fair? Short answer: NOPE. RED CARD. YOU'RE OUT REF.

Referees are some of the most hated people in the world; there are times when I feel

like the bad guys you see on the news experience less vitriol than some sports officials. The

thing is, they don't have an easy job! I was a volunteer soccer ref in high school in a

small town; parents are not friendly. But science says I was being biased against the

out-of-towners!

Three economists looked at 1,000 pro sports matches and determined the home-team advantage

isn't just how loud the crowd cheers against the visitors. No! But, in fact, supposedly

impartial referees showed a bias toward the home team, even when they WEREN'T FROM THERE.

The economists studied cricket -- which for our American audience is like baseball combined

with bowling, but slower than both -- and the rules were adjusted to require neutral

referees, which DID eliminate the bias… But if there wasn't neutrality, referees showed

a 10 to 16 percent bias in favor of the home teams!

Cricket isn't the only sport in the world obviously, but this isn't the only study to

spot bias. A 2012 book about American Football found a 57.3 percent ref bias toward the home

team; though they estimate it has to do with "crowd-pleasing." Which doesn't necessarily

vogue, because in the cricket study, most of the bad officiation happened as the audience

shrank.

But maybe it's not about the audience, or the refs at all, but simply the color of the

uniforms? Sounds weird, but a 2005 study in Nature looked at athletes in the 2004 Olympic

Games in Athens. Funnily enough, athletes wearing red consistently outperformed those

in blue! The researchers believed athletes who wear red are motivated to perform at a

higher level, because psychologically red inspires dominance and aggression -- which

can be very valuable in sport.

That being said, a critic of the study believes it wasn't the athletes, but the referees!

So, obviously the ref isn't blind, because according to psychologists from the University

of Münster, the officiant was influencing the results by subconsciously favoring the

players in red. This was especially important in individual sports like tae kwon do, or

wrestling, where competitors wear only red or blue and an umpire or judge has a lot of

power. It doesn't seem to apply to team sports….

But lest you think maybe officiating is ALWAYS BAD; it's important to remember WHY sports

exist. They're games, they're human. If robots scored everything, it wouldn't be any fun

at all. There are still people who think instant REPLAY has ruined the game. The calls of the

referee really bring the audience's viewpoints and opinions into the game. We shouldn't expect

our sports adjudicators to be robots; sure mistakes are made. But officiants are doing

their best, and things aren't always equal in the real world. If it was a perfectly accurate

robot, what would you talk about the next day?!?

What's the worst time refs have screwed up the game?