Notice I didn’t say “scripted.” No, the players aren’t given scripts to rehearse beforehand. Rather, everyone involved, including both refs and players, go along with the showbiz of it all and Vegas makes a killing in the process, all while fixating people on a soap opera. These players make guaranteed money. They’re not paid to win they’re paid to perform just like WWE. It’s the same difference between that and MMA, which is Ronda Rousey went to WWE. Notice how all the biggest games go against where the public bets. It’s eyebrow-raising, at the very least, to see the NFL promoting the very sportsbooks that collect wagers on its games.

This doesn’t even get to the documented facts that the NFL is a revenue-sharing business model where every team is a subsidiary and not a separate franchise, paid by annual TV deals. The Third Circuit court case deeming the NFL is “sports entertainment” and not “sport.” And the handful of former players who have blown the whistle (SB MVP Dwight Smith, Junior Galette, Chris Borland, Earl Campbell, Larry Johnson).

You see people following storylines only tangentially related to the actual games - who’s dating who, what this guy said about another guy, this guy’s legal troubles, etc - and start to think symmetrically to the Roman Circus. Which was there as an outlet for the masses so they stopped questioning what the emperor was doing. No, it’s not scripted. But it’s fixed for Vegas and most certainly exploited to fixate men on their own soap operas.