[miami_fan]

Originally Posted by molson

When a league is setup where it's better for some teams to lose than win, then it's really at worst a gray area to me legally and ethically when a team tries to lose or tries to encourages and incentivizes losing in their organization.

Even the potentially applicable federal criminal statute I saw someone post talks about encouraging managers, executives, etc. to "neglect" their duty as an element of the crime. But it is really neglecting their duty when the leagues have so richly rewarded losing games? Gaining exclusive rights to any college player for a period of years is a lot more valuable than $100k. What if the league offered even more goodies to lose? What if there's some free agency preference, or financial consideration to further reward losing games, or an extra franchise tag? The whole concept of competition is turned on its head as long as the leagues insist on doing this way.

Edit: The real problem seems to be that it's done in secret, which has an impact on gambling, and the coach's individual career. But what if it wasn't? Does the legal/ethical line move if it's a part of the coach's contract that he gets a $100k bonus per loss because the league has seen fit to have a structure in place where it's better to lose than win? Then the gamblers know about it, the coach's future employers know about, the public knows about it (though I'm sure awareness of tanking is already a part of betting lines, this would just put more information out in the open, like the league wants to do with injuries). And everyone is acting in the best interest in the team and taking advantage of league rules to be as successful as possible.

Formally paying a coach to lose isn't any crazier to me than a league rewarding the teams to lose. Either both of those things are OK, or they're both not OK. If leagues offer this great prize for losing, it seems fair for teams to try for and accept that prize. And we know they do, we just don't want them to acknowledge it, even in private. It's so dumb.

Is it also a part of the player's contract? Are the players incentivized to try to lose the game as well? That seems to be more of a guarantee that the team would be horrible than the coach.

EDIT: I get what you are saying about the incentives for losing. My suggestion is about efficiency if that is what we are trying to do.