In recent years, corruption in the sports industry has skyrocketed (an obvious example is Lance Armstrong's recent public confession of doping). This corruption is threatening to shareholders in sports such as event-owners, team-owners, and sponsors because the scandal of a corrupt team or player can tarnish a sponsoring business's image and consumers may boycott related products. Even though some argue that the huge influx of money into the industry was the cause of the problem, the threat of pulling sponsorship money may make sporting bodies crack down more quickly on corruption. Overall, sporting events and players are now having to shift their "win at all costs" mentality to one with a clean enough image to maintain their sponsors.
http://www.economist.com/blogs/gametheory/2013/04/corruption-sport-0
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On a similar note, the owner of the Browns has been questioned by the FBI for his company's fraud allegations; the FBI believes he, the owner, knew of the fraud.
Link: http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/9207745/roger-goodell-cleveland-browns-owner-jimmy-haslam-meet-fbi-probe
It is really just people making excuses for the corruption in the sports industry. There are many industry where there is a huge influx of money, and if people keep blaming it for the corruption, then how can we fix or prevent it? Of course each industry has its own characteristics, but trying to find the cause of the problem needs to go hand in hand with trying to find the solutions.
Within the past year, numerous soccer players have been called to the forefront for match fixing. Another example of the corruption that takes place even at the highest levels of the game. Here is a link to the article from March 2013 that spells out the details.
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-03-21/european-soccers-master-of-match-fixing
I think it's a question of being corrupt or being caught. In soccer, the international governing body FIFA is well known for being rife with corruption, but the amount of money and power involved is massive, and as a result, nothing is done with it. An article I recently read suggested a link between the selections FIFA makes of host countries for the World Cup and political and economic reasons. I think it goes beyond sports, in a lot of cases, and blows out of control.
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