Brian Tuohy | Sports Conspiracies & Game Fixing

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00:43 Alright, Hireside Chatters. In a 1992 interview with the Texas journalist George HW Bush was quoted in saying if the American people knew what we've done they'd string us up by the lampposts and the confidence to deliver such a bold statement lies in the realization that much care and attention has gone into making sure the American people are systematically dumbed down, distracted, and thoroughly pacified into ignorance and complacency with the actions of our so-called elected government. Because the sad truth seems to be that the American populace will overlook nearly any nefarious deeds carried out in their name as long as it doesn't interfere with the addictive consumer debt cycle and of course, The Game on Sunday. Yes people it's no surprise your average middle class male knows next to nothing about international drone strike campaigns rigged elections and fractional reserve banking but they know just how fast their favorite athlete can throw a ball or run 40 yards

01:39 Well, hopefully today's guest Brian Toohey the nation's foremost expert on game fixing and sports conspiracies can help to shatter some of the illusions of the sanctimonious sports industry with the information he has presented in several books about corruption set ups illegal gambling and wealth extraction in the sports world. With titles like The Fix is In, the showbiz manipulations of the NFL, MLB NBA NHL and NASCAR. Larceny games sports gambling game fixing in the FBI and a season in the abyss sports gambling and the NFL's integrity here he is the king of sports conspiracy Brian my man welcome to The Higher Side

02:20 Hey, thanks for having me on Greg. I appreciate it! Yeah no worries man thanks for being here you have such a unique expertise and it's not like...I don't have my own pointless entertainment obsessions but I've never been a sports guy. I never understood the fanaticism so to have a guest here who is willing to help torch up that sacred calf of sports is just the kind of troublemaking I like And to kick this off, because it is such an underexposed realm. How did you end up becoming the go-to guy for sports corruption and conspiracies? Was there a particular sketchy game or something that set you down this path less traveled? No, not really. It's funny I really took this job on and it's not a job because I didn't get paid enough so she more or less called me an obby. But is because no one else in the sports media world knows sports writer, no sport journalist seem to really want to tackle this subject America?

03:14 I mean, outside of America if you look at Europe and elsewhere game fixing especially like in soccer and some tennis rugby cricket so many other sports is a well-known thing. And people are up in arms about it all but the United States the sports media is so really entwined with the sports leagues that this notion of the possibility even of games being fixed just doesn't exist right? So as they kind of fell into this and started doing research about it, because my wife was really the one who convinced me to write a book about it. The more I fell into it the more I realized nobody's doing this. A lot of people don't even want to hear it but nobody wants to really dig into this subject matter and realize what is going on or what's even possible because as I've said on some other programs, you know I could be 99% wrong

04:04 And when I talk about games being fixed, but if I'm 1% right that means games are being fixed have been fixed and not only been fixed by gamblers but potentially by the leagues themselves. So if I'm just a fractional right that means really the integrity of all these sports leagues is crap I love it, man. And you're so right! It's important to note just how tied up and intertwined these sports leagues are with the media There'd be no sports really without the broadcasting and i think one big aha point You make in this regard and one that i think will resonate with this audience pretty well is That you should look at these corporations who carry and run the leagues ABC NBC Disney Fox

04:47 All these entertainment arms of even larger, often thought of as nefarious corporations. We don't even trust them with something as serious as reporting the news honestly! How could we be so naive to think that everything in a realm as trivial as sports is going to be kosher? Well, that's just it. I mean if i was writing a book about Goldman Sachs or if I wrote a book about Exxon or McDonald's Or some other big corporation and I said oh they're up to something nefarious And they're not looking out for your best interest and they're just trying to make money Nobody would question me maybe? Oh yeah! I believe that I'd go along right with whatever this guy is writing are saying but If I say the same things about the NFL

05:27 or I say the same things about the NBA, people go wait a minute you can't no. No that's no what are you talking about? That's crazy talk and it's like well these are businesses they're in business they don't put their games on for free. They're putting the games on because they want to make money and they're making billions of dollars doing it and there's other companies making billions of dollars on the back of these companies as well maybe somebody should look into this and see what's truly going on from what I've done for my writing stuff but I've seen I've written, books that I've written gets basically ignored and intentionally ignored by the sports media because they don't want to propagate this idea that games are fixed and integrity of the leagues really should be questioned. And it kind of concerns me because like you say is this just sports we're talking about? You know it's not something really important so if they do this to me and like I said I can prove they've done it

06:19 in terms of kind of trying to keep my stuff under wraps, who else are they silencing out there who have bigger and more important stories to tell because they have the power. They have the control and it does make you sound like a conspiracy theorist when you start saying that stuff but it's true! You have the power to keep you out of the media and if somebody can't learn about my books through the media well they're not going to really find them and I'm not gonna get my message out so they can keep things what I call censorship by omission. They can keep things out of the news that they want to keep out of the news So true. And if people go to your website, thefixesin.net you say there that the ticket you purchased to a sporting event reflects this notion of sports being simply entertainment and that the Spygate lawsuit proves this. Can you elaborate on that lawsuit and how it helps to make our points here?

07:07 Well, what happened was with the whole Spygate thing was that New England Patriots were basically caught cheating. They were videotaping their opponents' coaching signals and nobody really knows for how long this is going on and how effective it was or what it's really doing to the games but the NFL, the way they reacted to it and supposedly destroyed the tapes made a lot of people question well, what the heck was really going on? One fan, a Jets fan who happened to be a lawyer made a class action lawsuit against the Patriots I think it was like 10 years worth of games saying basically the Patriots had cheated for those 10 years and we, the fans deserve our money back from those games. And it actually went to a third circuit court of appeals and the ultimate ruling was by the judges there that look when you buy the ticket to a game be it NFL game NBA game whatever sporting event it is your essentially purchasing a license

08:01 to be allowed into that stadium to see the event that is being put on. So in this case, you bought a ticket to see a football game and the NFL provided that football game, the Patriots provided that football game and it doesn't mean that the football game has to be played by any certain rules It doesn't mean that certain players have to perform. It doesn't mean a team can't cheat Basically you pay to see football game they put on of a ballgame at the end the story That's the only recourse You have as a fan which is zero, you can't sue the league over what they put on on the field and so to me that just proves that the idea that a leak and fix its own game is perfectly legal because it doesn't even constitute as fraud

08:41 because it is just entertainment. Even on your ticket, it says this for entertainment purposes only and so therefore there's no law that really prevents a league like the NFL or NBA from fixing its own game because essentially their entertainment in which you're purchasing to see an entertaining event same as ballet opera movie what have you and you can't sue over the content if you don't like it That's amazing, man. And that is such a telling results to a lawsuit I mean it's right there and you know that's not the only lawsuit other fans brought lawsuits against the NFL and other leagues in teams for teams trying to move like the Rams just moved out of St Louis to Los Angeles but their lawsuits have been brought up by fans in similar fashions and fans have lost every time every time they've lost those leagues for whatever they're suing them for because

09:33 The owners own the league and the league is entertainment. And you can't sue if you don't like the end of Star Wars, it's just the way it is. Yeah I mean it's funny you bring up The Rams because I grew up in St Louis where there's literally nothing to do but follow sports and funny enough They left and that stadium the taxpayers built for them isn't even paid off. They built the thing in 1995, it cost $280 million. Taxpayers are still on the hook for the entire thing and it won't be paid off until they're saying 2022. And I mean you know how much poverty there is in St Louis? How many shitty old factory buildings with broken windows there are but yet this is what we're doing

10:09 That's the thing, that's a problem with modern day sports. It's billion dollar people who own these teams and yet they somehow are able to con localities, cities and taxpayers out of money to build them stadiums that only they profit from. People have fought against it, but many times they lose because the fans Freak out because this is almost has a religious effect on people. It almost has a drug like effect on people Sports does and they've studied it they could show what they call up basking in reflective glory And that's basically you get almost like a higher You get a higher self-worth when the team or player your root for does well

10:51 And you can see it, especially if you call into sports radio shows when you hear people say we need to do this. We need to make this trade and... You're not on the team buddy! Nothing personal but you're not on the teams but they have that thing in them, this kind of psychological thing that they are part of a team just because they buy a jersey or wear hats or go see a game But that's how the leagues make their profit is They have these people kind of hooked drug-like on what it is they offer Right, and they always use that line that sports teams bring money into the city. But that's not statistically true! Almost anything sports related carries a heavy licensing fee and statistics show people come to the games for the most part just go home

11:36 Which is all, like you said, private revenue. I found this to quote Michael Leeds who was a sports economist at Temple University, he says If every sports team in Chicago were to suddenly disappear, the impact on the Chicago economy would be a fraction of 1%. A baseball team has about the same impact on a community as a mid-sized department store. That's true. Other people smarter than I have studied this, sports economists and whatnot, and they've basically proven that adding a team like Los Angeles just added the Rams doesn't really help Los Angeles and St. Louis really won't be hurt by the Rams leaving.

12:26 There's no net gain or net loss when a team moves in or moves out of the city. That entertainment money that winds up being spent on the sports team, if the team leaves who winds up being spent on something else? Some other form of entertainment whatever it is and like you say it doesn't necessarily help the community immediately around to the stadium and many cities because the stadium is basically built right off a highway. There's not really a municipality around there to visit, so yeah the economic gain that they purport just doesn't really exist but yet it's enough of a selling point to get people to buy into their lies. Right and you mentioned the billionaire owners in the conspiracy world we're always talking about ruling families are there similar families in sports ownership?

13:13 Well, in a sense. I mean there's longtime owners in the NFL like the Mara family which owns the Giants, the Bidwells that own the Cardinals, the Roonies that owns the Steelers, the McCaskey family which is the Hallis family that owns the Bears and they've been in it for long haul and there are other sports as well that have had long time ownership but I mean there is more turnover but the NFL is one of those that has the longest kind of history with certain families being in control and doing what it is That's an interesting side note. But you also mentioned this earlier, talking about how the structure of the leagues can be quite telling that not every team is its own competing company. They're all under the same umbrella of the league. Maybe elaborate on that and why it's such a red flag? It's funny they actually came up in a Supreme Court case with the NFL and the NFL lawyers argued in front of the Supreme Court and said look we are not

14:11 32 individual teams, we are one entity and that entity is the National Football League. And our business is entertainment." They basically flat out said that! So who am I to take them not at their word? If that's what they want to call themselves then it's what they are but that's not how fans look at it. I live in Wisconsin and the Packer fans believe there's a clan of their own and their mortal enemies are the Minnesota Vikings, and the Chicago Bears, and the Detroit Lions. And that's the way it is but in fact they're all part of the same family The lines of the Bears, Packers and Vikings are all part of the same family. They're all part of the NFL. They share revenue about 80% of all revenue that the NFL makes is shared amongst all teams so if you go buy a Packers t-shirt online, 80% of that money really gets spread around to every other team in the league. They're all in it together. Revenue sharing like I say is one of the things that I think is a telltale sign

15:07 that shows that these owners would be willing to manipulate their own games to get certain results because everybody profits from it. A team that goes 16-0 in the NFL will make the same amount of money as a team that goes 0-16 because of revenue sharing, Because most of the money is made through broadcast meteorites, everybody's making the same amount of money. So there's no loss! You see certain storylines that have cropped up over to your Patriots after 9-11, The Saints after Hurricane Katrina, even Peyton Manning last year riding off into the sunset as Super Bowl champion... If they can pitch those storylines and people believe them, it makes more people tune in and watch the games every Sunday. That benefits everybody involved even though it seems to only be directly benefiting one team. It's actually benefitting them all. Right? And that is such an amazing point something I was definitely going to bring up being a conspiracy show

15:59 largely, you know any way to connect it is always appreciated. And you're right! You talk about these emotionally charged seasons where the New Orleans Saints just happen to win the Super Bowl after Katrina or the Patriots after 9-11 these perfect sports stories that follow a lot of disastrous events that some of us have cast doubt on with certain guests but... These things seem to happen too often to be a coincidence Well, that's kind of what got me into it is I don't believe in coincidence when billions of dollars are attached to it And that's what it is. I mean, you know, it just boils down to how many times can the ball seem to bounce any leagues way? Yeah How many times can LeBron James most popular player and the NBA win the NBA title or at least be playing for the NBA Title one? That's what everybody in the league cares about is what LeBron James was doing

16:48 Doesn't that seem coincidental to some people? That it just so happens that their number one athlete, like Michael Jordan kept winning the NBA finals and everybody was a Michael Jordan fan. Hmm...didn't that seem to benefit everybody involved?" The thing is I just don't believe in the coincidences even after the Boston Marathon bombing There was the whole Boston Strong thing and the Boston Red Sox went on to win the World Series that year. Isn't it just a little coincidental? I believe it is, and again there's billions of dollars at stake for these guys. And what fans forget too is that there are proven conspiracies within sports.

17:28 People like to call me the king of the sports conspiracy theorists. I really like that title totally because, I don't see myself as a conspiracy theorist, I'm more of a skeptic. You know? I'm skeptical about what leagues are feeding me is the fan but... A true conspiracy back in the 80s Major League Baseball every owner got into a room before the season began with the commissioner and agreed not to pay for anybody else's free agents They all sat in a room and said, look we need to make more money. We've got to drive down player salaries here's what we do there are like 30 some odd guys becoming free agents nobody bid on anybody else as free agents and to a man they agreed to that. And they did it for three years in a row! They made it blatantly obvious that they were doing this, that they wound up getting sued and lost almost $300 million dollars in the resultant lawsuit from the Players Association suing them but I mean this is a true conspiracy called collusion

18:22 where the owners sat down and said, we don't care about wins losses. We just care about money and this is how we're going to make more money. And I mean it's a proven conspiracy so for people to say the owners can agree to do stuff like this you know what they have done it? And they did in hockey the same thing that at NHL even earlier and its been alleged that NFL has done it in recent past as well. So it's very true thing that the owners of these leagues can sit down amongst themselves and come to a decision that benefits them all regardless of how it affects wins and losses. All right, yeah makes total sense! And we should also clarify the degree to which you think games are rigged or fixed where would you say your at on that? Is it every game is just the important ones

19:05 Well, I think games can be fixed basically on two levels. I think they're fixed for gambling purposes at some point by gamblers organized crime and my book Larceny Games is about all the FBI files that are found related to that and then I think on another level games are fixed by the leagues themselves for television ratings and advertising purposes as if the book The Fix Is In is about it so I mean I think of both types of fixes Both types of fixes still occur, but I don't think it's professional wrestling. You know? I don't think where everything is fixed every game every play which some people allege especially with the NFL because of the point spreads and how Las Vegas seems to always make money off this stuff But I don't think that it's to that degree I think what happens is the league sees Some sort of storyline develop That fans get behind if the media gets behind and then they help that along they assist it

19:59 And they do certain things like it protects certain players in the NFL. They try to protect certain quarterbacks as much as they can in the NBA, that give guys like LeBron James and Steph Curry a little more room to operate so they can do what it is they do easier because that's what people want to see same thing on hockey. So I mean, I think sometimes just subtle little things not necessarily fixing this team wins its just manipulating games to make sure certain stars remain to be stars, continue to be stars and draw people's attention. But then I mean you could get into the fighting sports like boxing and MMA. And I think fixing occurs in there all the time too. Yeah that's notorious with boxings background yeah and that was something i'm just gonna ask about a little bit but overall how complacent do you think players coaches and referees are is there much awareness among them that this is happening? You think

20:51 Well, I mean with referees if you want to believe the ex NBA ref Tim Donahue who was a 13 year vet of the league before he got busted by the FBI for gambling on the NBA games. The referees are extremely aware of what's going on and what the league wants, and that the league sends not-so subtle hints to them how to officiate certain games. To do things I was talking about—to give certain teams the benefit of doubt, to give certain players the benefit of doubt, to extend playoffs years… It's a known thing amongst all the referees And none of them are really surprised by it, and that's what their job is. They go out and do it! That's why I think sometimes you have seen coaches and players freak out after games because of the officiating, and why the leagues fine the players and coaches for complaining about the officiating because that's the easiest way to control or manipulate these games. Because again going back to the crime thing, there's no law being broken if the league, the employer tells referees how to do their jobs.

21:54 And if their do-their job happens to manipulate a game, happens to change the outcome of the game – so be it. There's no bribery involved and there is no law being broken. It's just an employer telling employees this is how we want you to do your job. If that affects the game maybe that's what they want! You know, I think umpires referees are very Very aware of these sort of things and I think they go along with it because that's what they want to do And I think that's why a lot of players and coaches go along with some of these things cuz How else are they going to make their money right? They spent their whole life doing this, trying to do this and now they're here. And you know are you going to let that really get in the way of things? I don't know." Yeah and i also think that even non-sports fans will have heard at least whispers of the NBA referee scandal with this Tim Donahue guy you brought up obviously some things did come out in his case but outside of that have there ever really been any player or referee whistleblowers on any of this stuff

22:57 That's the amazing part of it. The NFL claims they've never had a game fixed ever in their nearly 100-year history, that has never happened! And Major League Baseball claims it hasn't happened since the 1919 World Series with the Black Sox. The other leagues have a similar, you know what's been 60-70 years since this sort of thing has happened which I think is complete nonsense but the thing is they can say this and they could get away with saying it because nobody's been arrested or convicted of fixing these games. So it makes it a lot easier to say when you can say, well show me the proof that's been fixed. Well there's nobody arrested for so there you go. It never happened but right? It's not a crime even

23:40 There is a crime. There's a law that was passed, it wasn't a federal crime until 1964 called the Sports Bribery Act and that made it illegal for someone to bribe a coach or player or referee to alter the outcome of a game but then again now if a player just decided to fix a game on his own That's not sports bribery because no one is bribing the guy. He is doing it on his own. Fair, yeah or if its internal? There's a way to fix the game and the funny thing is when I got these FBI files and through the Freedom of Information Act I obtained like over 400 files from the FBI directly related to Sports Bribery Act offenses basically game fixing and they covered college NFL NBA major league baseball horse racing boxing a lot of different sports

24:24 You know, the FBI would write in some of their files like they believed that a couple major NBA Hall of Famers Bill Russell and Will Chamberlain were effectively gambling on the games in which they played in the NBA in the 60s. But the FBI wrote, They're not breaking federal crime by doing anything we can investigate by doing this and we're not the police force for the NBA so who Who cares? It's not our problem. And they just let it go, right? So I mean there have been a lot of things going on underneath the surface that nobody is necessarily investigating or nobody wants to investigate and then includes the FBI because it's really their purpose to police these sports unless really a crime has been committed in the league don't want to investigate themselves. The sports media doesn't really want to do investigative reporting and the fans don't wanna hear this sort of thing so it's just allowed to happen because

25:17 Nobody wants to, you know look for it. And we should take a minute to maybe elaborate on sports gambling even though it is largely illegal this Is of course the main motivation to fix games how much money isn't play here with sports gambling? The scary part is nobody knows. That's the really, really frightening part. Nevada where it's the only state that has legalized single game wagering on any sport you want to bet on they claim they represent probably maybe 2-3% of all the sports gambling done in the United States and I think last year they took in like 3-4 billion dollars in bets

26:00 Which if you extrapolate that out, that means the illegal sports gambling in the United States is perhaps three to $400 billion a year. There's a huge amount of money I don't necessarily think it's that high but even if it's 100 billion dollars which doesn't seem out of the question That's four times as much money as the NFL the NBA Major League Baseball and the NHL make combined. And for people to think, fans to think that that sort of money can't influence a game or won't influence the game. I think they're being pretty naive because again you look outside of the United States, you'd look at soccer around the world like tennis cricket rugby even baseball in China basketball in Europe game fixing is rampant it's everywhere! They're really struggling to keep it under control and under check yet here in the United States

26:55 People act like it's impossible, like it could never happen. And especially if you start talking about college sports then that is incredibly 90s thinking. Yeah we're living in a bubble and you've mentioned that sports gambling is heavily mob controlled and that's an important piece to this puzzle because it seems the connection between organized crime and sports is pretty much as old as the games themselves wouldn't you say? In a sense, I mean you're right about the organized crime thing and gambling. The FBI estimates that sports gambling is its number one or number two most profitable endeavor that the mob engages in to this day and though people think of it as being a victimless crime sports gambling they don't realize that the money

27:36 that's going into organized crimes coffers from just the average Joe is betting $50 on the game here and there, that's going to prostitution. That's going to loan sharking it's going to drugs and other things at the organized crime is involved in but I mean guys have made connection especially... There was one author by name Dan Moldea who wrote this book Interference which kind of influenced my work he talks about how much organized crime had influencing the NFL from beginning Some of the early owners we talked about earlier, like Bidwell family. The original owner Charles Bidwell was an own associate of Al Capone. The Patriarch of the Mara family that bought the Giants he was a bookmaker in New York City when you bought the Giant so gambling and organized crime have always really been around sports two guys who founded the NHL Arthur Wirtz whose family

28:27 still owns the Chicago Blackhawks today and James Norris, whose father the Norris Trophy is named after who owned the Red Wings. They were heavily involved with organized crime and boxing in the 1950s a lot of people just don't realize this history that's very real in professional sports and the connections between owners leagues and crime mm-hmm And you mentioned this journalist Dan Moldea He wrote this book about organized crime fixing and football, and he said it pretty much destroyed his career. Can you talk to us a little bit about that? And have you felt similar effects?

29:04 Dan's an interesting guy to say the least. He was a investigative reporter for a long time and he wrote a lot of books about organized crime, I think he wrote a book about organized crime on Ronald Reagan and one about organized crime like Jimmy Hoffa and that sort of thing then he decided to write this book about the NFL in the late 80s and yeah according to him if you want to believe Dan he says it effectively ruined his career And he said that the reason his career got ruined is because the NFL went out of its way to ruin his career. Believe it or not! The NFL actually hired a guy to write a negative review of the book in the New York Times, which destroyed sales for the book. And he sued because he found out that this is what happened and he sued in court case. He originally won the court case but it got appealed and appealed almost actually wound up in front of Supreme Court but the Supreme Court denied to hear the case so the lesser ruling was accepted and that was that Moldale lost his case. But really after

30:05 writing career was kind of in the tank. It was all because the NFL went out of its way to try to discredit this book and the research he did in which you mentioned, when I said that the NFL says they've never had a game fixed. Moldea claimed—and this is back in say like the late 80's—that over 70 NFL games he knew had been fixed! And he talked about it with guys who had fixed them. Of course, the NFL didn't want to hear that because that affects their integrity so they wanted a way to destroy him. working on larceny games with all these FBI files, I actually called and talked to Moldea. He told me don't write this book. He said don't even try! They'll come after you and they'll destroy you too!" And i said well...I'm not too concerned because I don't have much of a career there's really not much to destroy if they want to come get me come get me but like I said earlier when we were talking

30:58 I haven't felt that kind of pressure directly from the league, but I know I'm a known entity. I know I am a known entity in the NFL and I know I'm a known entity in Major League Baseball for an article I worked with at the Center for Investigative Reporting. And I know ESPN knows who I am and won't have me on. I've been on a lot of major programs. I've been on Coast to Coast, Alex Jones, even somehow managed to get on The Dan Patrick Show and some other national sports radio shows. No ESPN national show will touch me and the major ESPN outlets in Chicago, New York, Los Angeles. They won't have me on either." And that's again I don't believe that to coincidence. Right! I believe it effectively them saying we don't want this guy on here to talk because even if they come and have me on to attack me and say oh you know what? You believe in a Loch Ness Monster and you believe in Bigfoot and you believe games are being fixed... It still gives me chance to tell my side of the story

31:51 And so, you know people hopefully would see through such an attack and say well maybe this guy's making a little bit of sense but they won't have it. Exactly! So I see why they do it. And while the spotlight has kind of been on the NFL here, let me throw this out you write in larceny games that the NFL is probably the most cutthroat and vigilant about stopping any negative press and you equate them almost to an intelligence network like the CIA or the FBI...and that's something! You think they're really that advanced?

32:33 Yeah, they really are. I mean NFL security, Major League Baseball security every league has their own quote-unquote security department and literally they're staffed with former members of the CIA FBI DEA Secret Service local law enforcement. They hire serious dudes to do this sort of work for them and the funny thing is they don't exactly operate the way they claim to we not I mean, I interviewed a guy by the name of Warren Welsh who was a former FBI agent and became the head of NFL security. And when I talked to Mr. Welsh—I talked him for probably an hour—when I hung up the phone after that hour, I still had no idea what NFL security did.

33:17 Because he talked in such a circuitous way, I just couldn't understand what they really did. And what I've come to pretty much figure out is all of these security departments are there to cover things up." for lack of a better term. They don't want things to get in the press and you can see this, I mean i researched this for like 10 years now but anybody could see if you see a player arrested or a coach arrested or some sort of scandal breaks out and whatever league it is you never see law enforcement thank NFL security or thank NBA security for their assistance in helping to bring this to justice. It doesn't happen yeah as

33:56 If that doesn't happen, and again I'd love anybody in the NFL or NBA to prove to me that this is wrong. But i'd love to see that happen because if that's not what they're doing then the only thing they must be doing is finding these things out and making them stay quiet until they explode into the media because of law enforcement, because law enforcement doing real investigation. Because these departments of security don't have the ability to subpoena people they can't get people under oath that sort of thing it's basically like their own Gestapo for each of these leads. Wow I mean obviously there's a lot of money involved we know they have security but i bet a lot of people haven't thought of it like that

34:38 Another thing I was gonna say, you mentioned larceny games and in the intro to that book you say that to knowledgeable sports fans some of the names involved in these FBI files that you looked at will be really surprising. Who are some of the people involved that surprised you the most or do you think would shock sports fans? Well there was...and I'm not going remember the exact number now because it's been a couple years but I mean there is probably six or eight Hall-of-Famers in basketball and the NFL that were named FBI files as potentially either gambling on their own sport, which should have gotten them kicked out of the sport or potentially fixing games. Which also should have gotten kicked out of the sport who really if the FBI files are to be believed all those guys should be expelled from their respective Hall of Fames like tomorrow. And I mean the other big name I think in the FBI files is Muhammad Ali

35:31 because they believed that Muhammad Ali was involved in fixing fights. Really? That's uh... Yeah He is a hero to many people aren't gonna want to hear that No, well exactly. People don't want to hear that but again if you think about the history of boxing and how corrupt that is and how many times they've fixed fights to make other fights happen why would it be surprising to anyone that Ali would be involved in that in some way shape or form? But what the FBI files showed... going back to larceny games on the media because I like telling this story cause I don't often get too but When that book came out, I mean, I'm the first one to get access to all those files. Okay? That's the first one to do it. Actually wound up on a list at the FBI there's me and like 30 other guys on this list because we asked for apparently too many Freedom of Information Act requests around this Bexham filer listed the FBI has So I'm even known to the FBI now

36:26 But when this book was coming out, my publisher was contacted by ESPN Sports Illustrated. HBO sports were contacted by 60 minutes were contacted all these different outlets because again I was the first one to find this information talks about Hall of Fame athletes gambling on their own sport or fixing games so it's not stuff I've made up this is FBI investigative work should be pretty reliable for at least some people some people don't trust yeah but Let's trust them for the moment. So we were contacted by all these different sports outlets and then not a single one of them covered the book in any way, shape or form. No one wrote a review of it. No one said this book is the worst thing written. Nobody says this is best thing written. Nobody followed up on any of the stuff I had written about except for The New York Post

37:13 The New York Post found one story in my book about members of the New York Knicks in the early 80s fixing games, shaving points as a favor to their cocaine dealer. And the New York Post picked up on that and wrote a story about it which went viral! Which surprised the heck out of me and literally after the author contacted me said okay you know this stories up on The New York Post's website like 20 minutes later he said oh you know Sports Illustrated picked up on this and then went viral And it went everywhere except on ESPN's websites. ESPN refused to touch that story, of course. ESPN is also the prime broadcast partner of the National Basketball Association so why would they want a story even if it's a 30-year old story but a story about NBA players cocaine point shaving and all that stuff potentially scarring their image and scarring their broadcast partners' image? But

38:05 It's the truth. Anybody can go out and you can Google Nick's point shaving cocaine, and you'll see that article repeated ad nauseum but you won't see it on ESPN It's funny how that works out. But I mean, again it shows...I'm just writing about sports and that happens to me when people are writing about more important things what's happening to them? Right amen! That's what concerns me. That's my worry is like geez this is just sport who cares you know? I mean the 30 year old basketball game who cares well apparently ESPN still cares the NBA still cares and they should make you little worried

38:44 It should and you know money's money and billionaires are billionaires so they got their ways of getting it. So I did want to step back to Ali for a minute because he is such a holy figure in sports, and some people might still be twitching from those claims that he wasn't on the up-and-up. Are there any specific fights or specific claims against him that you remember? Well, against him specifically it really goes to when he fought Spinks at the end of his career. Really the first two major fights he had against Sonny Liston when he won originally won the heavyweight championship and then this very next fight in which he defended it against Liston both those fights are fixed. Liston took a dive on both of them there's that ultimate famous picture of Ali standing over Liston basically telling him to get up I think everybody thinks so but well that was Liston took a dive

39:34 Muhammad Ali was telling them to get up because he knew he didn't hit Liston, Liston was just laying there. Really? That's the story behind that picture. Yeah, it wasn't a straight fight. Liston was heavily owned by organized crime and the mob and he threw to the first heavyweight championship fight and he actually owned a piece of Ali's next fight which wouldn't have been worth anything if he beat Ali in that initial heavyweight championship fight because then Ali would have been nothing so we threw to the fight gave Ali the title then was involved in the rematch And then through that fight as well. But going back to Ali and Spinks, when the FBI files I found was a member of Spinks' camp and you have to remember this is, I think what 80 81 somewhere in there Ali was old he wasn't really in good shape and Spinks had had something like seven or eight professional fights and yet he was given a shot at the heavyweight title against Ali

40:35 Which made no sense. And he beat Ali and he won the heavyweight title, and before their rematch one of Spinks' entourage that doesn't really say I don't remember if it says this specifically in the file or not came to the FBI and said look this rematch is fixed! And they said this is how the fight's going to play out and Ali's gonna win his heavyweight title back And he said, if this is really what happens. He goes I'll come back to you FBI and give you more information and the guy was 100% accurate. Dead on right what happened in that fight but apparently never went back to the FBI and the FBI closed the file Wow so they didn't care? There's other people there's actually some other people who have confirmed pretty much I mean not just some people here but it confirms Ali through with original Spinks fight

41:21 To give spinks the heavyweight title so he could beat him in the rematch to be the first person to ever win The Heavyweight Crown three times Damn, man. I know what people tell me? I ruined sports form though. I apologize now You know affecting people when you There might be a few people screaming into their smartphones but I say let's shatter those illusions yeah And another point about the mob being heavily involved, talk to us about Lefty Rosenthal. He used to fix games quite a bit there's a couple of good stories about him he's actually the character Robert De Niro is based on in Casino tell us what you know about him? Yeah Lefty was a known game fixer as well he was one of the mafia's favorite gamblers to a certain extent but lefty he was kind of a character I mean

42:11 allegedly would because he worked the college circuit. He wasn't involved in fixing professional games, because back when he was operating which is 1950s professional games didn't mean as much people forget that to you know, the NFL in the 1950s paled in comparison and popularity to college And same with basketball. The NBA was nothing compared to college basketball, and college basketball was huge! And Lefty was involved in fixing games in both college football and basketball. He would actually get college basketball players to practice missing layups so it looked more convincing when they did it. I mean that's the guy who is working for his money there getting kids to practice missing the layups so it looked more realistic when they did throw up a brick like that. There's this story too which I heard from two different people

42:55 Although it involved two different teams, but essentially the same story that Rosenthal was based a lot of times around Chicago and It was either I think Oklahoma or Michigan. I think were the two competing teams one or the other was coming to Chicago to play Northwestern and Rosenthal actually invited that visiting team out to dinner the whole time the whole team to a restaurant in Chicago and then poisoned them. And he had bet heavily on Northwestern to win, who were the underdog and he gave food poisoning to the entire other team be it Michigan or Oklahoma I forget which one it was...and won his bet because he fixed the game by poisoning the kids. Bold move! Yeah that's great move. I even heard actually that had happened in the NFL at one point time in the 70s

43:45 That's a similar thing that I think it was Tampa Bay was visiting the Vikings and supposedly couple of guys gave food poisoning to Tampa Bay, to make sure that the Viking covered and won their game. That's nuts! And logistically if you wanted to rig a game how many players on a team do you need in your pocket to do it effectively? Do you think Well, that's a good question. It depends what I suppose you're trying to do? If you're just trying to shave points which is for gambling purposes really the main thing to do if you have one basketball player you have 20% of the team

44:23 And a team operating at 100% can probably beat the team operating at 80%, right? I mean, that's all you need. You need one dude! In the NFL, if you just had a quarterback or even an offensive lineman but I had one gambler tell me look give me a quarterback and offensive lineman and defensive back for a team and I can fix any game out there Just give me those three players. I think even referees, you get a single referee who throws the flag at the right time or calls the right type of fouls and can manipulate the game. The hardest one teams-wise to fix would probably be something like baseball because even if you had a pitcher in your pocket and he gave up eight runs in two innings it doesn't mean that team won't come back and score nine.

45:12 If you're just trying to shade things in your favor as a gambler, and that's what a lot of sports gamblers are always looking for is just that slight edge. If you had the pitcher in your pocket and he did give up eight runs, you'd still feel pretty confident that other team's not gonna come back and score tonight. Not saying it couldn't happen but it does help your cause, that's for sure. Right! And slight edge really is a key term here because I was really shocked by these statistics of sports betting that you're only aiming to be right like 55% of the time and each percentage point is an insane multiplier, you have a breakdown from a professional gambler named Steve Fresnick. And he says that if you had just a 60 percent record

45:54 thousand dollars and bet 10% of your bankroll on a game-a-day, which is a pretty aggressive schedule in five years just being right 60 percent of the time you'd have 550 billion dollars? I mean Jesus man that doesn't even really seem possible. Well that's the amazing thing with sports gambling and why i think a lot people question Las Vegas' connection to leagues like the NBA and NFL because we have to win 53% of your bets to be profitable. That doesn't seem like much because it's basically a coin toss, just above 50-50 or 53%. How hard is that? But really in the long haul they've shown that even the best guys who do this professionally have an incredibly hard time winning over 55-60 percent of their bets in the course

46:45 The longer it goes out, the worse people do. People can go on streaks where they could win 100% of their bets short enough streak but some guys can have incredible streaks and they've seen seasons where guys can hit 70 percent of their bets. They're not necessarily betting like the way that guy I talk about in the book says you would because that's kind of crazy bettyness it is but it is very difficult to make a living as being a sports gambler. A lot of people I think think it's easy because it's like, oh all you gotta do is pick a winner how hard is that? Well try it! Try beating the points bet. Don't bet money doing it just keep track of it in the book and see how well you do because you'd be surprised it's not as easy as it looks these guys who do it spend a large amount of time breaking down games analyzing certain factors to get what they find like you say just that little X factor that seems favorable and their

47:40 side and then they bet it. Because they're not betting all 16 games every Sunday on the NFL, they may look at all 16 games to bet one. They may bet zero because they don't see an edge anywhere so it just kind of depends. And you mentioned that baseball could be one of the harder ones to rig are there sports you think are most susceptible to rigging? Well I think individual like boxing UFC, boxing is proven. Tennis is another one because that's an individual sport where you get to one person and you've got the game. If we look at it internationally soccer which I

48:17 Which I would think is extremely hard to fix. Apparently, it's extremely easy to fix! I mean, I don't understand how you'd fix a soccer match when you've got 11 guys seemingly running around in all different directions on each side but yet they're so good these guys who are fixing soccer matches some cases they can literally say we want this game to end 3-1 and the game will end three two one because that's what they fixed it for It's one of those things where you hate to say it, but wherever there is money involved corruption will follow. So it's just a matter of how much money can you make? How much will cost you potentially alter the outcome of the game and do you do the math and then go out there and a lot times I mean I don't think he could just fix again because you want to fix the game. Obviously if they have in but if you look at human nature everybody has weakness

49:07 And it doesn't matter if you're Peyton Manning, it doesn't matter for Tom Brady or LeBron James. Everybody's got problems. Everybody has weaknesses and if somebody finds a way to exploit that and press the right buttons you can get people to do things you'd think were impossible. Always nothing new under the sun. I wanted to ask about a couple of specific events in sports that might give us some insight that I've heard you talk about a little bit before. For example, LeBron's last game what are your thinks up with that? But what do you mean LeBron? You mean Kobe Bryant's? I don't think LeBron is done yet. I think he still goes.

49:51 a victory to our going away party this whole past season. Why? I don't know, but that's what the NBA wanted and for some reason that's what other teams allowed to happen and then in the final game it was absurd if a true basketball fan looked at their final game and he scored something like you can't remember now 60 points or something like that i think and looked at the game i mean you would realize there was no way that game was really legitimate because a really legitimate nba basketball Because that's just sort of the way it is. I think Kobe Bryant took the most shots of any player in that game for like, the past 20 or 25 years

50:28 They were basically saying this is Kobe's final game. Kobe's gonna do what the fans wanted to see him do I mean he was in at home and LA The fans wanted him to go out with a bang and He went out with a bang in the NBA gave them exactly what they wanted And if that doesn't prove the fans that this is just show business entertainment What else can? Right, I think that's a great case study It is, because if you're going to tell me that every game counts and every game matters, explain that Kobe Bryant game to me. Because you can't! I don't think you can make a valid argument for it for anything but entertainment in the show and production. And then if you say well, it was just the final game and there's meaningless game then you're on this slippery slope.

51:13 Tell me then what other games were meaningless. What, you know, what games are meaningful? Which matters I mean you can't hey once you open that can of worms like it said that could be wrong 99% Of the time but if i'm right at one percent of the time Then use mr.. Sports fan have problems yeah, I mean what about the other team Yeah exactly right they don't care. It's kobe's last game. Yeah who told them to lay down oh And why did they listen? Yeah, that's a great one. You also have an interesting take on Jordan's first retirement. Tell us a little bit about that. I've lived in and around Chicago basically. My whole life, Michael Jordan when he was on the polls for the NBA was a god! People forget because now it's been a few years that he wasn't just a Chicago

52:07 a Chicago Bull, he literally was the NBA. And he wasn't really just the NBA, he was also McDonald's and Chevrolet and Nike and all of the other endorsement deals that you had. The guy lent a lot of money to a lot of people and it has pretty much been proven that Michael Jordan has a gambling problem. He's a compulsive gambler and my argument is, and I don't actually think it's an argument, I think it's reality of the situation, is that he was gambling while he was playing in the NBA and he was known to be gambling on golf and losing money at golf to a known cocaine dealer for one and another shady character he owed about $1 million from playing golf who's basically a hustler

52:48 And a lot of people think he was gambling on sports as well, and potentially even gambling on NBA games. This kind of started to come out in the news at least the gambling on golf did and my belief is that the NBA came in held meetings with Jordan and their owner, Jerry Reinstorf, they're owners of both, basically said we gotta shut Jordan down because we can't have this huge scandal erupt because it's too much money for too many people And so we're going to make Jordan go away. So his father had been killed, but there's actually speculation that his father was killed because of his gambling and because of his connections to this cocaine dealer and what have you. But, his father was killed so it kind of gave Jordan a note. And Jordan said I'm going to retire my dad's got see my last game etc., etc.. I want to spend more time with my family and wife who he is now divorced from we never spent time with the family. He wound up playing baseball for Chicago Bulls owners minor league baseball team but basically I think he never retired he was forced out of the NBA to get help

53:46 to make this gambling problem go away. And once he did retire, the NBA's investigation and all this vanished, sports media's investigation and all this vanished. And then when it came back a little over a year later they just picked up and were like hooray Michael Jordan is back! Nobody remembered the gambling thing that happened and it just vanished Wow. I love it, man. I love the possible notorious subtext to these major storylines that hit the mainstream and I got sucked into the bulls too as a kid in the Midwest Jordan Pippen Rodman Kerr Coo coach liked...I liked that team It was when that team fell apart that I was like okay I can't follow sports anymore am i supposed to just care about everybody for all time every replacement is never gonna end

54:33 I mean, that's the thing is especially with Jordan because Jordan was he was a special entity but at the same time when you talk about manipulating games and the league manipulating games. And I got a couple videos. I think they're still up on my website where you can watch the way they officiated Jordan it was not like the way they officiated everybody else. They made sure he was successful because again, he meant money to everybody so the officiating was different for Michael Jordan than it was for everybody else And if you can do that, if you want to say okay well that's helping Michael Jordan. Well that's helping the Bulls and it's affecting wins and losses. It's affecting a lot of things. I think you could see that again today with a lot of players LeBron and Steph Curry and some these other guys

55:17 It's the same situation because the NBA is star driven and they need those stars for people to tune in a watch They need the Kobe Bryant's. They need that sort of poppin circumstance surrounding it So the only way didn't sure that happens is when the player does catch on You give them a little extra space and wins or losses be damned you want to make sure that guy succeeds Yeah It makes sense. And I don't know the name of the team, but you mentioned one NFL team who had a great season and turns out they never had a holding call that's something critics should probably look at right? Well that was the Green Bay Packers it wasn't that they never had a holding call it was

55:58 The year they, they once went undefeated. They went 15 and one but then they lost the very first playoff game as a couple of seasons ago I forget which but i just happen to be tracking penalties in the NFL because people sometimes call me crazy for saying games are fixed and I'm like look you have a subjective penalty in the NFL like pass interference, you have a subjective penalty like offensive holding. I was like how often do these things occur and how do they affect the outcome of the game? Well here that the Packers went 15-1 there were 11 other 16 games in which they played offensive holding was never called on the Green Bay Packers

56:35 And this is a penalty that a lot of NFL pundits would say happens on every play, if not at least on every other play. So how is it that the Green Bay Packers who are happened to be led by a star quarterback in Aaron Rodgers go 11 games without a single offensive holding call against their line? That should be impossible. It shouldn't happen and amazingly again because they didn't have a lot of penalties held against them They had amazing success And of course when the NFL's trying to build its star quarterbacks doesn't it help when you got a guy like Aaron Rodgers get a little extra time a little extra protection does he get penalized for that extra time in protection? Because his offensive line is cheating because

57:14 Nobody's calling the cheating on them. That's how games get manipulated and like, say it may not be being done to make sure that Packers win a maybe being done just to help Aaron Rogers succeed but those things kind of go hand in hand so yeah you know make up your own mind on that seems uh little bit obvious to me and let's say forcing games to a seven game series in the playoffs that seems to happen quite often right It seems to I mean it's probably not as often as people think but it probably happens more often than it should. Which is never really if you're being honest well in many ways, there was a guy he worked for the Rand Corporation of all things back in the 60s he wrote an investigative paper on whether or not the World Series had been fixed

58:04 This was back in the late 60s and his argument was that The World Series is going to Game 7 more often than it should have And this is before Major League Baseball had all the other playoff series It just had a World Series, and he said look if it's being fixed the reasons be fixed would basically for all the reasons We've been talking about you know more ticket sales more beer sales more parking more revenue More money basically for the league and through his statistical analysis which I cannot follow for life of me because It's been too many years since I had my calculus class in high school. But his conclusion was that, yeah the World Series had reached Game 7 more often than it should have and this was back in the 60s and actually during the 70s and early 80s Game 7 occurred even more often in the World Series And so you base it on what you want but this guy back in the 60 said this is happening because of the same reason we're discussing today but again sports fans don't

59:00 don't want to hear it. Sports media doesn't want to cover it because that's how they make the money, right? So what do you consider to be if you had to pick one of the biggest fixed games in sports history I think one of the biggest ones for a business purpose, my opinion is Super Bowl III. Which was the Joe name of Super Bowl where you guaranteed to win because it was back then that NFL was merging with this rival league at the AFL which became the AFC and the NFL became the NFC today's modern NFL but there were two rival leagues at the time and they were emerging

59:43 And a lot of people, a lot of fans I should say didn't buy the AFL in terms of credibility. It had only been around for about less than 10 years and fans weren't accepting their brand of football And so the owners of both leagues were concerned because there was a lot of money at stake. After they played the first two Super Bowls in which the NFL champions, which happened to be the Packers basically just wiped the field with the AFC's challengers, there was real concern. So when it came to this Super Bowl III, the Baltimore Colts were the representative for the NFL and the Colts are literally until this day one of the greatest NFL teams that ever played

1:00:27 And yet they lost the Super Bowl to the Jets and Joe Namath, which were the third place AFL team that season. I think that game was fixed and it was fixed to make sure that the Jets won because it helped save the merger in the owners' minds. It helped legitimize the AFL for NFL fans and literally created the modern day NFL. And if you look at it as business, which is how again we've been talking about. You should look at these things in the business There's the best business decision to make was to make sure that game Wound up with the Jets winning because of all the money and meant everybody involved

1:01:07 I wouldn't be surprised. That's an interesting saga. Just say, just say that I'm right with that one game okay? That game was fixed for the Jets and no other game has been fixed in the NFL since that point in time you still have to question the NFL's integrity because if they did it at one time for business reasons That's all you need to make you say, well what about this game? What about that game? What about any of it. Because if you did it once… It's like having a spouse who cheats on ya. I only cheated on you once, honky. Well okay but where are you going tonight?

1:01:45 And that's all it takes is just one time and it throws everything for a loop. I think smart fans, if they've been watching sports especially in this day and age with the HDTVs and instant replays and that sort of thing, and they haven't seen enough crazy calls made by officials on the way things work out for certain teams at certain times and don't think something's going on behind-the-scenes to make sure that happens I think you see it more often than you'd believe. Once you start looking for it, you can't not see it! I mean, you've pointed out some great examples so far. And the last random sports event I wanted to ask you about is Tyson biting Holyfield's ear? I haven't ever really heard you comment on this but you can argue that this is one of the strangest things and one of the biggest media firestorms to come out of sports. I've heard there's a lot of corruption in Tyson's career in general with his management and Don King and stuff

1:02:40 Do you have any thoughts, any deeper thoughts on that situation with Tyson and Holyfield? Actually no. That's something I either... You're the first person to ever ask me about that. That was just too weird for words is what it boils down to. Obviously Tyson's not I met him once, but he's just not normal. He is one of those guys that are just not right and I think there was moments when the not-right in his head took over and we saw what happened from it. But I don't think that was staged or hey Mike Gwinder bite his ear off! That was one of those things that happened.

1:03:32 Anyway, when you talk about these fixed sporting defenses... Guys have bad games. Strange things do happen in games and sometimes the underdog is going to upset the favorite. It doesn't mean games are fixed because certain things happen but again I think you have to start looking at it more rationally as a fan and then some of these things will jump out at you being just a little too coincidental for your liking And as weird as that one was, you're right. Maybe there's nothing deeper there. Maybe the guy who tattooed his face also just bit a man's ear? Yeah! Go figure... There are just weird people out there. Man well do you have any predictions or anything based on patterns that you've seen in this type of sports fixing? You've been looking at it for so long. Any championships you see happening based on your study?

1:04:25 People ask me that all the time when I run into problems making predictions because if I predict something and it's right, then a lot of times they'll hear well everybody knew that. Everybody knew that was going to happen and then if I predict something and it's wrong, then they say well you see you don't know what you're talking about so I can never win making predictions because I get one or the other and I kind of predicted The Saints would play the Colts in the Super Bowl when that happened halfway through the season. And it was one of those situations where everybody said, well everybody knew that would happen because they were not two best teams. That's still pretty good prediction on my part but for me because I don't think necessarily that a league like the NFL or the NBA will say we're going to have Team X win. We're going to fix the entire season to make sure this team wins. I don't think they do that.

1:05:17 Like I said, they'll see something develop naturally. And I think the Golden State Warriors this past season were an excellent team. I don't think the NBA really had to rig much to get them into the finals. They were just that good of a team so they went with it as a good storyline but other things like you say, like the Saints after Hurricane Katrina, that's one of those things where maybe the league said look, this is a good story we can milk it If we can give them a little help here, give them a little help in this game. We can push them a little farther than they need to be and then that's good business." Then they will step in and do those sorts of things so I think it's kind of an opportunity that they see when it crops up. That's when they'll push certain things into being but I'm going to say the Raiders are going to win the Super Bowl because I think its fixed for them to win. I don't think thats the case at this point time but if you watch sports and you watch

1:06:10 How the media covers it in the pregame shows and how certain players and teams are hyped I think you can usually get a good sense actually the way things might be being pushed Because those are the best stories for the league And that's what they think is going to drive them most fans so their televisions would make them the most money Yeah, makes total sense Right on. Well, very cool that just about does it for us man but before we go do remind the people about your website and the numerous books you got out there if they want to dig deeper into the topic? Well the best place to go my website is TheFixIsIn.net

1:06:46 All my books are there, they're all a mouthful in terms of actual titles. The short titles, The Fix is In!, Larceny Games and Season in the Abyss are the sports books and like I say you can find them on thefixisin.net and the books are available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble and hopefully your local bookstore wherever good books are sold you can find them. And then there's lot of information like I said on my website that people could just read for free if their interested And if they want to email me too, I'm always open to questions. My email's on the website too and they can find it there. Awesome Brian! Well thanks so much this has been a great show very unique i loved it a real treat for me and anyone else who might feel a bit jaded from growing up around sports fanatics and always felt like the odd man out but thanks again man do be careful out there messing with people's money can be a dangerous thing yes it can well thank you greg i appreciate having me

1:07:40 You got it. Take care, man! Have a good night! There it is people... Brian Tuohy great guest right? Kind of a show that's just for fun maybe some people will hear this and say you know what I have sort of made this random sports team a big part of my life or identity and maybe I'm getting played here I know, i used to love Pawn Stars until i was watching an episode where someone pawned a Dreamcatcher and then later they returned to buy it back. And i thought hey that item that he was handed back looked a little different. Sure enough, i looked up online several other people had found the same thing but the color of the feathers were different! The illusion was broken and never watched Pawn Stars again save myself hours

1:08:24 A similar thing happened with Storage Wars. You really think they're finding all these gems and first edition Spider-Mans in these bullshit storage containers that people decided to stop paying on? Come on! And if these shows are staged, there's literally no enjoyment left. And I hope some people have started to think more about sports in that sense after listening to Brian It's the legal framework I find most interesting. It is illegal to offer a bribe from outside the organization, but then in the lawsuit about football games and their integrity it was ruled that if you pay to see a football game and you see one... That's it! It doesn't have to be fair. It doesn't have to be real. It's just entertainment and the illusion of competition

1:09:05 But I can't harp on it too much. I don't want to come off as smug and arrogant, believe me! I have plenty of stupid time-wasting hobbies and I watch plenty of bad shows Between my surprise that David didn't end up with Sarah in the latest season of Naked Dating And my 200th game of Overwatch...I'm not really stepping out to cast the first stone here but i like to sniff out corruption examine the way people are manipulated and cover rarely discussed topics and I think we hit a trifecta tonight I believe it was in the plus half of the show where we talked about the connection between sports and politics. I can't really remember, but it did make me think back to The Russ Baker Show about The Bush Family and how a major factor in getting George W elected governor of Texas was his association with the Texas Rangers. You got a bunch of screaming fans you put this smiling moron on the jumbotron and his name on the ballot and people just vote for the guy that they see at the games

1:10:02 I hate to think it's that simple but, i think we all know that it kind of is. So its not just harmless fun here! We should remember that and thats gonna put the capstone on the September pyramid for THC. We got pretty good shows Mary Joyce with underground military bases and little people legends in North Carolina area The 6th triumphant return of Gordon White talking largely about campfires edge and pieces of eight Scott Santens with the Universal Basic Income Exploration Show, Walter Bosley and the Origins of the Breakaway Civilization. And now Brian Toohey with Sports Conspiracy Goodness I think September was a great month Maybe you'll finally sign up for THC Plus and get what you've been missing if you've been missing it...I don't know

1:10:49 It's an easy process. You can sign up at thehighersidechatsplus.com and you can also see the first five sites from the Graham Hancock Armenia trip last year, got that going this month too so I'm feeling good feeling accomplished! And i hope you're feeling good to keep your head up your feet moving in your pimp hands strong and hopefully The Rockefeller Rothschild Cog-in-The Wheel reality will be a distant memory for more and more of us going forward but the game on Sunday is It's a distraction to keep you from escaping the trap of work on Monday. Don't fall for it, people! I've done all I can Your move sorcerers of the sports spell Distraction dealers and fix facilitators For this sad sad world of entertainment addicts? You're fucking moved Well they tie that yellow ribbon round the oak tree They've worn out all their prayer in their hearts

1:11:44 All along thought they were rooting for the home team As they're sent to the game and torn apart We twist this tourniquet upon the pipeline That it carries all the pain in the world As we blindly clap and cheer from the sidelines It's clear, on a losing streak from the very start And that's where they found me In the cemetery A smoking gun in my hand Now I'm down for the land of the free THC, The American Dream They took that faded ribbon off the oak tree They've worn out all hope in their arms

1:12:55 For so long thought I was doing the right thing Now i'm lying in a pool of my blood And that's where they found me In the cemetery A smoking gun in my damn From the land of the free Sing with me, and that's where they found me In the cemetery

1:13:33 A smoking guy in my ear Now I'm down from the land of the free THC The American scream And that's where they found me In my cemetery

1:14:17 I'm down for more than a refrain Sing with me, the only one who can't scream