BUZZ
OPINION/ANALYSIS
‘When the [NFL’s] financial health is at stake, rule enforcement may subtly shift to protect market appeal’
If you were watching this past Sunday’s edition of “Sunday Night Football” between the Kansas City Chiefs and Detroit Lions, a few calls (and non-calls) by the officiating crew should have stuck out.
The NFL supposedly is cracking down on “taunting” this season; however, the refs looked the other way when Chiefs QB Patrick Mahomes flipped the ball down and did a muscle flex right in a Detroit defender’s face following a touchdown.
(Yours truly’s fave team’s #1 receiver was flagged for taunting earlier this season after a first-down catch “flex,” and it was a lot less obvious than Mahomes’.)
Then there was the Chiefs’ Travis Kelce (Taylor Swift’s boyfriend) who allegedly “caught” this pass. And don’t forget the “illegal motion” penalty against the Lions that negated a touchdown; it actually was a penalty, but it is a non-reviewable penalty. The refs got together after the play was done anyway, reviewed it, and threw a flag.
There’s long been a feeling among many NFL fans that the four-time Super Bowl champion Chiefs have benefitted from refs’ flags (and non-flags) during their recent dynasty (three championships in the last five years), and now a study out of the University of Texas at El Paso appears to confirm such — especially when it comes to playoff time.
The report “Under (Financial) Pressure” looked at over 13,000 defensive penalties from between 2015 and 2023 and discovered that “postseason officiating disproportionately favors the Mahomes-era Kansas City Chiefs.”
“Our findings suggest that when the league’s financial health is at stake, rule enforcement may subtly shift to protect market appeal,” said study lead author Spencer Barnes, according to KTSM.
“The fact that postseason penalties consistently favored one franchise, while similar dynasties showed no such pattern, points to the powerful role of financial incentives in shaping supposedly neutral decisions.”
The study found that during the playoffs — “the NFL’s most commercially valuable period” — the Chiefs were the beneficiaries of “subjective” penalties such as pass interference, as well as penalties that resulted in (their) first downs and/or long yardage.
“The phenomenon is unique to Kansas City’s emergence as a television ratings powerhouse,” the study says. (Tom Brady is probably out there now saying “I told you so!”)
This, Spencer said, may be the result of financial pressures on the league stemming from the sharp decline in TV viewership and ratings during 2015–2017 seasons, just before Mahomes became the Chiefs’ starting quarterback. Those seasons were marked by controversy over racial issues, most notably San Francisco quarterback Colin Kaepernick kneeing during the national anthem to protest police brutality and racism.
The implications extend beyond football, the research team says. The study draws parallels to financial markets, corporate governance and regulatory agencies, where dominant players may enjoy advantages not because of explicit corruption, but because institutions under pressure adapt to preserve stability and revenue.
UTEP Woody L. Hunt College of Business Dean John Hadjimarcou noted his colleagues’ work “demonstrates the power of academic inquiry to reveal hidden dynamics that affect fairness, competition and trust in institutions.”
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