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Doping Commission Strips Armstrong Of Titles - Albert Doyle - 30-08-2012
Nothing like the Huffington Post writing a critical article against Armstrong and backing his "fall" when Huffington Post itself has abandoned any form of credible free press journalism.
The reason the doping commission is so strict is because anti-drug authority is one of the last claims to moral credibility that our fatally corrupted governments can seize upon for credibility. They are desperate for moral authority so like all tyrannical powers they gain it through draconian prosecution of individuals under the guise of guarding the integrity of society.
Lance passed all 500 drug tests he was given. The reason they stripped him of his titles is because he refused to attend further hearings. Huffington Post jumped right on this and called it "abandoning his defense". Enter the Puritans keeping up tradition...
Doping Commission Strips Armstrong Of Titles - Peter Lemkin - 18-01-2013
JUAN GONZÃLEZ: We turn now to sports news, to the unraveling of one of America's most renowned athletes: the cyclist Lance Armstrong. For the first time, Armstrong has publicly admitted to doping, saying he won all seven of his Tour de France championships with the help of performance-enhancing drugs. Speaking to Oprah Winfrey last night, the cyclist recounted how he abused banned substances to ensure his victories despite zealously denying allegations of doping for years. Winfrey's much-anticipated interview opened with a rapid-fire series of yes-or-no questions.
OPRAH WINFREY: Yes or no, in all seven of your Tour de France victories, did you ever take banned substances or blood dope?
LANCE ARMSTRONG: Yes.
OPRAH WINFREY: In your opinion, was it humanly possible to win the Tour de France without doping, seven times in a row?
LANCE ARMSTRONG: Not in my opinion.
OPRAH WINFREY: Yes or no, did you ever take banned substances to enhance your cycling performance?
LANCE ARMSTRONG: Yes.
OPRAH WINFREY: Yes or no, was one of those banned substances EPO?
LANCE ARMSTRONG: Yes.
OPRAH WINFREY: Did you ever blood dope or use blood transfusions to enhance your cycling performance?
LANCE ARMSTRONG: Yes.
OPRAH WINFREY: Did you ever use any other banned substances, like testosterone, cortisone or human growth hormone?
LANCE ARMSTRONG: Yes.
AMY GOODMAN: During the interview, Lance Armstrong denied claims he was the kingpin of the doping program on his teams and insisted he never directly instructed teammates to take performance-enhancing drugs, as claimed by the United States Anti-Doping Agency, or USADA. Armstrong has now been stripped of every single cycling achievement since 1998, including an Olympic bronze medal, and is banned from competition for life. And he no longer serves on the board of Livestrong.
We go now to Washington, D.C., where we're joined by Dave Zirin, sports columnist for The Nation magazine, host of Edge of Sports Radio on Sirius/XM. His upcoming book is called Game Over: How Politics Has Turned the Sports World Upside Down.
Dave Zirin, welcome back to Democracy Now! Talk about the significance of Lance Armstrong's admission. Why does it matter?
DAVE ZIRIN: Well, before I say anything, Amy, I have to say it says something certainly interesting, if not repugnant, that the federal government has millions of dollars to figure out what a cyclist did or did not put in their body, yet they're not prosecuting the people who either crashed the economy or were in charge of the torture program under the Bush administration. I'm not sure what it says, but it certainly says something.
As for Lance Armstrong, his interview with Oprah Winfrey? I mean, "disaster" is not a strong enough word that I would use to describe how that went. It was a disaster both in form and in content.
Lance Armstrong had two goals last night. And they were very difficult goals; I described it as trying to cycle through the eye of a needle. He was trying to show the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency that he was willing to play ball, that he was going to be contrite, that he was going to agree with their findings, and in return, they would lift the lifetime ban that hangs over his head from ever competing again. And at the same time, he was trying to push back, as you said, against that description of him as kind of the Tony Soprano of the cycling world, someone who facilitated doping through a whole host of other cyclists, under penalty of ostracization or even physical threats against those cyclists who would not dope as he did.
And he really failed on both counts very dramatically, because he strongly rebuked USADA's findings, saying that he was this facilitator of doping. He said, "Absolutely not," when Oprah asked that question, yet at the same time he did admit to bullying and he used the word "bullying" anybody who stood in his way. He admitted that he did frivolous lawsuits. He admitted that he tried to ruin people. He admitted that he lied for all these years, defamed people, tried to bankrupt people. And so, that didn't exactly do him a lot of favors in the public relations standpoint. So, from that perspective, honestly, it was gobsmacking.
AMY GOODMAN: I mean, it was amazing, there was this moment when he was asked about, I think it was, his masseuse and whether she hadwhether he was apologetic to her. He had sued her. Oprah asked if she hadif he had sued her. And he said, "You know, honestly, I can't remember. I sued so many people," and said she had told the truth, and yet still he had sued her.
DAVE ZIRIN: And, of course, he had the resources to ruin this woman's life. I want to make clear to the audience that this is not a situation like with, for example, baseball doping, where you have baseball players, and then you have a management structure that benefits from them doping. Cycling is a very federalized world. Lance Armstrong is not just a star cyclist, he's the boss of his team. He can be in charge of who gets fired and who gets hired. He can be in charge of what position people are able to be in in the context of this team. So he actually had social power over the other cyclists. So this question of whether he threatened to fire people, which Oprah did ask him directly, if they didn't dope is actually a very important question. And USADA had people testify under oath that that exactly was the case. So for him to say, "Absolutely not," in this interview that's supposed to be this contrite confessional, he was accusing these other riders, he was accusing his workers, if you will, of perjury.
JUAN GONZÃLEZ: And Dave, what about the intimations early on that he was going to turn the tables on his regulators and point out that there was a corruption, not only on his part, but on the entire cycling apparatus?
DAVE ZIRIN: Well, that is certainly, absolutely true, and that's something we knew before Lance Armstrong ever opened his mouth. You know, Lance Armstrong, as you said, won seven Tour de France titles. The reason why, now that he's been stripped of those titles, they haven't been given to the second-place finishers is that in each of those seven races, the second place finishers have also been found to be using performance-enhancing drugs. In fact, if you look at the top 10 finishers of each of his seven wins, 48 of 70 have been documented of having used performance-enhancing drugs.
And I have to raise a differentiation once again with cycling as opposed to something like baseball, for example. I mean, cycling, most of the doping has to do with increasing the oxygenation of your blood, increasing your lung capacity. I mean, if as many people died in the NFL, which has been under a lot of scrutiny, as have died in cycling over the last two decades, there would be weekly hearings on Capitol Hill. It's an incredibly dangerous, incredibly taxing sport. And a lot of cyclists I've talked to talked about drug use as if it's survival drugs. Now, all that being said, the answer is not, of course, to dope your body as an answer to that. The answer is a reformation of the sport, trying to make the courses safer, unionizing the cyclists so they have some sense of a collective voice. Lance Armstrong, by the way, is someone who's come out strongly against efforts of cyclists to organize as a union. But that's really where the discussion needs to be, not how do we make sure they can get away with doping more effectively.
AMY GOODMAN: Let's go back to Lance Armstrong on Oprah Winfrey's show on Thursday night. He admitted he became a, quote, "bully" in the course of defending himself from accusations that he benefited from banned substances.
LANCE ARMSTRONG: I was a bully in the sense that you justthat I tried to control the narrative. And if I didn't like what somebody said, and for whatever reasons in my own head, whether I viewed that as somebody being disloyal or as a friend turning on you or whatever, I tried to control that and say, "Thatyou know, that's a lie. They're liars."
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to get your comment on that, Dave, and also ask if possibly the doping was related to his cancer, his testicular cancer.
DAVE ZIRIN: Yeah, on the first question, I think, with that statement, I could imagine all of Lance Armstrong's lawyers collectively clenching up when he saidwhen he said that, about being a bully and going after people, because I think over the next decade there is going to be a Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade of lawyers outside his compound waiting to sue Lance Armstrong. Everybody who feels defamed by him, everybody who felt like they had their earnings potential stripped by himand this is a very long list; as Lance Armstrong said, he cannot remember all the people he suedthey will be countersuing him, not just for compensatory damages, but punitive damages, as well. It's not going to be a fun decade for Lance Armstrong.
Now, were the steroids connected to his recovery from cancer? That's a very interesting question.
AMY GOODMAN: Or getting cancer?
DAVE ZIRIN: Or getting cancer. That's also a verythat's unknowable at this point. That's certainly something that people have speculated. People have also speculated about instances of just being a serious cyclist and getting testicular cancer, about links between those two practices. But the idea that it caused him cancer is unknowable. But the idea that steroids actually aided his recovery is also unknowable.
And this is where you get to thatthis very nebulous territory that doesn't get talked about too much in our discussion about these drugs, is that there really is a difference between use and abuse. There's a difference between taking these drugs under the auspices of a medical professional and doing them illegally in a back room or in a bathroom stall. And it seems like this country is so far away from having this discussion of how can medical technology actually help people improve, as opposed to how can it just help them exploit their bodies to the fullest so they can win races and then die earlier than the typical American male or female.
Doping Commission Strips Armstrong Of Titles - Peter Lemkin - 18-01-2013
JUAN GONZÃLEZ: Dave, let's turn to another big sports story in the news this week involving Manti Te'o, a star linebacker on Notre Dame's football team. Can you lay out what we know about that weird case?
DAVE ZIRIN: Look, I've covered a lot of stories that were emotional. I've covered a lot of stories that felt important. I've never covered a story this bizarre. Nothing even comes close.
The story of the college football season was Notre Dame's rise to prominence. The center of Notre Dame's team was the star linebacker Manti Te'o. And the center of Manti Te'o's story was the fact that he was playing for his grandmother and his girlfriend, who both passed away within hours of each other on September 11th or September 12th. The dates actually keep changing, which is part of the story. She died of leukemia, the story went. Manti Te'o was playing with a broken heart, but inspired by her memory. An entire nation of college football fans were swept in this story. People raised thousands of dollars in her name to give money to cancer research. And it turns out that she never existed.
And now here's where we get to two possibilities of what took place. Either Manti Te'o was victim of a hoax that took place over the course of three yearshe was a victim of what's "catfishing," where someone set up this identity, ensnared him online, and pushed him to actually feel like he was in love with a real person, who wasn't realor Manti Te'o was an architect of this hoax and did so for reasons that, frankly, are left to speculation at this point. Maybe he was trying to give himself a narrative that would aid his chances to win the Heisman Trophy. Maybe he was trying to keep his personal life extremely private and didn't want anybody to know about his personal life, and one way to do that is to say, "Well, I have this girlfriend. You don't know here. She's on theI have to talk to her on the Internet."
But either way, what we know for sure is that Manti Te'o misled the biggest sports media outlets in the countryESPN, Sports Illustrated. The establishment sports media has looked like absolute fools in the aftermath of this story. And the story was itself broken by Deadspin, which is an online site that's seen as an outlaw site by the main sports media manufacturers. It's another instance of independent Internet journalism doing the job that the big media outlets just did not do.
But like I said, this story is so bizarre. We're learning more about it every single day. And it's the sort of thing whereI once had an editor say to me that, "Look, when the sun sets in the West, that's not a story. When the sun doesn't set, that's a story." And this is one of those instances where it's so different, so bizarre, that it really has captured the attention. I'll tell you, the only people madder than Notre Dame football fans is probably Oprah Winfrey, because this has just sucked all the air out of the room in terms of what people are talking about.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Manti Te'o in an interview that took place before the sports website Deadspin revealed that his girlfriend never actually existed.
MANTI TE'O: I just lost everything. And I cried. I yelled. I never felt that way before. This issix hours ago, I just found my grandma passed away, and you take, you know, the love of my life. Last thing she said to me was "I love you." And that was it.
AMY GOODMAN: And, Dave, you were just saying that this involves the big sports media. Also, the teams, even opposing teams, everyone standing forand for people who haven't followed the story, to understand, did he ever say he met this girlfriend that he was in love with, that his father said would be his future daughter-in-law, that they apparently said they met after a Stanford University game?
DAVE ZIRIN: Yes. In many interviews, he's very cagey about it. And when you read them now, you can see he's not actually talking about them being together physically in the same room. But in some interviews, he talks about their eyes meeting across the football field, their hands touching. On the football field after a game, he thanked her family specifically. Once again, there is no family, but he thanked her family for the way they were there for him in the aftermath of her death.
I mean, there are only one of two ways to look at this. And let me be clear about this, too. Manti Te'o was an Academic All-American. This isn't a case of somebody who's dumb as a box of shamrocks, if you will, and unable to see what is happening here. So you're really left with only one or two alternatives. Either Manti Te'o is so sweet, so trusting, so loving, that he would nurse someone he had never actually been in the same room with through her leukemia, through her death, while proclaiming his undying love, without ever actually meeting herand if this is the case, he should be isolated and studied in a lab for the good of humanityor, he was an architect of a hoax that ensnared the biggest forces in sports media, and ensnared his school, Notre Dame.
And this is where the story actually, I think, gets very important for a Democracy Now! audience, because Notre Dame, they have stood behind Manti Te'o through this whole thing. They said they hired private investigators to find out the truth about what happened, and they believe him 100 percent that he was victim of a hoax. The athletic director, a man named Jack Swarbrick, he cried in front of the media, because he said Manti Te'o, the most trusting person in the world, may never trust again. I mean, my goodness. But the same school did not hire investigators when a scandal broke out about allegations of sexual assault and rape connected to the football team. The school did not hire private investigators or shed one tear for Lizzy Seeberg, a student at neighboring St. Mary's College, a freshman at St. Mary's College, who had allegations of sexual assault against the team. She was sent threatening messages from people connected to the team over her cellphone. And, by the way, that's not an allegation; those messages have been seen and documented. And then she took her own life. No tears for Lizzy Seeberg, no tears for other women who anonymously have said they were attacked, yet tears for Manti Te'o. It says a great deal about the culture at Notre Dame that values the brand, the lucrative brand, of Fighting Irish football above all else.
JUAN GONZÃLEZ: Well, and Dave, in connection to that, your book, Game Over: How Politics Has Turned the Sports World Upside Down, really begins to go into this enormous problem with so many of the different sports in America and how politics keeps intruding into the games. Could youcould you summarize the main theme that you've been trying throughout the essays in this book?
DAVE ZIRIN: Absolutely. And there is a whole chapter about college football and the corruption of college football, which, by the way, says so much about our campus culture in this country, just by looking at college football. It says something that at so many of our state universities the college coach is the highest-paid employee, not just on campus, but in the state. And meanwhile, of course, tuitions are going up, majors are being cut, students are being pushed out.
I mean, I believe sportsand this is the whole point of the bookI believe sports is like a weather vane. And you don't look at a weather vane to determine the weather; you look at a weather vane to determine which way the wind is blowing. And if you look at sports over the last couple years, it has mirrored the crisis that's taking place globally, both in terms of economics, both in terms of issues that have to do with everything from the Arab Spring to the recessions here at home, to the Occupy movement, in ways that are really quite profound. And I wrote the book out of a frustration, because I felt like so much of the sports media, even some of my favorite writers, were writing about this in strands, like maybe there would be a story about the role of the Egyptian soccer fan clubs in the Egyptian revolution, or maybe there would be a story about the Miami Heat basketball team and the way that they proclaim their solidarity with Trayvon Martin and his family after he was murdered by George Zimmerman, or perhaps there would be something about LGBT or trans athletes and how they were finally emerging from the closet and proclaiming their place on the playing field. But there was no way to try to actually look at this as a totality and say, wow, if you look at sports right now, just at the sports page, you could see that our society, right now in 2013, is profoundly different than it was just five years ago.
AMY GOODMAN: We're going to talk about your book when you come up to New York in the next few weeks, Dave, when it actually officially comes out. Dave Zirin, sports columnist for The Nation, host of Edge of Sports Radio on Sirius/XM, author of a number of bookshis latest, coming out later this month, Game Over: How Politics Has Turned the Sports World Upside Down. Stay with us.
Doping Commission Strips Armstrong Of Titles - Jan Klimkowski - 20-01-2013
Armstrong.
Liar, cheat, bully.
A man who destroyed lives and relationships.
He wants to be allowed to "compete" again, and describes not being allowed to as a "death sentence".
The man has no shame and no conscience
He never competed.
Unless it was in the School of Lying, Bullying and Cheating.
Quote:A convincing 39 seconds, then back to the old Lance Armstrong
The writer who memorably confronted Armstrong about doping in 2009, says watching the Oprah interviews left him laughing
Paul Kimmage
The Observer, Saturday 19 January 2013 21.59 GM
The saddest story I've ever heard about sport was told to me in November 2010 by a man who cheated to win the Tour de France. We were sitting not in the plush surrounds of a five-star hotel in Texas, but in a sparsely furnished cabin in the San Jacinto mountains. Floyd Landis's old racing bike was standing just inside the doorway; his underwear was drying on a clotheshorse; the cupboards were bare, the carpet was worn; it had been a while since President Bush had called.
Darkness was falling on the mountain. Five hours had passed since he had begun telling his story and had covered most of the bases: his boyhood as a Mennonite, his doping apprenticeship with Lance Armstrong, his Tour de France win in July 2006 and the 12 months he spent lying after he tested positive. We have now reached the moment he knew the lying would have to stop.
It's 20 September 2007. He has just set off on a training ride from his home in San Diego when he receives a call from his lawyer, Maurice Suh. After a costly and protracted legal battle with the United States Anti-Doping Agency, the ruling on his positive test is about to be announced. "We should know in the next hour," the lawyer says.
Landis returns home immediately and waits in the garage. His wife, Amber, is sitting inside but he needs to be alone. The case has placed a desperate strain on their marriage. Every penny of their savings is riding on this call. Win, and the good times roll again. Lose, and they face ruin. Twenty minutes pass before the lawyer delivers the verdict. "We lost," he says.
Amber cries when she hears the news but Floyd burns with anger. He races upstairs to the living room and takes the most coveted prize in cycling a beautiful porcelain bowl presented to the winner of Tour de France from a cabinet. Amber knows what he's thinking and follows him up the stairs but he has already raised it over his head when she comes through the door.
"No Floyd!" she pleads. "It's all we have."
He smashes it to the floor.
"I had walked by that thing a hundred times [that year], and every single time I wanted to smash it," Landis explained. "It had made me into something that I wasn't. It represented a turning point in my life where I had to lie."
Lance Armstrong reached that turning point in 1999 but he's not living in a shed in the San Jacinto mountains, and he hasn't broken any porcelain yet. For the first 39 seconds of his interview with Oprah Winfrey, he was utterly convincing …
Winfrey: "Did you ever take banned substances to enhance your cycling performance?"
Armstrong: "Yes"
Winfrey: "Was one of those banned substances EPO?"
Armstrong: "Yes"
Winfrey: "Did you ever blood-dope or use blood transfusions to enhance your cycling performance?"
Armstrong: "Yes."
Winfrey: "Did you ever use other banned substances, such as testosterone, cortisone or human growth hormone?"
Armstrong: "Yes."
Winfrey: "In all seven of your Tour de France victories, did you ever take banned blood substances or blood dope?"
Armstrong: "Yes."
And then it was back to telling jokes.
"I looked up the definition of cheat and the definition of cheat is to gain an advantage on a rival or foe that they don't have. I didn't view it that way. I viewed it as a level playing field."
"I never tested positive."
"Michele Ferrari is a good man."
"I don't like the UCI."
"I care a lot about Christian [Vande Velde]."
"I'm not going to lie to you or the public."
"I think I deserve it [to compete again]."
"When I was diagnosed [with cancer in 1996] I was a better human being after that."
Or my favourite, hilarious: "The last time I crossed that line [doping] was 2005."
Armstrong has always shown a talent for pulling rabbits out of hats, but this was magic. He did not dope during his comeback in 2009 and 2010. Why not? Why would a guy who had doped with impunity, who didn't even regard it as cheating, suddenly decide he was going to do it clean? Wait, he explains it…
Because Kristin, his ex-wife, "believes in honesty and integrity and the truth" and asked him "never to cross that line again." And "I never would have betrayed that with her"?
Is this the same guy who dumped his wife for Sheryl Crow? Is this the same Kristin who, according to witness statements given to Usada, wrapped tablets in tin foil for Armstrong at the World Championships in Valkenberg? Who told a team-mate, Jonathan Vaughters, they kept EPO in the fridge? Who watched her husband vilify Betsy Andreu and did nothing?
But the best act came last.
"It's an epic story," Winfrey said. "What's the moral to the story?"
But moral (adj: 1 concerned with the principles of right and wrong behaviour) is not a word he has ever looked up. "I don't have a great answer there," he replied, and started faffing.
"You know what I hope the moral to this story is," Winfrey said. "I hope the moral to this story is what Kristin told you in 2009: 'The truth will set you free'."
"Yeah," he replied. "She continues to tell me that."
Cue piano music and the credits.
Here's my bottom line.
In the autumn of 1993, Greg LeMond and his wife, Kathy, were sitting at home in the suburbs of Minneapolis, when they received a visit from Linda Mooneyham, the three-times Tour de France winner has recalled. Her 21-year-old son, Lance Armstrong, had just become the world champion and she had travelled from her home in Texas for advice.
"What does he do now?" she asked. "What does he do with his money?"
"Well, let him find an agent a good one with an attorney," LeMond replied. "And one word of advice just be his mom."
They sat on the porch for a while and then moved inside to the kitchen. Linda had something else on her mind: "How do I make him less of an asshole. He doesn't care about anyone."
"Well," LeMond replied. "I can't help you there.
Doping Commission Strips Armstrong Of Titles - Magda Hassan - 20-01-2013
Jan Klimkowski Wrote:Armstrong.I think the word 'chutzpah' was invented for him. Totally shameless and with out morals. And still he fronts up and wants to compete again.... He really needs to disappear some where and grow petunias or some thing and not bother any one ever again. Maybe he can repair bicycles and send them to the third world. But then so can the corporate parasites that clung to him hoping some of that glory would be associated with them too. It works both ways.
Liar, cheat, bully.
A man who destroyed lives and relationships.
He wants to be allowed to "compete" again, and describes not being allowed to as a "death sentence".
The man has no shame and no conscience
He never competed.
Unless it was in the School of Lying, Bullying and Cheating.
Doping Commission Strips Armstrong Of Titles - Peter Lemkin - 20-01-2013
While I agree with all above said against Armstrong, I'm also very interested that there were/are clearly Cycling Federation top level persons and physicians hired for testing who were almost surly also complicit....as long as their 'winner' brought in the money...they were willing to look the other way about their very own rules they were empowered and obliged to enforce. I want to see them exposed along with Lance. Money + sport often leads to corruption.
Doping Commission Strips Armstrong Of Titles - Magda Hassan - 20-01-2013
Peter Lemkin Wrote:While I agree with all above said against Armstrong, I'm also very interested that there were/are clearly Cycling Federation top level persons and physicians hired for testing who were almost surly also complicit....as long as their 'winner' brought in the money...they were willing to look the other way about their very own rules they were empowered and obliged to enforce. I want to see them exposed along with Lance. Money + sport often leads to corruption.Totally Peter. Sports today is much less if any thing to do with physical abilities and extending skills and techniques and much more about corporate branding and product placement.
Doping Commission Strips Armstrong Of Titles - Jan Klimkowski - 20-01-2013
Here's a list of the "Partners", aka Super Sponsors, for the London Olympics.
All to do with Profit and Branding, not sport.
Coca Cola
Acer
Atos
Dow
General Electric
Mc Donalds
Omega
Panasonic
Procter Gamble
Samsung
Visa
Doping Commission Strips Armstrong Of Titles - Charles Drago - 20-01-2013
Shoeless Joe Jackson should not be our primary target.
It is "Meyer Wolfscheim" who must bear the brunt of our inquiries.
"Let us show our friendship for a man when he is alive and not after he is dead,' he suggested. "After that my own rule is to let everything alone."
Your rule. Not mine.
Further, this is the perfect time of year to think back on Superbowl III and the claim of legendary lineman Bubba Smith, a member of the heavily favored Baltimore Colts who were defeated by Joe Namath's New York Jets:
"This might sound crazy, but I don't think the game was kosher. In order for the merger [of the AFL and NFL] to go through [the Jets] had to win. If you read the terms of the merger, if [the AFL] didn't establish credibility by the end of three years, the terms of the merger were null and void. You're talking the difference between millions and billions of dollars. The [betting] line opened at 18 and went down to 15 or something like that because a big bet had been placed on the game. And I know where that bet came from. It came from Baltimore, from someone on the team, from what I understand."
Smith also noted that Baltimore's MVP quarterback Earl Morall never threw to a primary receiver in that game.
Not once.
Go Pats!
Doping Commission Strips Armstrong Of Titles - Don Jeffries - 26-01-2013
Charles,
We're back on common ground here. I've long suspected that the NFL and NBA routinely fix games. The game you mention, Super Bowl III, was probably the most obviously fixed game in NFL history. I can still remember Earl Morrall ignoring a wide open Jimmy Orr on a flea flicker play, as Orr waved his hands desperately in vain. It's important to note what happened to Bubba Smith after he went public with his "fixed" beliefs. At that time, he had a lucrative acting career, as a regular in the Miller Lite commercials and all the "Police Academy" movies. To my knowledge, his acting career effectively ended after his controversial public comments.
Do you recall when former Nebraska WR Irving Fryar publicly admitted, sometime in the 1990s, to having accepted money to drop passes in the 1983 Championship game with Miami? Fryar's remarks drew little media attention, and no one ever dug deeper. Who paid him, for instance? The NCAA evidently wasn't concerned, as it never looked into this, or wondered about the probability of this being the one time such a thing had happened. Fryar's NFL career didn't suffer, and the fact he accepted money to help throw a game (and recall that he did drop several key passes in that game, including at least one TD pass) didn't seem to effect his reputation.
I think it's extremely naive to think that the elite who control everything in our society would keep their hands off a lucrative empire like spectator sports.