Time to put on our tinfoil hats and discuss the biggest sport related conspiracies we believe to be true.

Here are 5 of mine:

• Ohtani bet on games, and his interpreter (who was also his best friend) is acting as his fall guy. MLB has struggled to market their superstars when compared to the other professional leagues. Ohtani is the exception. He's a global superstar and their most famous active player. Since there is a precedent for how they deal with players betting on games with Pete Rose and the Black Sox scandal, the public scrutiny they'd receive for not dealing a similar punishment to their biggest current star would be another blow to their already diminishing popularity.
  TL;DR: MLB covered up for Ohtani's gambling.
• Some refs bet on games, hence why officiating has gotten so putrid nowadays in every sports league. It's already been proven to have happened in the NBA with Tim Donaghy, and that was when sportsbook partnerships were out of the question for professional leagues, unlike today. We've seen several players get busted for gambling in the last handful of years. If you think the millionaire players are wagering, but the officials who are making a fraction of their salaries aren't, that's pure naivety. The governing bodies are aware of this, but spend ungodly amounts of resources to classify that intel for obvious reasons.
• Super Bowl XL was rigged. It was Jerome Bettis' final game and it was being played in his hometown of Detroit. Bill Cowher was also on the brink of retirement and hadn't won a ring either. It's no secret the Steelers are one of the NFL's biggest cash cows, and it had been over 25 years since their last title. A Steelers Super Bowl triumph would prove to be a much more fruitful and storybook outcome. To this day, with how horrid officiating is on a weekly basis, I've never seen a football game with such one-sided officiating than that.
• The 2022 AFC Championship (Bengals vs. Chiefs II) was rigged. As soon as the Eagles beat the 49ers earlier that afternoon, the NFL had their storyline. Andy Reid vs. his old team, the Kelce brothers going against one another, all while a Bengals vs. Eagles Super Bowl lacked any sort of dramatic connection.
• Bounties in the NFL used to be far more prevalent than the average fan realizes. Charles Martin body slamming Jim McMahon 10 seconds after he threw the ball in 1986 (all while donning a "hit list" on his towel with several Bears players' jersey numbers) is the first thing that comes to mind. As an admittedly salty Bengals fan, I will forever be convinced Pittsburgh put a bounty on Carson Palmer before the 2005 Wild Card game.

Don't hold back, my fellow commentariat members. Let your distrust manifest.