Did you get The Memo? Although not for public consumption, most of us can read it without any trouble. We can see its affects, and thus discern its contents, for ourselves.

I read The Memo during the first drive of the Superbowl. The Memo that, though not a physical memo that could be delivered to any specific person, instructed that, though not in so many words and not in so many obvious overtones, under no circumstances, barring any major catastrophe or unpreventable blowout, were the Pittsburgh Steelers going to lose the Superbowl.

John Madden remarked during the game that "you can pretty much call holding on every play." That gives the officials an incredible amount of power, especially on plays where a team has amassed a threatening amount of momentum, of which Seattle did on three separate occasions (two of them impending touchdowns), and all of them wiped out by phantom penalties that, today, still has sports writers across the country scratching their heads.

If it happens once, sure, them's the breaks. Sometimes you get the calls, sometimes you don't. If it happens again, sure. But when it happens consistently all game long, there is something at work here. Almost by calculation, the Officials saw fit to keep Seattle competitive, but not to overtake the Steelers in momentum. That's why the first drive keyed on preventing them from a major score. Thus, the incidental contact in the endzone, something that occurs on any given Sunday without argument, magically becomes an offensive pass interference penalty in the Superbowl.

Roethlisberger's touchdown, when viewed from the sideline official who called it, was only counted for after he had already hit the ground and made a second effort to push the ball across the line. The challenge was then made to dispute that call, which didn't exist, and of course you aren't going to overturn a play that didn't happen with inconclusive evidence that doesn't exist.

Seattle's magical drive in the third quarter--a pivotal moment of the game that could see them wrest victory from an already foreseen Pittsburgh championship, where they trolloped downfield from their own 2 yard line, was again deflated by a phantom hold that Madden and Michaels themselves could not locate. That forced Hasselbeck to go big in the ensuing plays, to which he threw an interception and then tackled the ball carrier. To add injury to injury, he was given an illegal low blocking penalty for his efforts.

Total penalties in the game were 7 to 3 for the Seahawks. It should be noted that 2 of Pittsburgh's penalties were timecount violations that occurred on their very first possession. So in 58 minutes, the Steelers amounted 1 (one) penalty--an offensive hold in the second quarter. Pittsburgh had no penalties in the second half, and their defense had no penalties in the entire game.

Have you gotten The Memo yet?

There is a corollary: Keep the game close and exciting. It is, after all, the biggest sporting event in the world, so it has to be exciting. Hasselbeck's fumble that was not a fumble in the late stages of the game was a gimme, in much the same way you give the dog table scraps after you're done eating. In fact, it was hoped that Seattle would score on that drive, to keep the cliffhanger nonsense of the game's anti-climactic ending at full tilt. One major score separating the teams, and anything can happen (so long as the Steelers win). Two major scores separation, and the rest of the fourth quarter is nothing more than a formality.

Please don't think of this is a conspiracy theory. This isn't something as evil and sacreligious as the Black Sox scandal of 1919. Because it's not. There's no group of greedy men huddled around a table plotting to keep Seattle in permanent obscurity for the rest of football's existence. No. It's much simpler than that, and the intentions of those who write The Memos are overt and pre-ordained. This is about money. Moreover, this is about a lot of money. There are people/companies/corporations/NFL who profit off the Superbowl, and league beancounters forecasted a much larger profit windfall if Pittsburgh won. The officials didn't decide this game. Economics did.

To reflect the sentiment, that's what sportswriters talked about all week. The darling Steelers and their legendary history of Superbowl wins, with the much larger fanbase and much larger market to merchandise "Superbowl Champions" t-shirts to (and other cheap trinkets). The doting over Detroit native Jerome "the bus" Bettis' storied career, how he's coming home to Detroit to play his final game in Detroit, where the Superbowl is. Because he's from Detroit, and isn't that a coincidence! How picturesque!

It also makes for a better story. Pittsburgh--good ole' steeltown, crown jewel of the NFL, and Jerome Bettis finally winning his ring. Mr. and Mrs. Joe America can sleep peacefully knowing there was a happy ending after all. Because if there's one thing America loves, it's the Hollywood storybook fairytale Disney ending, where the good guy gets his due and the bad guy gets his comeuppance, and the unsung hero overcomes adversity to win the adoration of everyone. If you can't get enough of this, watch Bob Kostas' pre-taped schmaltz fest during the Olympics in two weeks. It's so smarmy and sacharine it plays like a docudrama or an end of the news hour human interest story used to emotionally manipulate you.

Jack Nicholson was right when he said "You can't handle the truth." Americans don't want to handle the truth. It's too real. The truth is not like refereeing. It is impartial and uncaring. It is indifferent to what happens in sports or our lives, and that scares Mr. and Mrs. America who believe that they are special and everything happens for a reason and destiny and all that crap. They don't want to know the real reason things are the way they are (that there is no reason at all). They want the placebo comfort zone of knowing that terrorists hate us because of our freedoms, boobies on TV will send children to hell and Jamie Foxx will star in the Jerome Bettis story next fall where he will personally run through the entire Seahawks defense for the final touchdown on the final play of the game in the dying seconds to win the most memorable Superbowl ever for the legendary Pittsburgh Steelers: God's Team.

"At least I don't live in Pittsburgh." Conversely, Seattle was branded as the team that shouldn't be there. "The Hartford Whalers of the NFL" they cried. The team with no remarkable history of excellence except for maybe Steve Largent; the backwoods pacific northwest coffee-drinking town full of yuppie Microsoft nerds and romantic comedies with no recognizable fanbase, since Seattle is the farthest NFL city from football's epicenter. No one wanted Seattle to win except Seahawks fans. Most importantly, the league didn't want Seattle to win because it meant millions of dollars of lost sales and marketing and licensing and movie rights and all that yummy capitalism stuff. There is no good story to make about Seattle, other than it rains a lot.

Of course, this is not what the league originally had in mind. They had a different favourite coming into this postseason: Peyton Manning, the next football media superhero and heir apparent to Tom Brady. But when the Colts fell short in their game against the Steelers (a game in which The Memo was also in full effect--just ask Steelers fans), the league's attentions shifted. They don't mind where the Vince Lombardi trophy goes so long as it remains in the cradle of football civilization. And they were going to be damned if it was actually going to some distant, bogfilled rainforest out west with one-tenth the fanbase and a virtually non-existant history (common reaction among Seattlites during the week: "Seattle has a football team?")

Does The Memo decide games?

No. The Memo doesn't explicitly tell us which team will win, just which team it wants to win. The league and officials, who are supposed to be bastions of impartiality, play favourites, and nudge the circumstances in a certain team's direction to maximize earnings potential. And don't think football is alone in this. Generally, the more money invested in any sporting contest, the less fair and honest that sporting contest actually is. And there is no sporting contest in the world that has more money invested in it than the Superbowl.

What else is tainted? ....Anything with money. Heavyweight boxing, which loves giving controversial decisions to maximise the potential for rematches which doubles the revenue of fight promoters. Are you going to tell me with a straight face that Don King is an honest businessman?

This is not a goal. It won the Stanley Cup. The NHL Stanley Cup Finals in 2004 were seen as one of the more lopsided contests in recent memory. Remember that the league was floundering at that point, and to generate interest and buzz, absolutely needed Tampa Bay to win. Calgary winning would not sell the game to the States, and with the lockout looming would almost certifiably kill any interest in the game there. Tampa's win was exactly what the NHL wanted: a championship in a large population market that the league desperately wanted to break into. Was it about the thrill of a 7-game series? No, it was about the league enlarging its sphere of influence.

This has not been a recent thing either. The NHL loves pushing Stanley Cup runs in cities that had no prior history of liking hockey or were in dire financial straits, such as Carolina or Anaheim--teams that literally clutched and grabbed their way through 4 sets of series with rarely any penalties called against them. And who can forget Dallas' cup, celebrated over a (then) illegal goal. A Cup in Dallas was what the league wanted, thus a Cup in Dallas was what the league got.

Here's an idea: Let's give the Vince Lombardi trophy to both teams. That way everyone is a winner. The Memo even works for amateur sports too, though only the ones with the population base and the publicity to make it tempting. The infamous pairs figure skating final in the 2002 Winter Olympics was one controlled not through the organizations themselves, but through actual organized crime syndicates behind the scenes. Funny thing about that incident: All the whistle-blowers and officials who came on record saying that the sport needed to clean up its corrupt reputation? They have all since been fired and disbarred from the sport in any administrative capacity. But the executives and bureacrats behind the scenes? They're still there. In two weeks, you'll see The Memo work on a level more efficient and clandestine than you've ever seen before.

Don't call this sour grapes. Because I'm barely an NFL football fan, much less a Steelers or a Seahawks fan. I couldn't care less who wins. But I watched the game yesterday out of serene bemusement, and aside from it being a snorefest, it was one of the worst games--official-wise--that I have ever seen in professional sports. Why people who have been doing this for decades would make those kinds of calls at those moments for those reasons just floored me, and as an official who's been refereeing high-tempo athletics for 15 years and shouldn't have nearly the level of experience and expertise, I can not see any worldclass official of any stripe, trained to know the intricacies of the game like the back of his hand, actually consciously (or even unconsciously) make decisions like that.

Unless, of course, he received The Memo.