Random Biggest Sports-Related Conspiracy Theories (21 items)

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  (#1) The 1972 US Basketball Team Got Robbed

  One of the most controversial endings in sports history, the US Men’s Basketball team lost to the Soviet team in the Finals of the 1972 Olympics, with Russia getting three chances to score a winning basket.

  A combination of unclear rules, seemingly random clock stoppages and bizarre referee decisions gave the Soviet team enough chances to win 51-50, kicking off 40 years of accusations and denials, with the American team never having accepted their silver medals.
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  (#2) The NBA Is Totally Rigged

  Ever since NBA referee Tim Donaghy went public with his involvement in gambling and on influencing the outcome of games, sports writers and fans have had concrete evidence to back up what they’ve suspected all along: that the league is rigged to allow the best teams to make the most money, with lucrative playoff series being extended and star players being earmarked for major franchises.

  It was Donaghy who first stated outright that the infamous Game 6 of the 2002 Western Conference Finals was fixed to extend the series and keep the Lakers alive. Of course, Donaghy himself has put himself in a position to profit from this rigging, selling betting tips and keeping himself in the news.
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  (#3) The Lakers Were Kept Alive By The NBA

  Did the NBA conspire to keep the Los Angeles Lakers from getting knocked out of the NBA playoffs in 2002? Game 6 of the series has widely been accused of being rigged in order to keep TV ratings high. And on the surface, it’s plausible. A rash of free throws coming off of questionable fouls gave the Lakers the chance to build an insurmountable lead while forcing top Sacramento Kings players out of the game.

  However, the Lakers still had to actually hit their free throws – something even a crooked ref can’t do. Also, it was only Game 6, with no guarantee that the Lakers would win a Game 7.
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  (#4) Patrick Ewing And The Frozen Envelope

  Long one of the most popular rumors in NBA history, the Patrick Ewing frozen envelope theory has the league rigging their draft lottery (long thought to be crooked) to get the biggest college star to the team in the biggest market, a flailing franchise that desperately needed a superstar.

  Then NBA Commissioner David Stern has always laughed off the rumor that his league fixed the lottery, and New York getting the first pick in 1985 is just one of many longshot draft lottery happenings – all of which are next to impossible to prove.
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  (#5) The Head Of Maradona, The Hand Of God

  Was the most famous goal in world soccer history, Diego Maradona’s infamous “Hand of God” goal in the 1986 World Cup against England, actually punched in by the Argentinian striker?

  Maradona has, in his usual gadfly style, fanned the flames of the controversy, while subsequent photographic evidence has shown pretty clearly that Maradona palmed the ball in, meaning it shouldn’t have counted. But it did, and a legend was born.
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  (#6) Delonte West Hooked Up With LeBron James's Mom

  One of the strangest rumors to hit pro sports in recent years is that former Cleveland Cavaliers player Delonte West was carrying on affair with LeBron James’s mother – and that when it came to light, it destroyed the team and ended West’s NBA career. The source of the rumor was an email that started going around the day after the Cavs were eliminated from the 2010 NBA playoffs by Boston.

  As with almost all chain emails, its original source is lost to history, with the whistleblower being anyone from a contractor at the Cavs home arena to a relative of James to some guy somebody knew. The fact that it was impossible to attribute also made it impossible to kill, and it went from chain email to national news in a week. Since then James left, and then went back to the Cavs, while West bombed out of the NBA and started playing in China. 
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  (#7) Michael Jordan's Father Was Murdered Because Of Gambling Debt

  Michael Jordan’s gambling habit was always an open secret among NBA fans. In fact, his retirement in 1993 is thought by many to have been a secret suspension because of his betting woes.

  So when Jordan’s father was shot dead in 1993, seemingly at random by two men trying to rob him, rumors flew that the two were connected. However, the two killers later said they didn’t know who James Jordan was at the time, only that they stumbled on a Lexus parked in the back roads of North Carolina, and thought it was theirs for the taking.
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  (#8) #Deflategate

  Immediately after flattening the Indianapolis Colts 45-7 and earning yet another trip to the Super Bowl, the New England Patriots were accused of intentionally deflating their game balls to give themselves an advantage. A subsequent investigation found that the Patriots had indeed played with 11 of their 12 allotted game balls deflated slightly. But it’s also apparent that the under-inflated balls had little to no effect on the game itself, considering the score was 45-7.
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  (#9) Sonny Liston Took A Dive For Muhammad Ali

  It’s long been thought that Sonny Liston took a dive for Muhammad Ali (then still fighting under his birth name of Cassius Clay) when they fought for the second time in 1965. Ali’s “phantom punch” knocked Liston down in the first round, despite barely connecting with the fighter. There were rumors of some kind of mafia involvement, or possibly that Liston was deep in debt and bet against himself.

  No investigation ever proved that anything untoward happened, and everyone involved denied the same. At worst, Liston might have realized Clay was going to beat the stuffing out of him, and wanted no part of it.
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  (#10) Michael Jordan Was Actually Hungover During The Flu Game

  Game 5 of the 1997 NBA Finals was one of Michael Jordan’s most legendary performances in a career full of them. Fighting a nasty flu bug, Jordan scored 38 points and led the Bulls to a decisive win. But did Jordan actually have the flu? His personal trainer claimed Jordan actually had food poisoning, caused by a dodgy pizza delivered in the middle of the night.

  Meanwhile, NBA commentator and former player Jalen Rose claims Jordan was actually hungover from a night of partying, and that the NBA cooked up the flu story to cover for Jordan. The circumstantial evidence doesn’t point in that direction (indeed, Jordan looks like he's in agony when he's not on the court), and Jordan has never wavered from the fact that was simply battling a bug.
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  (#11) The NFL Ordered The Super Bowl Blackout

  When the lights went out on Super Bowl XLVII, of course conspiracies followed. One says that the NFL caused the blackout in order to increase their ratings, because people who had turned the game off would go back to it to see what was happening. While it’s true that ratings probably would have eroded if the game was a blowout, television networks don’t get people to turn in by having things not happen.

  And while there might have been more airtime to run ads, it didn’t matter, because CBS had already sold all of the ads they were going to sell, and were forced to repeat spots. Which is exactly the opposite of what they wanted to happen.
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  (#12) Brett Favre Retired Early To Distance Himself From Scandal

  After being cut by the Green Bay Packers, quarterback Brett Favre spent one difficult year with the New York Jets, which culminated in the NFL fining him for sexual harassment.

  The investigation into Favre’s misconduct coincided with the last year of his career, 2010, with speculation rising up that Favre faked an injury and retired, rather than have his career ended due to his own shenanigans. In the end though, it’s obvious that Favre was in no shape to play anymore, and hadn’t been for some time.
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  (#13) The NFL Is Run By The Mob

  Organized crime and professional sports went together hand in glove during the early days of pro leagues. The influence of gambling and bookmakers is well known regarding baseball, but the mob also had its immaculately gloved hands all over professional football in the '20s and '30s. Several teams were either financed or outright owned by bookies, including the Chicago Bears, New York Giants, Pittsburgh Steelers, and the original Cleveland Browns.

  Many of these teams are still owned by descendants of these families, and with illegal NFL gambling being a $100 billion industry (yes, billion with a B) it’s not hard to imagine some of these ancient connections still bearing fruit for modern bookies. The NFL works hard to keep the game free of gambling influence, but also doesn’t do anything to discourage people from wagering on games.
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  (#14) Bobby Riggs Took A Dive In The Battle Of The Sexes

  Did Bobby Riggs intentionally lose to Billie Jean King in the “Battle of the Sexes” tennis match to settle his gambling debts? Neither Riggs nor King ever claimed anything of the sort. King claimed she played as if Riggs was trying to beat her, and that she was just the better player that day.

  And though the game was played under normal rules of tennis (as opposed to rules modified to help King), Riggs was 25 years older than King and far from in top shape. He was also unprepared and assumed he’d have no trouble beating King.
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  (#15) Jimmy Hoffa Is Buried Under The Old Giants Stadium

  More of an old fashioned urban legend than a rumor, this theory holds that the famously disappeared union boss was killed by the mob and buried somewhere under Giants Stadium in New Jersey. It would theoretically be possible to prove this, by digging up every inch of the old stadium.

  But the fact that the police have never bothered should tell you everything you need to know about what they think of the theory.
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  (#16) Super Bowl III Was Fixed

  Super Bowl III, in which Joe Namath guaranteed victory for his upstart New York Jets, was a pivotal moment for the NFL. They had just merged with the AFL, but the NFL teams had proven themselves far superior. Another Super Bowl win by an NFL team might have proven the AFL to be inherently inferior, and driven fans away. So did the league arrange for the team it needed to win to, in fact, win?

  That was the opinion of Baltimore Colts player Bubba Smith, who theorized that the league rigged the game to allow the more lucrative AFL team to beat his Colts. While the Jets, who were an 18.5 point underdog, pulled off an unthinkable upset, it was just as likely due to the Colts playing poorly and underestimating the Jets, rather than shenanigans by the NFL.
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  (#17) Roger Clemens Was Secretly Suspended

  Like Brett Favre, the end of Roger Clemens’s career was highlighted (or not) by a series of short retirements and one year deals, the hallmark of a player who can’t play at the highest level anymore but can’t bring himself to admit it. But one of these retirements wasn’t like the others: when Clemens was signed by the Houston Astros in May, 2006, rumors swirled that he’d actually served out a secret suspension for steroid use, and that when it was over, he was free to sign with anyone.

  The time Clemens was “retired” matches with the 50 game suspensions baseball was handing out for steroids, but the Astros didn’t sign Clemens out of pity or shock value – they gave him a ton of money because they wanted to get back to the World Series. It didn’t last, and Clemens retired, un-retired, and retired again next season, that time for good.
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  (#18) Tyson vs. Douglas Was Fixed

  Mike Tyson was the most accomplished, most feared, and most powerful heavyweight boxer on the planet in 1990. And yet he lost a title fight to Buster Douglas, a guy perceived as an overweight tomato can that Tyson would destroy. Obvious candidate for a fix, right? Boxing experts agree that while Tyson went into the bout as the superior fighter, he was under-prepared and took his win for granted, not counting on running into an opponent who trained maniacally and would have the night of his life.

  Douglas never repeated his success, and once he got a huge payday for fighting Evander Holyfield, faded into obscurity.
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  (#19) Magic Johnson Booted Donald Sterling

  After former Clippers owner Donald Sterling was banned by the NBA, a conspiracy that Magic Johnson set him up took off thanks to Rush Limbaugh, who said: “What if the reason Sterling told [his mistress] that he didn’t want her showing up in pictures with Magic is that he knew Magic was going to make a play for his team?! What if he knew that?!”

  Of course, Johnson didn’t end up buying the Clippers, so the whole conspiracy almost instantly became moot.
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  (#20) Cal Ripken's Streak Was Saved After His Wife Slept With Kevin Costner

  Everyone loves a good sports sex scandal as much as they love a good sports accomplishment. So it makes sense that Cal Ripken Jr.’s historic consecutive games played streak would be the subject of a sexcapade urban legend. In this case, it’s that in 1997, Ripken found his wife in bed with actor Kevin Costner, and was so distraught (or injured in a fistfight with Costner) that he couldn’t play that day – which would end his streak. So the team cooked up a fake electrical problem with their stadium, resulting in a canceled game, giving Ripken time to cool off.

  Everyone involved has denied the incident ever happened, with Costner threatening to knock the heads off a pair of sports DJs who claimed it was true.
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  (#21) Elvis Stojko Beat Up Eric Lindros

  Hockey players take pride in their ability to drop the gloves and fight anyone on the ice at any time. So for a star player to be taken in a bar fight would be embarrassing – especially if the winner of the fight was a figure skater. But that’s exactly the rumor that swirled around for years: that star player Eric Lindros got his jock strap handed to him in a bar brawl with Olympic champion Elvis Stojko. As the story goes, Lindros was showing off to his buddies and picking on the smaller figure skater, when Stojko delivered a karate kick that sent Lindros flying.
   
  While Stojko does have a black belt in karate, that’s the only part of the story that’s been proven to be true. Typical of urban legends, the nature of the fight, year it happened, and even where it happened are mobile, changing as the story gets passed around. 

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