What I always wonder about theories like this is how do you get the Mark Cubans of the world to buy in the day he gets a chair at the table? Like literally, how do you explain to a new passionate owner who is bent on bringing a championship home and who also happens to be extremely powerful and intelligent, that it's all a sham?
Call me naive but it all just seems highly unlikely to me.
It's not a sham, it's a business. I'm not saying that behind the scenes they are fixing who will win the championship but they can manipulate outcomes to give bigger markets better odds. The reason the leagues are so profitable now are because of the television contracts. If you have two small markets playing for a championship that affects revenue the networks get because the ratings will be significantly down. That's not in the best interest of the broadcasters nor the league. For fans it's great because we all want a winner. If not for revenue sharing half the teams in all of the leagues would most likely not exist. If I'm a big market team they make a lot of money on their own but by supporting a bigger league they make more and reach a bigger audience and greater tv revenue.
Last night I was watching the Warriors vs the Celtics game 2 and there was an indecent with Draymond Green. The announcers were saying it could potentially be a double technical foul on both players and because Draymond already had one it would result in him getting ejected because it would be his second. Steve Javie who is a retired referee is on the broadcast to give his opinion on what the calls should be was asked would a ref take into account that draymond already had one technical foul and would that effect how the refs would dish out fouls and he said yes. Turns out he was right and he wasn't given a tech. This shows how refs have the ability to have an effect on the outcomes of games. Same with the 2016 finals when Draymond was ejected for a nothing call but because it was on Lebron it was justified. That ejection had a huge effect on that series because the Warriors were in the drivers seat and then all of a sudden the following games were just terribly reffed to the point the Cavs came back and won. The better story won, the Cleveland gets their first championship in 50 years and now there is a rivalry with Golden State instead of GS winning back to back championships and finishing with the greatest regular season in history.
Some owners love sports but I think most of them only see dollar signs. If a team spends to their cap and don't win what else can they do? Baseball and to an extent basketball its like the cap is a suggestion because the rich teams can still do what they want but at the end of the day in most leagues it's rare for a non big market team to be consistently great.
Think about it, all of these teams make money, some more than others, but they are all working together. The benefit to winning a championship is greater revenue for a few seasons. No one is privy to the owners meetings but I don't think it's a room full of guys looking at it like I'm trying to beat you, it's more how can we make more money, It's like the saying Sports teams are toys for billionaires. GM's are trying to win, coaches are trying to win, players are trying to win, but owners are businessmen first and are looking to maximize profits.
TV is theatre, reality shows are scripted, the news is edited to get the desired result, Saturday morning cartoons were used to promote products to kids by making 22 minute commercials.
