Mark Bernstein notes that the NBA (and by extension, all sports) are going to take a bath over the referee fixing scandal. I hadn't followed this at all, but it harkens back to the Black Sox scandal. That's where the office of the commissioner of baseball came from, and it's why baseball is still very unforgiving (organizationally) of even a whiff of gambling:

For years, I've wanted to meet a veteran sports reporter socially, just to ask whether they thought the games were on the level. Now we pretty much know what has long been suspected: some of the games are rigged. (For example, someone made a list of the games that Donaghy worked last year, where the over/under spread moved more than 1.5 points. That's ten games: the over covered in all ten. Ouch.)

My point is: whatever happens, the story gets bigger. If Donaghy fingers other refs or players, it gets bigger. If he doesn't, people will analyze every minute of every game and they'll find every discrepancy -- and every hint of cooperation with other refs. And that makes the story bigger. If Donaghy is convicted, the story gets bigger. If he isn’t, there will always be a suspicion that the fix was in, that a wealthy league and wealthy owners secured an acquittal.

In many ways, this is worse than a player throwing a game. The refs are supposed to be objective - if you can't trust them, who can you trust?

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