Well, well, well... Lookie here. What do we have? Another rigged beauty contest? How timely and perfect for the Euros! (That's European soccer for some of you folks). How timely and perfect and a total reflection of our broken economy and society...
Artwork and photograph by Mike Rogers (please use freely!)
As I wrote in Quite Coincidental Results of Miss Universe Beauty Contests, Games and Sports After Japan Disasters
In the seminal George Orwell book, 1984, the protagonist Winston Smith is at his office working. He gets up from his desk and heads to the restroom. There he is greeted by his boss. His boss asks Winston if he saw the 'big game' last night. Winston answers in the negative. Then the boss says something like,
"Wow! That was an exciting finish to a very exciting game! That's the best script we've written in a long time!"
I think most people can already get what I am implying here. What I want to say is not a negative comment, nor a positive one. I am merely making an observation as to the way things are and run in this world.
It doesn't matter if it's sports, or elections, news or even beauty pageants; if big money is involved you can bet that a big factor of "entertainment" and "drama" is indelibly tied into the result.
Let me give you some recent examples:
Japan suffers the worst natural calamity in centuries.... That year Japan's Women's Soccer team wins the world championship for the first time in their history...
A year later, the winner of the Miss Universe Japan 2012 beauty contest comes from the prefecture that was worst hit by the earthquake and tsunami...
In 1995, Kobe was devastated by the Great Hanshin Earthquake... Quite coincidentally, I'm sure, the Kobe baseball team, the Orix Blue Wave, won the championship in 1995 and 1996.
I also added in: Sumo is Fixed Like All Other Pro Sports
Take the example of CBS who used to do the Superbowl every year. CBS sells commercial time on the Superbowl for tens of millions of dollars. CBS wants to sell 4 or 5 hours of this commercial time to a sponsor.
If the games are blowouts and 70% the viewers turn off their TVs before the first half ends, sponsors are very upset. When sponsors are upset, the TV stations are very upset. Why? Because, if games are boring and people tune out, if this happens too much and too often then sponsors won't want to spend big money next year because they fear the same thing will happen.
If the sponsors don't pay big money, then who doesn't make big money? The league and team owners.
If you are an American, you might remember the Denver Broncos getting to the Superbowl in the early 1980s. They got blown out two years in a row. The games were basically over 1/2 way through the second quarter. The viewers turned their sets off. There haven't been any blowouts since then. Is it any wonder why?
Like I said, pro sports are a big business. The leagues have a product to sell. That product is supposed to be an exciting sports event that last for 4 hours and is profitable to their mass media partners too. When the game is over after 45 minutes, there are some very unhappy sponsors and media partners.
The league cannot afford to have that.
If the games are blowouts and 70% the viewers turn off their TVs before the first half ends, sponsors are very upset. When sponsors are upset, the TV stations are very upset. Why? Because, if games are boring and people tune out, if this happens too much and too often then sponsors won't want to spend big money next year because they fear the same thing will happen.
If the sponsors don't pay big money, then who doesn't make big money? The league and team owners.
If you are an American, you might remember the Denver Broncos getting to the Superbowl in the early 1980s. They got blown out two years in a row. The games were basically over 1/2 way through the second quarter. The viewers turned their sets off. There haven't been any blowouts since then. Is it any wonder why?
Like I said, pro sports are a big business. The leagues have a product to sell. That product is supposed to be an exciting sports event that last for 4 hours and is profitable to their mass media partners too. When the game is over after 45 minutes, there are some very unhappy sponsors and media partners.
The league cannot afford to have that.
Yes, and it's not just sexy Japanese girls and big time sports in Japan... Today we have girls involved with the Miss American contest claiming "the fix was in" at the recent Miss America contest. Fox News (hold your nose) reports in: EXCLUSIVE: Second Miss USA Contestant says she overheard list of Top 5 finalists before live announcement.
Another Miss USA contestant has come forward saying she heard Miss Florida Karina Brez reveal the list of finalists backstage before the pageant’s Top 15 were even announced.
“I saw Florida backstage and she was very, very flustered and upset. I thought it might be because she didn’t make the top 15 cut, but at that point she was able to reveal to me at least four of the five names who went on to be the top girls,” the contestant, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told FOXNews.com exclusively. “She couldn’t remember the fifth because she was so upset. Several of the girls then started hearing through the grapevine about a list; a lot of people were upset.”
Miss Pennsylvania Sheena Monnin first accused the Donald Trump-owned Miss USA pageant of rigging the competition last week. Monnin claimed Brez said she had seen a list of the top five finalists hours before last Sunday’s live telecast even started.
“Apparently the morning of June 3rd [Brez] saw a folder lying open to a page that said 'FINAL SHOW Telecast, June 3, 2012' and she saw the places for Top 5 already filled in,” Monnin wrote on her Facebook page.
I can only add to this farce that there really should be no surprise to anyone in this news and that anyone who is surprised and incredulous is living in fantasy-land. We live in a world where just about everything is fixed.
Our elections are fixed.
Our beauty contests are fixed.
Our sports are fixed.
You can bet your bottom dollar that, as the money involved with any sort of event, contest or enterprise increases, so does the corruption.
The only people who don't believe so are dreaming.
'Give them bread and circuses and they will never revolt' - Roman poet Juvenal (1st and 2nd century AD)
Yeah, but don't worry about it, folks. The new season of American Idol starts real soon.
NOTE: Are you a fan of the extremely popular American TV show, "House Hunters"? Well, you'll love this: "House Hunters:" Subjects say it's fake
NOTE: Are you a fan of the extremely popular American TV show, "House Hunters"? Well, you'll love this: "House Hunters:" Subjects say it's fake
5 comments:
One of the classy things of the 2012 GOP presidential primary was when Ron Paul told Trump in so many words to shove his debate (many of the others followed), now (people with time to waste) read all these puffy Trump pieces every once in a while that are put in the press. Trump is this and that with Romney, he has always been a glory-pr-hound. If the beauty contests are fixed, that just sucks, cause its not a contest.
Here's professional basketball in the US.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/03/sports/basketball/03donaghy.html
“The big question on everyone’s mind is, ‘Did Tim Donaghy fix games?’ ” he wrote in his book, “Personal Foul,” which will be released Friday. “The answer is no. I didn’t need to fix them. I usually knew which team was going to win based on which referees had been assigned to the game, their personalities, and the relationships they had with the players and coaches of the teams involved.”
Donaghy describes in detail how referees favored players they liked and penalized those they disliked, often influencing the outcome of games. Fewer fouls were called on marquee players because the league and fans wanted them in the game, not on the bench, he said.
“We would never call these types of fouls on superstars, just on the average players who didn’t have star status,” Donaghy wrote, referring to small infractions. “It was important to keep the stars on the floor.”
nice pics
You mean rich and powerful people get together and (gasp!) plan to manipulate the masses using entertainment and the media? But, but, that would be a conspiracy theory; so it can't be true. That only happens in other places.
great
Post a Comment