FIFA, NBA, You Officially Need To Step Your Game Up.

I'm a fan of most sports, from the big to the obscure.  You can always count me in for the Tour de France, any of the tennis Grand Slams, the Olympics, and especially the World Cup (even if matches do start at 4:30am here on the West Coast).  This Cup provided a lot of nice spectacle, but it also provided a lot of horrible sideshows.

Somewhere on the way to the pitch, the refs seemed to decide that the superstars of the 2010 Cup would be the refs.  I almost felt like I was being punished for getting up early to watch.  Kaka gets tossed for a Paul Pierce-esque flop by Kader Keita.  South Africa's top goalie receives a BS red card and ejected.  The US has 2 goals disallowed, Argentina gets a goal counted with a man clearly offside.  You watch the games to see which team is going to come out on top.  That's why they play the game. (Minister's note: just ask Herm Edwards)  If the game ends and you have more questions as to which is the superior team, something is seriously WRONG.

When you miss something THIS obvious, there are problems.
Image Cred: MSNBC

This brings me to the NBA.  How many games in this year's playoffs were "What If The Ref Didn't?" games?  I can think of at least 3 from the NBA Finals alone.  How many games should that series have really gone?  I don't watch reality shows (ok, I do watch one: Top Shot on the History Channel is pretty fun TV).  I certainly don't want the NBA turning into some reality-TV-style scripted drama.

People kept talking about that Bulls-Celtics series that went 7 games like it was the most dramatic series they'd ever experienced.  Hell no.  The refs forced that series to go 7 games, period.  Half the buzzer beaters the Celtics hit in that series were courtesy of absolutely blatant moving screens right in front of the refs.  Even worse was how the announcers just had to pretend how exciting it was to watch Glen Davis shove two guys out of the way.  "How do you leave Allen that open!?"  By the other team cheating, Doug, that's how.  It's only gotten worse since then.

Oh, and let's not forget Rajon Rondo punching Brad Miller in the face.
Image Cred: The Truth Sports

In the wake of the Tim Donaghy scandal (which is oddly traveling in the exact opposite arc as the Jose Canseco whistle blowing scandal), you'd figure that the LAST thing the NBA would want is some kind of referee debacle on their biggest stage. Well, guess what? That's exactly what they got.

The stupid part is that the NBA, much like FIFA, could very easily fix the mistakes that are absolutely KILLING their sports right now.  The NBA should assign a 4th ref, so that each ref gets to see a quadrant of the floor, instead of trying to divide it up into 3.  FIFA needs to get some damn goal line cameras, and put 2 more sideline judges on the field so they're not caught out of position on long passes.

Both the NBA and FIFA need to start training some new refs and stop bringing the infamous refs whose names are synonymous with "screw job" to the most important matches in their respective sports.  Goodbye Jorge Larrionda, hasta la vista, Steve Javie, see you later Martin Hansson, and no more seeing Joey Crawford challenging NBA players to fights.  When fans of BOTH teams are groaning about the refs, there's something horribly wrong.

"I hear what you're saying Kurt, but douchebags like me don't change overnight."
Image Cred: daylife

Sure, the NBA and FIFA will smile and point to their all-important ratings numbers for their events, and claim that clearly nothing is wrong. They are merely giving the public what it wants to see.  That's garbage and this facade needs to stop.  We are tuning in to a sporting event because that's what we want to see.  You can't play this scripted drama game for long before you start losing the fans for good.