Sports Fans Don't Trust Referees And It's A Growing Problem That Gambling Isn't Helping | Mike Gunzelman

Last night's controversial and wild ending to the NCAA women's basketball Final Four matchup between UConn and Iowa showed that the entire sports industry has had a serious problem brewing for quite some time that the leagues have been reluctant to address:

Fans do NOT trust referees, officials, or umpires. 

And when you add in the prospect of sports gambling and sports betting being so accessible, so casual, so easy — and oh yeah, multi-million dollar sponsors like DraftKings and FanDuel being represented (and paid handsomely well) across all the major sports leagues — you can understand why fans are not only furious, but almost laughing at the mockery that sports officiating has become.

And guess what? It's only going to get worse.

UCONN GOT CALLED FOR A LATE FOUL

Within SECONDS of last night's game essentially being determined in part by one of the referees calling an illegal screen on UConn's Aailyah Edwards with less than 10 seconds left in the fourth quarter and UConn down by one, fans (including myself) couldn't log on fast enough to social media and begin crushing the referee. (We now know that the call was in fact technically correct, but questions remain whether it should have been called at that moment or not).

But why did so many of us freak out like we did? 

Because we've seen this time and time again. We've been here before. The narrative almost seems too good to be true. The NCAA (and the referees) were not going to NOT have Caitlin Clark - the sports world's most popular player - play in the NCAA Championship. And they would do whatever they could to make sure she and the Hawkeyes advanced.

FANS WERE LIVID BUT NOT SURPRISED

Disregard whether it was a real foul or not and just look at the sheer optics of it. That's what many people are upset about this morning. To have two teams work their entire lives to get this far and have a split-second whistle by a referee determine the outcome is downright frustrating and depressing. But when it's becoming too frequent, as it seems to be these days, that's when it can snowball into something larger - which should be a major concern for the league Commissioners. 

Why? Because you have literally tens of thousands of sports fans that believe this (and who is to say they're wrong, even if it was a foul?)

Hey - can you really blame them though? The leagues brought it upon themselves.

SPORTS BETTING IS HURTING THE LEAGUE'S REPUTATION

Why do you think Major League Baseball is trying to distract, distance and deflect anything nefarious regarding Shohei Ohtani and his alleged connection to sports betting? They realize how bad it looks.  Yet, they can have an umpire like Angel Hernandez still on their payroll and not be reprimanded whatsoever. It must be nice to have such great job security!

The bottom line is, what used to be talked about in shady back alleys and the powers-that-be at the best casinos has now come to the dinner table and family room. The major sports leagues pride themselves on integrity; well they should prove it. Because once you lose the faith of the individual sports fan, eventually it will all come crashing down. 

Yes, the referee may have gotten last night's call correct - but the fact it's such a huge issue shows how big of a problem it is. Also, are we seriously congratulating a ref for doing their job? Has officiating sunk to such cesspool levels that we are now applauding refs for not getting things wrong?

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