It is little known that the result of the criminal case against the Black Sox players was acquittals for all the players, but the players were banned the day after their court victory by Kenesaw Mountain Landis. There is no evidence of such corruption, but the integrity of sport is so essential to what sport is all about-unpredictable results based on uniform rules-that zero-tolerance of even the appearance of impropriety is the best policy for professional sports. The reason is that, unlike the Black Sox, eight men are not necessarily needed to corrupt a game and no one necessarily has to throw a game. Events can be altered by individual performances, so, for example, whether a wide receiver in football is thrown three passes in a game or six might make a difference, one that would be much harder to detect than the Black Sox scandal. Putting that question aside (because the legal system will answer it soon), it is arguable that professional sports leagues should distance themselves even further from daily fantasy sports than from more traditional forms of gambling. Unlike traditional gambling, professional sports leagues have associated themselves in various ways with daily fantasy sports operators, apparently accepting the companies' claims that daily fantasy sports are games of skill.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |