Brian Tuohy | Sports Conspiracies, Corruption, & Rigged Games

00:01 Hello, Hireside Chatters. Greg Carlwood here offering a quick short pre-show PSA I think it's pretty common knowledge that I record my interviews in advance and in this one there is a section where we have a little banter about the dangers of releasing sensitive material that you might have dug up Yes It comes up even in something as mundane sounding as sports but when billions of dollars are involved nothing is mundane And obviously it's a common thread of conversation on a show like this that could come up any given week. But in light of the loss of Tracy Twyman, it doesn't sound great again we recorded this before any that happened

00:45 And that's not even to say the release of sensitive information is related to Tracy's death. We don't know, and I don't want to suggest anything either way But we all know that when were in the proximity Of a loss like this...we usually wait awhile before we return to talking so cavalierly about such things it is bad form not too. I thought about removing it But just offering this caveat seemed like a more honest way to go about it. I didn't say anything that I don't believe, but I definitely would have changed my tone and I think anyone can understand that And I apologize to Brian for starting his return to THC off like this but I couldn't say nothing Again thoughts and prayers for Tracy's friends and family Now on with the show

03:08 These are the Hireside Chats. Doing what we do, Hireside Chatters! How the hell are you? From sunny San Diego I'm Greg Carlwood and while our infrastructure crumbles our so-called elected officials line their own pockets our debt based system of rules slowly self implodes and the capstone cabal kicks off another social engineering campaign or population control program many Americans are so spellbound by professional sports they can't bring themselves to care or even notice Of course, I have my own juvenile time-wasting pastimes and entertainment addictions. But strangers struggling over a ball week after week has never been one of them

03:47 Though it should be clear to everyone just how powerful and potent the sports industry is in America, and really around the world. We're talking billions of dollars a year in each individual league, and all their houses are built on the perception of fairness and integrity which quite honestly is never really questioned and has never really been there Well, it doesn't stop the WWE from making billions of their own. But one would think that the NFL, the MLB, the NBA and the NHL would lose at least some other fan base if the truth about the tight control corruption and game fixing was really known

04:23 Which is why that lid is such a tough one to pry open. Well, interstage left Brian Tuohy from TheFixIsIn.net the man who's made himself the world's leading expert in these very things We had Brian here once before about three years ago largely talking about the content and his popular books Larceny Games, Sports Gambling, Game Fixing and the FBI. A Season in the Abyss, Sports Gambling and the NFL's Integrity And his wildly popular title The Fix is In! The Showbiz Manipulations of the NFL, MLB NBA NHL & NASCAR

04:59 Well, when I saw his new sequel The Fix is Still In More Corruption and Conspiracies the pro sports leagues don't want you to know about was releasing. I definitely jumped at the chance to have him back So let's get into it! The king of sports conspiracies, the guru of sports gambling and the ruiner of days Brian my man welcome back to the higher side Thanks for having me on Greg. I appreciate it You got it. I think this is gonna be a lot of fun, I know you prefer to say you're sports skeptic skeptical of what they're showing you but your in good company with the conspiracy term here even though its a loaded one we get it

05:34 Yeah, it is a very loaded term and I think that's why a lot of people in the sports media world tend to show what i do is because once you throw conspiracy and we know into the mix. You get that whole tinfoil hat mentality and real journalists don't wanna delve into that side of the thing and There's a lot of questionable things in sports that people bring up here and there, but a lot of times it just gets left behind on to the next game. Next season what have you? It gets forgotten and overlooked. Right and so you wrote the fixes in back in 2010 I believe it's been about a decade. And I really should congratulate you because I know it's not easy to be the guy raining on everyone's parade but this new sequel is ranked number one on Amazon sports history category, and as far as I could tell its the only book that's critical of sports in the top 10 so kudos to you!

06:31 I'm surprised the top ten you might want to say top one hundred well wishes i guess yeah. Yeah no it's because that's the funny thing and that's actually what's gonna get me started was, i was always in the sports ever since a little kid and that's for my dad and my older brothers and from reading books about sports will have you It's amazing how much of it is so rah-rah, you know? So pro sports. So these are good times and here's a funny story from the locker room in here wasn't this guy great player and yet within all those books that I read that were like that there was always like two or three pages in each book that made you go what about this? What about you know

07:14 party where there was all those hookers and the cocaine with what's more of that you know it's those kind of stories that really kinda got me into being the. In a way the negative guy about sports i guess well you definitely got me thinking about michael jordan's famous flu game a little bit differently apparently he was on gambling and cocaine vendor which is not the way we like to think of mr space jam but hey i mean. Man like the party yeah well in you know something like that i mean now people say what you can't prove that Well prove that you know the story now is he had food poisoning from a poison to pizza that was intentionally sent to his room, the throw them off for the next day i mean prove that nobody can move it i think my story.

07:58 Which i heard from someone who's directly connected to jordan was that he was on an all night vendor doing cocaine and gambling. When you look back at the time, i mean michael jordan was known to be golfing and gambling on golf with a known cocaine dealer it was also known to be cheating on his wife. He was also no one in this still going to be happy gambler so what makes more sense Get a poison pizza or use up our dino right right i mean we like to have these pristine images of our heroes and i guess. For some people he's definitely hero and they don't want to confront that but, i definitely enjoyed this new book and you write in the intro that you expected the fixes then to be complete package didn't expect to write a sequel to it why did you what is part two offer that wasn't there in par one

08:52 What is kind of you hate to say more the same but it's amazing that I wrote a book ten years ago. And you know i put in all the corruption that i could find me i put it stuff about gambling going back a hundred years, i put in games and i thought were fixed talk about how. Certain books have written about perhaps the control of the networks television networks over to sports landscape and i thought. That's all he needed to say but book thankfully continues to sell and continues to sell today and people keep asking questions about it and Ever since I wrote the book, I never really stopped doing research or looking into things and it just seemed like things have gotten worse ever since the fixes came out. So when it seems to get worse, it makes you go well there's obviously more to this than people realize and there's more I need to talk about so that's what I do with The Fix is Still in as I got more into as I write in the subtitle corruption and conspiracies that seem to come up in professional sports

09:56 Mm-hmm, and that does seem to be the case no matter what you're looking at sports politics It seems like when people aren't held accountable or they feel like they can't get caught They get a lot bolder with their corruption and they just feel above the law. And it seems to be true here as well Well and you know the thing about me is the sports media. Is ever since actually fixes in came out i actually was lucky enough to work maybe unlucky enough to work depending on how you look at it within the professional sports media i mean i wrote for vice sports, i wrote for sports on earth which was called by usa today a major league baseball advanced media so i mean i worked with professionals as a professional sports writer

10:40 And then doing so i mean i saw how they operated and nice how. They killed certain stories that i saw how certain things they would edit out of my pieces even though i could prove them or at least work total lies are anything like that, some nice off first hand how they would manipulate certain stories and how they would avoid certain stories cuz it didn't fit in with their bottom line Yeah another straight parallel to news media it's all limited hangout we assume these are the watchdogs for a particular. Industry and they just aren't they give us maybe small little micro scandals but anything that,

11:22 affects the infrastructure is completely off limits. And the news media is never going to talk about that in government, sports media same thing they're dependent on sports so they're only gonna push so hard and that's usually not hard at all Yeah, and that's what bothered me was that this is sports. I mean in the grand scheme of things it's meaningless to a lot of people obviously it means a lot of money but like you say in day-to-day life its meaningless whether the Cubs win today or not doesn't affect how my days gonna go may affect certain people but it doesn't effect me doesn't matter if the Packers when the Super Bowl does it matter who wins the Stanley Cup none of it really matters in my day-to-day life and yet

12:04 At the same time i saw how the sports media manipulated certain things and did so in touch with me one of the chapters in a new book that fixes still in which are right about. UFC and its comparison to boxing in nineteen fifties i was actually asked by an editor, Mainstream fight i want to name the mainstream flight website. Do you write that article he heard me on a podcast is that hey i'd like you right an article about this comparison center talking about it so i did, And then the guy never published it he said over there's problems with that we need to talk about it but you never made himself available to talk about it he never identified what the problem with the article were. He just kept streaming out streaming on and then finally just let me go so i did all this work well as time into it never got paid for it, and refuse to publish it so long to put such after in the fix is still at.

13:02 Yeah, the UFC is something we talked about a little bit last time and how their history really mirrors the history of boxing where we have this one guy with all The power and you have sees probably the one I guess quote-unquote sport that I am interested in But even in the time since we've last talked We saw the UFC sold to a major entertainment company And then they signed a decade long deal with ESPN. Have your feelings about the UFC's integrity changed at all? No not at all if i take you the more i dig into it the worst it gets. You know like he said i mean a lot of people don't know because what people don't study history is special sports history, is that in the nineteen fifties boxing was literally controlled by organized crime and it was controlled by one guy within organize crime got named frankie carbo. And he with these other underlings

13:56 Would determine who would fight to wear they would fight when they would buy and a lot of times would win or lose because they had build up other fights. So then you look at the UFC in recent history you have dana white with many ways controls the ufc, it controls your mix martial arts in general because if not fighting the UFC what other option do you have And Dana White kind of in many ways controlled who fought who, when they fought where they fought. My belief is much like boxing the 50s he also determined certain times Who would win and who would lose to set up other fights because they were so beholden to pay per view events and then later fox and now ESPN. That if you don't get the viewers watching if you don't get people paying attention to your sport it's gonna die in the only way to get people to pay attention and to get excited about fight after fight after fight is to do some myth building,

14:49 build up the spikes build these fighters and make it more than it perhaps should be. And if you have to manipulate things to do that well so beat us for the business interests of everybody involved absolutely and, you got me kind of reading between the lines and after the four billion dollars sale of UFC they definitely leaned more into that WWE type of stuff. Having Brock Lesnar storm the ring after a fight, and it's like this is not mixed martial arts this is getting a little showy but I do like how you called out how poorly the fighters are treated because when they sign a UFC contract who

15:29 basically has the monopoly on MMA. The UFC owns the rights to your name, your likeness even your signature and tattoos it's pretty brutal and even if you become a major name and your stock rises to say you maybe win a title well there's a clause in the contract that if you win the belt your contract is automatically extended with no negotiation now that you are worth more. So it's a brutal place for the fighters who really should be getting the biggest piece of the pie and they do the same thing in boxing where, in the beginning they stack you with easy fights and that's why we have these fighters we start seeing on this scene that are like 50

16:05 And then all the sudden once they get some star power they start getting crushed and it's like oh okay so those fifteen wins i mean how genuine are those is just like everything else. Will the any right with the UFC that's one thing i learned to do in research, Is how like you said help poorly the fighters are treated and that they're basically like cattle in the UFC had such control over them contractually. It was funny because i can send it to one title your contract is automatically renewed you had no control over as the fighter you could negotiate for more money get a bigger cut whatever's on make me new but at the same time if he lost certain bites, do you have seeked determined anytime to terminate your contracting get rid of you

16:50 So, yeah. All the powers with the UFC what bothers me is we start looking at the FC and you like he said, You see former professional wrestlers supposedly former professional wrestlers enter to sport and be the cave in the way like like I said Brock Lesnar did in that one instance it makes you wonder well how real is all of this? You know how vicious is some of this? I mean, I think for example Ronda Rousey's whole career. I think that was make-believe i mean i think she was good at things she is talented but i think they are officially built her up as a do many fighters in boxing as well until she got to that point where she fought, she had a face of better opponents and then you have seen lettergo yeah it basically set out on the third day letter get your head beat and then she started off professional wrestling continue career there.

17:42 Yeah, it's funny how easy that transition is from serious mixed martial arts to entertainment theater in the wrestling ring. But hey I mean the examples speak for themselves a lot of fighters bounce back and forth that's what i find really bizarre yeah yeah i agree with you and then some of them go on to be actors well shouldn't they really make you question what's going on if you go from fighting professionally to being an actor And there's very little transition time don't you wonder what maybe were they acting while they were fighting. Is that possible? And another thing that's changed since last time is that three years ago sports gambling was illegal in the US outside of Nevada, even though you had told us that there were estimates that maybe $300 or $400 billion could be flowing through illegal sports gambling. I think last year though the Supreme Court ruled to open those floodgates a little bit right?

18:40 Yes they repealed what was known as past but the professional and amateur sports protection act. The date back to the nineteen nineties so basically they allowed states if they want you to legalize sports gambling in states like new jersey and others have popped right on board and started legalizing it started offering up, people which i think is good and also little bad but more good than bad Well, that was my question is how has this affected the landscape because we talked a lot about the mob control of sports betting and all the dirty tricks they play. And like most things that are illegal and controlled by a mob or cartel when you legalize them these organized crime groups lose

19:23 a bit of their monopolies. I mean, other people get monopolies and then it just becomes like higher brow crime but maybe it's not as dirty and bloodthirsty but regardless is that happening at all? Are we seeing some changing in the guard in terms of this huge amount of money I think you know like with new jersey for example legalize that you have. These bigger businesses like william hill better professional sports bookmakers that operate in las vegas and operate in the united kingdom and elsewhere and they come in and set up operation now in new jersey to offer it up, for everyday people i think that's a good thing i mean i think then you can tax it you can monitor it you could regulate it

20:06 And there's a lot of good actually that come out of it but the same time these professional bookmakers like william hill also hurt professional sports gamblers. And they affect people who want to bet higher limits on games because if they recognize you as being what they call a sharp gambler somebody who wins more often than they feel you should, They will limit you. As a player, You know used to be able to get $10,000 bet on the game well now they might say you can only bet $1,000 a game. That's a big deal someone was doing this professionally and it's also big deal that people are kind of high rollers

20:44 So that kind of corporate mentality actually think will negatively affect. These professional bookmakers and also allow that black market to still exist because there are going to be people who still want to bet big money on these games and if they can't do it through the legal methods, what are gonna find a black market? And there's gonna be a black market that exists that will still allow these people to make these bets in the people are gonna be fixing games And do so for gambling purposes there still gonna hide in the black market and if these corporate. Bookmakers don't allow bigger batson wagers on these games they're never gonna eliminate the black market united states cuz i can't do it around the world either.

21:26 And I know you've gotten a lot of this dirt on the leagues by looking at FBI records. The marketing one sheet for the fixes still in mentions new previously unreleased FBI files Can you tell us about some of the things that this latest set of files has taught you or confirmed for you? What was confirmed for me that you know basically any sport. You can gamble on somebody's tried to fix or manipulate I mean i have chapters in the fixes still in the talk about horse racing and how horribly corrupt horseracing is from top to bottom when I files in there they talk about college sports both basketball football and help players were approached and lot of times referees reproach how they were involved it shaving points and fixing games

22:13 What I think my favorite thing that i found. Which I think was my favorite because the FBI wasn't supposed to give to me. Was, i got a video out of the FBI that they used to use for training purposes when they would go to the professional teams and make these presentations about sports and drugs and gambling and the dangers involved in it all to these professional athletes And I get their training video. And even though its kind of redacted sometimes they blackout the screen so you can see who's on it Sometimes eliminate the voice or sometimes eliminated sections all together it's still up twenty minutes of probably thirty minute long video and it's extremely interesting because they talk about. Game fixing as if its happening now and currently going on at something athletes really need to be worried about what the same time the NFL says we've never had a game fix their history

23:07 Mm-hmm. I really like that part as well, because you talk about a couple of scenes that also mirror politics once again where it seems like if someone wants to get you in their pocket they just observe you for awhile They find some dirt on you They find that you like cocaine or maybe your gay and your in the NFL And they say look man If you don't want this stuff to get out You play the way I tell ya to play And that's really going on and clearly the FBI is concerned about it or they wouldn't have made this film even though they definitely didn't want to get out of the general public. Exactly in that's the thing that should concern fans is that,

23:46 A lot of people don't think of athletes as people. You know, they don't think about the problems these athletes could have because I think there's a fantasy involved where the common fan would love for himself to be that athlete or play that sport professionally and thinking it would be a dream but they don't realize these people have problems. They have problems you know with their spouses that are significant others. They've problems with their children if problems with her parents they have problems Other family members have problems with drugs, they have problems with gambling. There's all sorts of weaknesses that everyday people have that athletes have as well and it could easily be exploited by the wrong person if they got the right information about that athlete and like you said if you don't want to be known that your homosexual in your plane in the NFL will somebody knew about that how hard would it be did blackmailed player into perhaps underperforming in a game or two so you can make some money making bets

24:43 Yeah clearly there's blackmail pretty much everywhere you look and. There's also a funny little anecdote about that video you were gonna release it on alex jones but then maybe got threatened at teams up yeah little bit was kinda funny i want to put out john show and i don't remember exactly how it came out what is just after i'd gotten the video, And i'd mentioned it to my friend mentioned on air perhaps a product up after our segment offer and they're like oh my god you gotta give us that video we can release it.

25:21 And i said well not sure can really do that and what happened was the FBI had contacted me. And how many we share the whole sequence of events went but basically, if you are contacting me and said look we were supposed to give you that video even though it released a two three freedom of information act And they said it's still really technically copyrighted by the NBA because they co-produced with NBA productions. And they said, you know if you release it and make a public, you could have a serious problem on your so I didn't release that I was really close to doing just to see what would happen this he what would really come out of it and so when I did fix is in book as well

26:08 If i can't release the video itself i know i can at least write about everything that's in it and so that's what i did because i think that is close as you get to see me actual video. Yeah, I definitely understand the temptation to say screw it and poke the bear. You know let's get crazy But i've seen too many examples of people who put themselves out there to release some important information And then the media ignores it some people might see it and say oh well that's interesting and it lasts about a week But for those people who released it, it might end up ruining their lives and it just doesn't really seem worth that in the end. So you know honestly if I wasn't married If I didn't have my wife, I probably would've done it because with my wife You know there's a lot of worries and concerns and financial issues, you know with every marriage but if I was just on my own or if I was a lot younger out of release did

27:03 i would love to go just like a suggest the co to happen probably sold books will it really created this fire store but i still have it is still have a copy of my possessions. Who knows? Oh, that's funny man. Yeah We just I be right there with you blowing up our lives if we didn't have these damn wives and holding us back She's not hold me back it was just for her well-being as much as my own I know these life attachments yeah if it was just me on my own yeah what the heck let's see what happens because I mean It might have been you know empty threat true I mean even though the FBI told me that and there was a thing it's not like I could

27:43 leak it not that ESPN would do anything with it, but I mean if I leaked a TSPN well the FBI is gonna know well This idiot Brian's the only guy we gave it to where else could have come from It's not like I couldn't let it slip out some way either right because it's all gonna come back to me cuz I'm the only one who found it and asked for and got a copy of so that's true and So i don't think anyone would be too surprised that there's cheating in sports there is corruption, and sports but what i wanna do is try to burn the whole thing down what can we say or what points can you reiterate to remind us that this is institutionalized from the top down. That this isn't just some isolated instances of people trying to gain the system this is sanctioned from on high to a degree

28:34 I think it all goes back to what i kind of uncovered accidentally as well as the fact is there's no law that prevents a professional sports league like the nfl or dnb from fixing the outcome one or all of its own games. Okay so there's no other prevents them from doing that just to let us come close, what does the quiz show act that passed in the nineteen fifties because believe it or not for people who don't know The networks the television at work NBC and CBS were bringing game shows to make them more interesting to get people to watch it when they finally blew up. And was investigated congress passed a law that said you cannot fix an intellectual contest for television purposes well sports is an intellectual so that lot of supply. And then there's a log called the sports bribery act from nineteen sixty four which says you cannot bribe a player

29:28 A coach or referee to alter the outcome of a sporting event but if i leave like the nfl tells us referees hey this is how we want you to officiate the game. That bribe anybody to alter the outcome of the games are just employers telling some employees how they wanted manage this entertainment product known as an actual football league game and they can also be out come with the game is the sea fit, so that exists at that ability exist for the leagues The temptation has to be huge to be able to utilize that to make the most money and the most television ratings most advertising revenue, and make your television broadcast partners as happy as can be into occasionally fix or alter the outcome of a game to make sure that. The best business decision comes life i think thats such an important point that

30:23 Their laws are carefully crafted so that outside manipulation is illegal but internal manipulation is completely okay and people don't realize that and they should. What can i like to equate it to this i say look if you're mcdonald's in korea burger king whoever What's your mcdonalds and you find an added of food additive that you can stick in your hamburger. And it's fda approved there is nothing illegal about it but you can't stick this food editor into a hamburger every time the customer buys one, take some bite of it taste better each time we take a bite to taste better

31:02 You're gonna put that in your hamburger tomorrow cuz you're gonna sell more hamburgers right. I mean it only makes sense but the legal food and if you can stick it in there make sure food tastes better, you're gonna do it well thats exactly what the nfl can do. The NFL can manipulate the games while consuming them to make a more exciting to make a more entertaining to make you wanna watch more. And they could do it perfectly legally so why wouldn't they do that? Another telling facts to me is that these sports leagues are. Profit sharing this is kind of insane because it means the rivalries or just fantasies that when you buy a jersey for your favorite team you're also giving money, do the rival that use so desperately wanna see defeated and it's a big sham cuz.

31:52 That aspect i don't think a lot of people know it but it is quite telling when it comes to the motivations and where the real conflicts are or the imaginary conflicts are. Yeah cuz the rivalries really media created fan created, i mean amongst the players they may pay lip service but amongst the owners i dont believe that exists whatsoever because you said there's a lot of revenue sharing in the nfl alone i could never get an exact number but anywhere from probably seventy to eighty percent of all the revenue the nfl makes. Is shared equally amongst all thirty two teams that's crazy when you stop and think about me think about literally the NFL makes ten to twelve billion dollars a season in eighty percent of that is shared equally

32:39 So when you have the new england patriots win the super bowl and he have. The detroit lions wind up being two hundred fourteen again in reality they're making the same amount of money and what's even more bizarre is like, you know when they sell all those patriot world championship tee shirts the lions are getting a cut to that one sort of team that the patriot beat sword the seahawks or bears i mean everybody's making money off those championship t-shirts So what happens when a team wins the championship does it really bother the other owners that their teams not the one winning the championship but they're making the same amount of money. I don't think so.

33:18 Yes, and right along these lines I wanted to ask you about this book Scorecasting that you write about. The authors seem to collect all the data that shows the home team advantage That we've all heard of is literally just cheating and collusion It's better for the league so he just established profit share when home teams win because people buy more beer they buy more merch And they come back for more games So Please look the other way or who knows maybe even encourage this behavior since all the revenue is shared anyway but this book got the data right but not conclusion. I'm being totally honest here that's the first time in my life i ever threw a book down while was it, what's that score casting chapter on home field advantage i got so angry i literally through the book

34:07 Because it's insane these guys one guy is a editor still an editor at sports illustrated the author. When the other authors as an economist and they wanted to do economics type of book about sports, what are things explored was like you said home field advantage in their determination was that every sport the NHL Major league baseball the nfl and the NBA home field advantage totally existed. And their conclusion was rather stats and data crunching in all that, what is it on field existed because of officiating add that in major league baseball balls and strikes in the NBA files in the hl files NFL files was all created by the officials

34:53 And at the same time they said look we understand that when the home team wins more merchandise is sold more tickets are sold all these benefits come along with the home team winning more games than losing. And then their final conclusion was that even though the officials are causing it, and even though it's benefiting the league and the teams. That it was basically accidental that had happened to them. It was just unconscious response by the referees that causes home field advantage. And they said that in fact my favorite quote is they said the officials are uncorrupted and uncorruptible which I thought was just absurd. And that's when I think actually chucked the book

35:33 I mean they concluded that they had everything right and then they said well it just. And i'm like how could you be so naive why won't you say what your own statistics show that the leagues are manipulating these games to make sure the home team wins because of benefits everybody involved Yeah why does man so many people with the blinders. What i think it's like you said because one of the writers works for sports illustrated and still does he was afraid to write that because what they wrote was just absurd, that's why covered in the book because i think their methodology and data was all cracked and i just think that they intentionally

36:14 Batch to the conclusion because they didn't want it to be the truth. Yeah i hear you and so i'm just an interviewer really not even a real researcher per se and people send me stuff all the time about something they uncovered or something their grandpa told him about his years in the military, add i gotta assume that you get the same thing as anyone shared info with you since the book came out of the first book then maybe he didn't know about her were impressed with My favorite one was after i was on the first time i was on coast to coast am as a guest i had a guy. Gentlemen email me and said he was a former CIA agent and that they knew that the famous nineteen seventy two gold metal gold medal gold medal, olympic basketball game played between united states and the soviet union was fixed

37:06 And the reason it was fixed is because the CIA knew that the KGB had kidnapped one of the referees' families and threatened to kill them if the Soviet Union lost that basketball game. And so I did actually, I followed up on it because that was like well this seems too bizarre not to be true. It seems kind of a random thing for somebody just to make out and pull out the thin air and email me but when i contacted the CIA through the freedom of information act in typical CIA fashion I got a response that literally said we can neither confirm nor deny any such file exists

37:43 Hmm. Funny thing, funny thing! So I wanted to ask you about this it comes from your website but you have a section on there dedicated to the prospect of putting magnets in the actual balls or the pucks and being able to actually manipulate the magnetic field itself. I mean the basketball net is metal? The hockey net is metal?! This stuff is there, the uprights of the NFL's field goal is also metal. This is interesting maybe speculative but when you look at those videos that you have those clips that you include on that page I mean my mind was pretty much blown man this seems like it's a real thing. I know it seems like you say it seems extremely speculative and if that something I totally believe

38:33 But i was told and even the reason he came up with i was told by a guy in met remember where i met him it's after the fixes and came out. And he said he was a former nba ball boy for chicago falls time in chicago area, any asking goes do you know there is magnets on the balls right and i said what do you mean because yeah there's magnets on the balls of the rims are magnetized And I was like, seriously? He's like, yeah. Now you go supposedly it's in there for the ball to be able to basically automatically reset the shot clock when the ball goes through the rim he goes but i think they actually can magnetically repulse the ball away from the net or pull the ball in for a score if they want to and I said well that's kind of bizarre but okay and I just kind of kept that in the back my head and now as we've advanced time has advanced

39:25 I've seen things which like you said, i posted some of the clips on my website that seem to really confirm what this guy was telling me because you see the football sometimes going right towards the uprights when suddenly make a right hand turn away or you see balls that shouldn't go through the hoop go in or you see the hockey puck looks like it's gonna go into net and then suddenly makes a right hand turn away from the net and it makes me wonder. You know? The technology exists! It's possible But I don't know, can you create that strong of a magnetic field around a rim or hockey net to really push or pull a puck or ball that's being shot that fast in her away? I don't know. But it's something to think about

40:06 Well, as you ask. Would you leave a billion dollar industry to chance? I mean, I find him so convincing the one that any sports fan should take a look at is John Quick's famous magic puck He-I guess this guy takes a shot The goalie does not make contact with the puck It's about to go into an open net and whoop! It goes a complete 180 and just comes right out, and they've got a shot from above. They've got shots from the side And just that one example to me proves that something's up And also it is worth noting this detail that

40:42 Apparently the NFL was looking into magnetic fields to manipulate balls and then they stopped. And they just stop talking about it, and that's a thing we've seen in government before with secret projects. They'll make some comments about it, what is possible, and when the rollout really happens thats when everybody gets quiet! I mean it might be true for this magnets thing too. Like you said the NFL was looking at it and working with Walt Disney Company which Which makes it even more interesting and to me too it goes into the whole idea of. The state of officiating in professional sports how is it that its 2019 we have all this computer technology, what have you and the only way we can measure whether or not a teammate first down is by two guys holding the length of chain

41:32 Why is that the only way we can do this? Why isn't there technological advances they could tell us how far the ball went or did the ball break the plane of the goal, or did the puck cross red line and is it a goal. Or is it not a goal I mean there's all sorts of things that I think would be very feasible and very easy to implement in all of these sports that would eliminate some of the instant replays that would eliminate some of the guesswork from it and yet none of it is being implemented I think the reason none of it is being implemented is because they don't want to lose control. The guys who run the leagues if you take it away from the officiating if you allow a computer to call balls and strikes in baseball game as opposed to an umpire will suddenly now there's really no room for error, there's no fudge room you know what i mean so that you can put pressure on the picture he can't put pressure on hitter

42:26 On some of these borderline calls if that's what you so desire it is what it is the same with scoring goals or your marking first down sword have you, if u put in more technology you get rid of the human element twelve. Technology supposedly isn't valuable and sure there's ways they can work around that too But if you have the officials on the field making the calls, then using instant replay to supposedly correct those calls. Then you have more control over the sport and the outcome. And I think that's why technology is shunned in many ways, although maybe being used in these magnets who know? I just love the magnets example because it really drives home the institutionalized corruption and the fact that you're basically watching something that's akin to a ballet or theater. And another example where i think its pretty telling that somethings up is we all seen these half court shots, that people make for money during the breaks they pull someone out from the audience which who knows if that person even genuine

43:29 And actually winning the money that they may be making from a shot yeah exactly and there's definitely one where i think about a half court shot it's not a light thing you know its a lot. It's coming in hot, you know? So this dude throws the ball from half court and it sticks to the square plate above the hoop. And it's like... The force with which that thing is coming in and the bounciness of a basketball would definitely not do that! I've seen balls get jammed into the side of the rim. I'm not talking about that

44:06 talking about right on the top and it just sticks like a magnet, like someone forgot to shut it off during halftime and went out and took a leak. And really exposed themselves there but I thought that was a great example! As you note, you can't keep an NBA ball if you catch one during a game nor can you keep the kicking ball in the NFL if it goes into stands. A regular NFL ball you can but not the actual kicking ball...and that's a clue Yeah well and I didn't realize that was a thing until again someone emailed me about that. And how, i can remember it was like the guy who emailed me his brother some sort of family relation caught one of the balls kicking ball they had an American gone through the upright service in this field goal whatever but went to the stance on this guy called it NFL security he said was on this guy got the ball away from him gave them a different ball but they wouldn't allow him to keep that all

45:04 Haha, curious thing indeed. And I guess if people want to watch sports even if it's heavily manipulated and largely fixed for maximum wealth extraction but they're still having a good time That's fine, but the big thing that bothers me is when these billionaires get taxpayer money and prime downtown real estate just handed to them to build these stadiums. And they don't even call them like The People of Boston Arena or something like that it still The Colgate Center or Petco Park or The Pepsi Arena And we just let it go on the assumption that the team is bringing in money for the city. But, the data shows that not to be true! They're taking money out of a city into the private hands of billionaire owners and private leagues Not to mention the opportunity cost of what could have gone in there but a lot of people miss how big a deal this really is

45:59 No i mean there's people smarter than me who figured this out you know their sports economist said look if your city, if they had a team like they took the city of baltimore when they lost the ball to work holds. When that team left town it's not like baltimore fell apart because the cold slaps any balls for falling apart as it is i guess but not because the colts left But what happens is basically people spend their entertainment money on other forms of entertainment so if they don't have the professional sports team there. Do you waste your money on them they wind up going to other things i go to the theater they goto see an orchestra they find other ways to spend their entertainment money so it doesn't really negatively affect a city to have a team leave

46:46 And then they also show that even teams being there, that it may have an impact on the immediate surrounding couple of blocks around a stadium. But other than that, the city really shows no positive economic impact either. So yeah when you see all this tax money being thrown at these teams that are privately owned teams that keep all the profits from the stadium and he see this tax money being thrown at him People need to realize it's not really benefiting you as a citizen of that city or state, especially not the state. There is very little positive economic impact if any positive economic impact from these stadiums being built and these teams being in their towns

47:26 Well said and it's like a siphon to take money out of the city while pretending. To be apart of it I mean that's how it looks to me and I pulled this off your website you say we're supposed to be a chapter in the new book but she kinda forgot about it just as well with the paper got it yeah I guess I can happen but hey I think this information is some of the best because it spills over into outside of the sports community somewhat but To quote the page, you say this is a list of all the NFL and MLB teams when they built their newest stadiums or had it renovated and the success each franchise coincidentally enjoyed around the stadium's opening. What you will see is a fairly direct correlation between a team needing or wanting a new stadium

48:16 winning. Remember too that when a new stadium is announced, it'll be at least a year before it actually opens so when you see a team's good fortune occur before the stadium opens that result is still tied to the stadiums opening I think the list speaks for itself and of course there you have 30 plus examples from both baseball and football seems pretty fishy man This is another indication that it's all about money that you wanna generate excitement before this new stadium opens just to get people excited and i guess what examples might be most obvious to sports fans in your mind. That's a good question which was the most obvious i mean,

48:58 Like i said that whole list in a way speaks for itself because you can go through most of the teams. That wanted a new stadium and got public money to build the new stadium and then you see immediately after it's stadium is approved or meet me after opens that team suddenly is in the playoffs were suddenly in the super bowl words in the world series And it just seems way too coincidental to be all based off of the stadium. You know, just the fact that these players have new training facilities doesn't mean they should suddenly win the Super Bowl It's just bizarre. I mean, you had the Vikings open a new stadium they wound up in the NFC championship game you had the Falcons opened up a new stadium they wound up in the Super Bowl? How often can that occur it's very odd there's only really like two or three teams that I can think of one being the Lions and one being the Browns and the Browns you can't even really count because they were basically brand-new franchise but teams that have had new stadiums are not had at this sort of success

50:02 I mean, it's really bizarre and you know what even does leak over into the NHL in the NBA as well. But it doesn't seem to be as prominent of a thing in those two sports says it is with football and baseball. But I wanted to talk about gambling a little more and the idea of point shaving. For people who don't know anything about sports gambling, it can be pretty complex because you're usually not just betting on which team will win but they have to cover the spread. They have to win by this certain amount dictated by the bookie and point shaving is when you don't really alter who wins

50:38 What bookies are whoever will work to manipulate that spread and make it most advantageous for them. Gambling wise right i mean this is the way it works and there's also apparently evidence that there are some statistical anomalies when you get right around that point spread, yeah the points bread i'm tired of what's up at hard to explain but basically for people who aren't aware Because there are so many games in football and basketball that are seemingly lopsided, they created this point spread to make the teams more even. So basically if a team is favored by seven points they have a fictional seven points taken off their final score and added to the other teams' point total. If the Bulls were favored by seven points over the Bucks that means the Bulls have to win by seven or more points for you to win your bet on the Bulls

51:32 And if you bet on the box, you're given seven points. So as long as the bucks either win or lose by less than seven points, you would when your bets on the box and so what's happened is because there's that fictional playroom that was created by the bookies Gamblers organized configured outlook we can approach guys my example like on the balls and say hey look you don't have to lose the game. You just don't win by more than seven points because that's the way we want this to work we're gonna bet on the box of you can when your game, only one of us a five point is the point spread seven then are back on the boxes gonna win even though the box blues in the bowls with

52:13 So that's what they figured out is naked approach especially college kids were being paid in basketball and football. And convince them hey we don't want you to lose the game which is much make sure you don't win by so many points, everybody be happy and will get paid yoga paid and no one will know what's going on And so what happened is i think it's happened a lot and i think it's happened hundreds of times that we have figured out but. There were some college professors in the canvas again who look at this and thought that they saw anomalies that when appoint spreading college basketball was more than twelve, that there were probably players out their shaving points for gamblers are for their own purposes but that they're not covering the point spread as regular as they should've been

53:01 Mm-hmm. Yeah in the book you cite it as a 2006 study that showed when they looked at 40,000 division 1 NCAA games and their betting lines the statistical anomaly came out when they looked at the 12-point spread. The analyzers said this isn't a natural distribution, it proves the very point and the funny thing is that I do have friends that bet on sports and of course i'm conspiracy guy And they've made comments to me about this very thing That the numbers end up perfectly outside Of what would pay them out Funny how that happens Yeah, it is funny how that happens isn't it? But I think one of the things too that these guys who look into this and have studied this don't think about is the opposite thing. Is...I think the easiest way-the best way to fix a game and I probably shouldn't tell anybody how to do this but I think the best way to fix a game is say the point spread was 12 points

53:59 And whoever Duke was playing Iowa and Duke was favored by 12 points. Well, I think the best way to fix the game would not be to go to a Duke player and say hey we want you to win by only like 10 points or 8 points. I think the best play would be to approach an Iowa player and say hey look you're already expected to lose and you probably even know you're going to lose to Duke so why don't you just get killed today and lose by 20? And I think if you fix the game that way. Nobody would ever know what's going on because Duke is expected to win anyway. They're expected basically to blow Iowa out so when that occurs nobody looks at it cross-eyed because everything went the way according to plan whereby if Duke only beat Iowa by two people might be like well hey there was some shady play by that player, that was an odd call there What happened? But if you just make and expect a blowout, even greater blowout by fixing losing side nobody can look twice at

54:59 Mm-hmm. I think that's just such an important point that it isn't about necessarily deciding who wins or loses It's just about how much and this is a little nuance that non sports fans probably don't really reflect on how easy it is to manipulate money in betting but it's there and Of all the leagues, it seems like the NFL is by far the biggest and also of the most corrupt. And one of things I like most about this recent book is the list of quote after quote from players and people on the inside that routinely say their games are more entertainment than true competition just to read

55:39 One of them here, you have Joe Thomas of the Cleveland Browns saying we're talking about a different NFL now. Before it was more about the games. Now it's such an entertainment business. It's turning into WWE really? It's like The Vince McMahon stuff basically Roger Goodell is like The Vince McMahon I mean You couldn't make it much more clear could ya no and the funny thing Is this Joe Thomas has Sentry time from the nfl has a radio show and i can't remember he either signed on with either espn or fox to be one of their main broadcast. So here's the guy who played in the nfl for ten years are more, will compare delete to the professional wrestling who says it's really entertainment and now he is working with the broadcast media so you know promote talk about the NFL funny how that worked out for joe isn't it

56:31 Yeah, if you can't beat him join them I guess. One other one that I really like is from former 49ers linebacker Chris Borland where he says the NFL is like a spectacle of violence for entertainment and your actors in it You're complicit and that you put on the uniform And its a trivial thing at its core Its make believe really That's the truth about it Again, pretty telling but how many football fans are going to just dismiss something like that? Well because they don't want to hear it. If you believe in a fairy tale and you don't want to hear it then its not true I mean how many kids are thrilled to hear that Santa Claus doesn't exist? You know what I mean a lot of kids jump for joy like oh yeah great there's no such thing as Santa Claus thats great! No its the same thing with fans and the problem with sports is when I talk about this in The Fixes Inn Is that sports in many ways acts like a drug

57:25 edit effects you psychologically if your huge sports bad they have something that's called basking in reflective glory which means a fear of and the certain team and that team does well, you get kind of a natural high from that you feel good about yourself from there. You know, you'd say what was up if you listen to sports radio which isn't the most fun thing to listen too. But if you do listen to sports radio, you can hear it because fans will call in and they'll talk about a team. I'll say we need to do this. We need to trade for that guy. We need to start him and not him. That's like we your not on the team buddy? I'm sorry. I don't care if you own a jersey and they had to go to a lot of games. Your not on the team. It's not we its day

58:06 Yeah. And then they found also that when teams start to lose, fans will disassociate themselves and when they call him they will say like they need to do that and they need to do this but many times it's just we mentality like bands have this psychological need for sports and feel a part of that team, and it affects them. So when you start talking about that hey this is just entertainment you might as well be watching the Kardashians or Survivor or American Ninja Warrior something else its all just entertainment its the same difference It really upsets them. And I've also heard conversations regarding

58:41 Energy and just the energy of large groups of people or even male energy not that men are the only ones who watch sports but this idea that it. Numbs the masses from maybe rebelling against something real in politics and corruption that may be actually affects their lives and you can kind of see how the energetic shape of, People storming the white house because they're pissed about the cost of health care mirrors. The way people look in a stadium at a game when they're getting really excited and i can definitely see the case that this is the opiate of the masses maybe was religion once it sports today but, i think there's a major component to social control that sometimes overlooked agree i think a lot times its like you know the gladiator games in ancient rome

59:37 I mean they put those on for reason they put them on to distract the masses from what the government was doing anyways today like we talked about earlier. The government funds to certain extent professional sports they help build a stadium stay give him tax breaks, they made you know certainly the nfl is attacks except organization for awhile There's certain breaks at the government gives professional sports and like said i think it acts in the same way that people can be so distracted. Buy sports are more worried about who their team is gonna trade for or if they're gonna get this free agent to win the game or not, then they are you know things like you say health care and other things that directly impact our lives of course yes that is life and on the subject of

1:00:21 Football last time you had cited Super Bowl three as the example of what might be the biggest and most clearly fixed game in sports history Can you give us another game that you think might? Reach kind of those heights that might have sports fans scratching their heads if they saw it in the right light Maybe something recent or something. That's happened in the past few years or decade I think the number one is Absolutely for sure with how to doubt fixed game which wasn't a big game really the grand scheme of things but i think. For sure the most fixed game ever saw was the saints first came back in the super bowl after hurricane katrina because it was a big monday night football deal they played that lana falcons,

1:01:07 There was a blocked punt right at the beginning of the game by one of the Saints which is actually now immortalized outside the stadium in a statue because they play. The coach of the Falcons at that time was Jim Morrow whose dad had been formerly the coach of the Saints a few years earlier, I mean i think that game was fixed from top to bottom and it was all done for show because it's an NFL thing about the Saints rejuvenating the city of New Orleans after a hurricane. I think from top to bottom that was fixed right on, but if you want to go championship game, I would say the 2016 NBA finals when LeBron brought the title back to Cleveland. I think that was a total rig job as well that whole series.

1:01:53 Awesome i love it and of course the book is really really well put together and books do take a long time to write an your finger is on the polls in sports are always going on praise be, is there anything right now you're paying attention to that she thinks little fishy. Not really i've kind of taken a break after the book you made your case yeah you can only add something i mean after writing to fix is in i thought i'd made my case and apparently nobody got points like right the fixes still in. The further make my case and hopefully i don't have to write the fixes still still in ten years from now hope it's all said and done so hopefully i can start looking at other things to investigate right about but,

1:02:37 Yeah for right now sports all you have is baseball going on and nobody cares about baseball really. Hey tell me about it i've got roped into three baseball games this weekend because the cardinals are in town playing the padres and if I want to see any of my friends, I get to go sit at three baseball games so there ya go! I'm with ya, I don't care about it at all But man, this is always fun for me since I do have no connection to sports but i understand how it might make some people angry. Sometimes the truth is uncomfortable but you just gotta take it and before we go are there any other projects in the pipeline or things we should just tell people about following your work? Or your website? Or getting the book? The best place to go if people want to ask questions If they want to get the book, learn more information about it all Is my website which is www.thefixisin.net

1:03:28 and all my social media is there and everything. So, fixisindottena is the place to go. Boom! Awesome. Well I love that you've done so much work to define yourself as the go-to guy for sports corruption You really have made your own niche and remained the headmaster of all things uncouth in the sports world And that's a beautiful thing Cheers and keep doing what you do man thanks again Thanks i appreciate you having me on Greg it's always fun talk And boom goes the dynamite, internet friends and family! The return of the sports conspiracy Jedi. I really enjoyed it. I think Brian is a really great example of someone who decided what their role was going to be in the world and just went for it

1:04:16 And there is a good lesson in that. If you ever listen to Jordan Peterson, he talks about issues with men and it's not extremely related but if we're going to talk about some man shit it should be to cap off the sports episode right? Yeah but he talks about how young men are pretty lost right now and a big part of that is they can't find a dominance hierarchy where they can be successful And that term sums it up so well. And after I heard it, I sort of realized that was a big part of my decision process to do what I do now The main focus when this was all just ideas was oh I should try and be a comic or writer and those are extremely competitive and almost unattainable sounding paths from where I was in life

1:05:10 But when I was asked, I'd say those were things that I wanted to do but subconsciously i knew it was probably never going to happen that way. And then I thought well you do love listening to these alternative researchers! It's definitely a passion and if you go back nine or ten years I only had a few shows to listen to and I thought hey...I could do that and I think I could do it well and here we are But Brian is an even more specific and dialed in example that makes that point, that you can absolutely be doing what you love if you find a slice of the pie that you can make yours. Because he is the best at this! And he almost has zero competition If anyone out there is struggling to find their place, their career path, their own expertise

1:05:59 Think about how to find a unique way to express the things that are already your interests. Probably things you're halfway there on if you just built from what you know and love already, something to think about but you probably don't need the lecture in terms of content one of my favorite sections of this show was about the magnets in balls and rims and pucks but it is something you need to see to believe I actually brought up one of the hockey clips to a hockey loving buddy of mine and he says Yeah, I've seen it. And...I can just tell by his tone that he absolutely knows how sketchy it looks and he says, I don't know man, I just try to chalk it up to a divot in the ice or weird bounce what can you say? And I thought exactly! What CAN ya say?! Well, you CAN say that its all a sham! I kid, I kid the sports fans but check out that page on Brian's website for some real physics defined shots

1:06:59 Of course, I thank Brian for what he does. I couldn't do a show like this without him It's clear he's found a niche that he is happy with despite the critics That's always going to be in the mix but we do what we do and deal with the rest In THC news The joint session this month will be on July 25 7pm Pacific Come join me and let's have a chat of our own I also spoke too soon about the new consolidation of the THC website's launch date. We're going with Monday, August 5th. A Monday works best for the web folks because they'll have a full five days to make sure everything runs smoothly and i wasn't gonna argue with that so next joint session July 25 7 p.m pacific and the new website is launching august fifth stop on by and take a look

1:07:50 I think you'll love the facelift and if you're a plus member who doesn't just use the RSS feed, unplug that into one of many podcast apps like majority people do. If you actually do log on to the website to listen sure it's minority but still i think your experience will be improved as well Of course, every Hireside Chats episode that you're hearing out in the wild for free is just the first hour of what are really two-hour interviews. That you can get into by signing up to be a Plus Member. Eight bucks a month five extra hours of interviews and a lot of extra stuff as well Consider it if you like what I do and think i'm high enough on the conspiracy podcaster dominance hierarchy for it to be worth your while

1:08:38 Today's Extra Hour with Brian covered things like the nuances of the NHL, the Las Vegas Golden Knights saga and the acceptance of fighting. Also what you don't know about sports broadcasting rights, NASCAR corruption and getting The Call, horse racing corruption and cheating, eSports and loot boxes who would have thought And of course, the biggest fixed games in sports history. What takes that title in Brian's mind? Well we talked about one last time what else is up there it's got to be more than one and it is all great additional threads to the sports conspiracy cardigan that Brian conversationally crochets so well and I think that's about it for me. I always really really appreciate the support

1:09:29 And that's true now more than ever. I'm sure you get it, so thanks again! I love all you guys Your move sports fixing franchises billion dollar ballgame controllers and three-letter leagues of deception your fucking They built a little out of some crazy garbage called the blood Of the exploited working class They've overcome their shining, now we're calling your highness And the world screamed save me THC They destroyed the bonds of friendship and respect Between the only people left Who'd even look them in the eye?

1:10:37 They tortured and a world save me THC Look for Jesus, we'll say Mr. Jesus Wonder who can tell me if it's true? Searching too they built a little empire

1:11:20 Some crazy garbage called the blood of the exploited Working class overcome their shining Now we're calling our highness and the world scream Save me THC, save me THC