Since when were sports the most important thing on the agenda of our United States politicians?
Well, apparently "now" is the answer to that question—and quite frankly, that’s unfortunate.
From Spygate to steroids, it seems like our government officials care more about what’s going on in the MLB and NFL than what they do for what’s going on overseas in Iraq. It seems like they might care more about sporting scandals more than what they care about our own economy for that matter.
And one really has to wonder, why is this the case? There’s clearly more important things out there to focus on than the Spygate scandal in football or the steroid usage in baseball. To name a few: Iraq, the war on terror, rising oil prices, and the recession.
To be honest here, it’s understandable as to why our government officials are giving sporting scandals so much attention. Sports are a multibillion dollar industry that brings in huge amounts of money on a yearly basis. It’s understandable that they’d want to clear things up in these to make sure that they keep bringing in the money they do on a yearly basis.
Beyond this, sports are a huge part of our culture. Not only do they bring in a huge surplus of money every year, but they’re popular. From the NBA to the NFL, there’s a huge following of each sport in this country, and most fans would love to know what’s going on internally. Most fans probably appreciate knowing if players are cheating or if a team is getting an unfair advantage.
And to our government’s credit, they have done this. They’ve given all of us fans an opportunity to know who is cheating and who isn’t.
But now, enough is enough. It needs to stop. Quite frankly, there can’t be much more they can accomplish anyways.
The Patriots have already been penalized for cheating, The NFL thinks it's enough—and in their eyes, Spygate is closed.
While baseball hasn’t punished its steroid users for their past usage, they’ve laid down strict policies and set up random drug testing to prevent this from happening again.
Beyond that, some of the big culprits are already in court over the issue. Barry Bonds was recently indicted on 14 counts of perjury from the BALCO case while Roger Clemens is facing potential perjury charges from his day in Congress against Brian McNamee.
In reality, these cases are probably all far from over. If our government has its way, they’ll continue to dig at this. Arlen Specter has already called for further investigation into Spygate while there seems to be more and more news coming from the Clemens case on a weekly basis.
However, it’s really unfortunate that this is continuing. While sports are important in our society, there are clearly more important things to focus on than the scandals that are involved in them.
Unfortunately, our government doesn’t seem to completely see it this way.
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4 months ago
There is a little town out west, maybe you've heard of it, it's called Las Vegas. And just in case you were born yesterday, I have to tell you that in Vegas over the course of the last seven years billions of dollars have been wagered on NFL football games. When you add up all the collective betting on football on a global scale it is hundreds of billions of dollars. A lot of people lost a lot of money because of the Pats cheating.
Now,in the gambling world, its called "fixing a game" when organized cheating occurs within a sports franchise. When this happens you leave the rhelm of sports and enter the sleazy world of crime.
Regardless of what Rodger would have us believe, Specter knows that the Pats had a huge advantage from cheating. So would people betting on the game if they knew about the fix. And lots of people knew about the cheating, probably the whole team. So, how many of them were betting on the games? It's not a stretch to think at some point over seven years organized crime might have gotten wind of it. When a horse race or a boxing match is fixed, they don't loose a draft pick, someone goes to jail. I hope Specter gets to ask questions to some people under oath. A LOT OF PEOPLE LOST A LOT OF MONEY BECAUSE OF THE PATS CHEATING. You have to realize that cheating in pro sports is something bigger than the sport itself. With the amount of money that goes through gambling transactions, any type of cheating has to be investigated. And that is the door Goodell, Rooney, Kraft et. al. don't want Specter to open.
4 months ago
With apologies to the previous commenter, I respectfully disagree. Specter is not doing this because as Robert writes: "Specter knows that the Pats had a huge advantage from cheating." Specter's primary objective is winning the favor of a company (Comcast) that is locked in a bitter battle with the NFL. And oh by the way, that company happens to be the biggest contributor to Specter's campaign. Specter is not protecting the interests of people that lost money. He is not protecting the interests of fans or the game. He is only protecting his own interests.
4 months ago
Your opinion on Specters motivation is just that, your opinion. My opinion is: I don't care what motivates Specter to get to the truth in a cheating scandal.
This story broke nine months ago. In that time we know that Specter sent a letter to Roger Goodell, sent a follow-up letter, spoke with Goodell and conducted a brief meeting with a person with knowledge of the situation.
That doesn’t seem like an unreasonable amount of time to spend on one of the many issues he deals with. He’s the ranking member of the committee with oversight of the N.F.L.’s antitrust exemption. If the league conducted a sham investigation into cheating — and the evidence suggests that’s at least possible — then it’s totally appropriate for him to inquire into the matter.
Posted by Mikey
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