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Which sports have the most crooked/biased officials/refs/judges/umpires?

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T

thefro

Member
Not talking about the people who run the league but the folks who make the calls during the game.

The contenders:

- Baseball umps: Horrible at strike/ball calls which they botch constantly which is probably the worst call in sports. Umpiring has gotten better with instant replay in the MLB.

- NCAA Basketball refs: Tons of home cooking once you put them on another team's home court. Yet suddenly in the NCAA tournament they're able to call the game in a neutral fashion even if one team has 90% of the fans at a venue. Awful at consistently calling the same things within a game or over the course of a year.

- NBA Refs. Same as NCAA, plus the elite star players get massively protected. I do think the officiating is probably better than the NCAA at this point since it's gotten slightly better in the last several years

- NFL Refs: Actually pretty good and probably the best of the major sports. I don't really have a problem with most of the calls they make. Good uses of replay.

- NCAA football: Big-time bias towards the big school who can get away with holding and pass interference calls. Wild variation in quality between officiating crews & conferences. Some awful instant replay reviews and constant stoppages for replays.

- MMA refs/judges: Better that it was. Judging system in MMA is so awful that the judges can't do too much. With the refs you'll generally get some early/late stoppages that everyone complains about but there have been fewer screwjob finishes.

- Any "artistic" Olympic sport with judges: Seems like a lot of countries have judges biased towards friendly countries or their own participants

Sports I don't know enough about:

- Boxing judges/refs: Notoriously corrupt. Massive home cooking towards the local fighters by the judges as well.

- Soccer officials. Can have a huge impact on the game with yellow/red cards and they seem to be pretty hated. Constantly fall for people flopping

- Hockey: With all the penalties and power plays people have to get mad at them as well

- Auto Racing: F1 seems to have invisible unaccountable to anyone stewards. NASCAR just does shit to maximize entertainment value, fairness be damned. IndyCar has been pretty decent lately. I don't really follow F1 & NASCAR enough to know more than that.
 
entremet

entremet

Member
NBA based on the whole superstar calls concept.

That sentiment is actually accepted as part of the game.
 
L

Leunam

Member
F1 Stewards are inconsistent. Verstappen and Gutierrez have been had complaints lodged against them by drivers and team principals for different reasons and not much has been done.

I think they should do away with guest stewards who had previous stints in F1, a stewards position is not something that should be a revolving door.
 
M

mdubs

Banned
I knew forever that the NHL was 100% not rigged when Edmonton won the Connor McDavid lottery. No league with any sort of corruption would let an outcome of that type of unproductiveness and sad lol involved happen.
 
T

Tecl0n

Member
Olympic Boxing cards were absulote bullshit in Rio. It was disgusting to watch.

Also, Football/Soccer.

1241699338_drogba-pissed-its-a-disgrace.gif
Click to expand...
 
M

Magni

Member
Soccer refereeing is the reason I can't follow the sport outside of the big international tournaments. I don't blame the refs though, I blame FIFA and the continental associations, It's so bad it's a disgrace.

Got back into baseball recently, and bad umpires make a game so frustrating. I don't understand why they don't just use the pitch camera to call strikes and balls.

When an umpire is consistent about not calling a certain strike a strike, pitchers can learn and adapt, but when it's all over the place it can really throw a game.
 
Premium Quality

Premium Quality

Member
Basketball (NBA and College)
They seem to always try and keep games close by giving out shitty fouls.
Boxing officiating has been bad for a long time now.

WWE has been better after they got rid of Danny Davis many years ago.
LFUeeEv.jpg
 
T

The Albatross

Member
Boxing was outright corrupt for decades that it's certainly boxing.

But the NBA infuriates me the most with inconsistent, superstar supporting calls it makes me not watch the game.

The NFL is by far the best of the major sports that I watch. MLB has generally excellent umps as well but the game is so glacially slow when it comea to improving rules that it makes it a tough sell.
 
M

MetalGearZed

Member
I wish officiating could reach omniscient, unbiased, perfection. Where evey call is legit, prompt and non debatable. (like in the video games.) hopefully someday striped robots can take over.
 
D

DeaconKnowledge

Member
Watch the Roy Jones Jr. Olympic Gold medal match. Zero fucks were given. They were going to hand the other dude the medal no matter how bad a beating he took.

Next, skating. Specifically Ice Dancing. So fucking rigged it's actually a running joke that has been mentioned by the announcers DURING the events.
 
R

rjinaz

Member
Whichever are making calls against your favorite team.

Everybody hates the refs if they are losing or if it's close. MLB, NFL, I follow people talking about these sports and it's always the same.
 
M

Mortemis

Banned
NBA ain't really corrupt, but shitty sometimes yeah. He fact that it feels like they call games much differently in the playoffs is shitty too, be consistent.
 
J

Jonm1010

Banned
NBA is the only one that is really frustrating for me. Scott Foster's presence alone gives the NBA a competitive edge in the shit tier department.

Tim Donaghy's all but certainly betting buddy also regularly gets to officiate some of the most important playoff and championship games in spite of his checkered past and him being the overwhelmingly most despised ref by players and coaches.

Then you have the whole superstar treatment that just tilts an already top heavy sport even more.
 
O

oti

Banned
MetalGearZed said:
I wish officiating could reach omniscient, unbiased, perfection. Where evey call is legit, prompt and non debatable. (like in the video games.) hopefully someday striped robots can take over.
Click to expand...

It's interesting how in Tennis we could have that since the big courts are all equipped with Hawkeye cameras, but it's just a control mechanism for now. Maybe the tech and the game will reach a point in the future in which the umpire doesn't have to judge the lines anymore. Sorry, line judges.
 
V

Vitten

Member
Olympic boxing hands down. It's sometimes so obvious it's not even funny.
I often wondered why the contestants even bothered showing up.
 
T

theWB27

Member
I can't take anyone who thinks it's the NBA serious. The stuff you hear about soccer alone trumps anything they do.
 
J

Jonm1010

Banned
theWB27 said:
I can't take anyone who thinks it's the NBA serious. The stuff you hear about soccer alone trumps anything they do.
Click to expand...

Most people don't watch every sport that exists, so people are going to give answers based on what they know.

The NBA absolutely has a lot of bias in their sport though. Both ingrained systemically and from the individual reffing crews. In terms of major American sports, it has a strong case.

The system for selecting referees and reviewing games in the playoffs is also very problematic and sketchy.
 
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