The Game’s Gone Dirty — and We’re OK With It Now
Opinion: I don't know what to believe anymore
If there’s one thing that’s become painfully obvious this season, it’s that we’ve grown numbly accustomed to hypocrisy in sports. The NFL, the NCAA, international leagues — they all preach purity, fair play, “the integrity of the game.” And yet here we are, awash in scandals, bending rules, and applauding the hustle when it bleeds into the gray zones.
Take the NCAA’s recent decision to allow Division I athletes and staff to bet on professional sports. On paper, “clean separation” remains: no betting on their own games, no insider trading. In practice? This is a seismic shift. The same system that criminalizes a scholarship athlete for a minor impermissible benefit now says, “Sure — gamble on the NBA, we’ll trust you.” It’s like giving a kid the keys to the candy store and telling them “just don’t touch the sugar.”
Or look at the spectacle unfolding in golf. Europe just snatched the Ryder Cup victory at Bethpage, 15–13. That’s not the juicy part. The real story is the crowd. It turned into something grotesque — taunts, insults, obscene chants, beer tossed in the stands. Rory McIlroy’s wife got hit by a beer. McIlroy himself answered with expletives mid-match. The “country club decorum” myth shattered in real time. The crowd got ugly — and the league shrugged.
Or now, European and American swimmers signing up for the “Enhanced Games” — yes, the one where PEDs are allowed under medical supervision. Shane Ryan just jumped in. It’s not underground anymore. It’s in full daylight. The purists recoil, but the narrative is shifting: maybe doping with oversight is “progress,” maybe it’s the next frontier. Either way, the facade of “just play clean” is cracking.
We’re living in the era of plausible deniability in sports. The actors — leagues, athletes, fans — are embracing ambiguity. If the NCAA says, “Go ahead, bet pro,” and everyone agrees the college-game bets are off-limits (even though “insider knowledge” always floats in the background), then suddenly a blurred line is just the new normal. If fans at a golf tournament behave like they’re at a UFC fight, and nothing real changes, that’s a statement in itself.
We used to talk about “fixing the system,” about rooting out corruption. But that was back when we believed in moral absolutes. Now? We’re arguing: Who gets to define the corruption. When the rules are stretched so that calling a man-to-man defense “exotic” is borderline “scheme,” we lose the clarity to criticize anything. The dirty plays, the insults, the betting — it all converges into the new game.
So what now? We can either keep pretending the rules matter, or we lean into the chaos and stop being shocked when sports bleed into spectacle. Because the dirty play has already won. We’re just late to admit it.
Jordan is a sports fanatic and provocateur. He pens commentary at the intersections of athletic culture, spectacle, and moral boundaries (sometimes).