence that as the NFL sought to reestablish itself in the nation’s second-largest market, the Los Angeles Rams won the Super Bowl in their own stadium and in the sixth year following their relocation from St. Louis?
- Is it a coincidence that as attendance in Winnipeg began falling, thus putting team’s existence and associated massive government funding the NHL loves so much in jeopardy, the former Atlanta Thrashers franchise has begun to win?
- Is it a coincidence that the (real) Jets, a team which was perpetually cash-strapped and thus beholden to the NHL, consistently rolled over and played dead for the Edmonton Oilers and Wayne Gretzky, a superstar the league was heavily using as a marketing tool? And that those same Jets fought tooth and nail to eliminate the Calgary Flames, the Oilers’ top rival?
- Is it a coincidence that Gretzky, as his Edmonton contract was a year from expiration, ended up not in, say, St. Louis or Minnesota, but in a lucrative market like Los Angeles, where the sad-sack franchise was perpetually hanging on the edge of irrelevance and desperately needed a life-saving boost?
You be the judge.
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