History TroubledProduction / Sports

* The attempt by UsefulNotes/{{Boston}} to host the 2024 Summer Olypmic Games [[http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2015/08/18/boston-olympics-report-real-risks-bid-officials-say/U0664w7BMeTVCMtY3mSXbO/story.html was full of problems]], and proves that you don't even have to ''win'' hosting the Games to have trouble with the Olympics.

* During the first quarter of a January 2, 2023 game between the Buffalo Bills and the Cincinnati Bengals Bills safety Damar Hamiln went into cardiac arrest shortly after tackling Bengals WR Tee Higgins. After being administered CPR on the field Hamlin was rushed to the hospital, as of this writing he is still recovering (and progressing well, though it's still uncertain if he'll ever be able to play again). Both teams refused to resume the game, which would be suspended by NFL commissioner Roger Goodell and later outright cancelled, the first regular season game cancellation since 1987 and the first ever regular season game to get cancelled for something other than weather or a player's strike. Because the Bills played one less game than the Kansas City Chiefs, and ended up losing the #1 seed (and the first round bye that comes with it) because of it, it was decided that if the Bills and Chiefs both advanced to the AFC title game it would be played in a neutral site (in this case Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta), this ended up being a moot point when the Bills were blown out by the Bengals in the divisional round. One silver lining in all this, a [=GoFundMe=] started by Hamlin prior to his collapse to raise money for a toy drive ended up getting over '''$8.6 million''' in donations once his story hit the national news.

* During a January 2, 2023 game between the Buffalo Bills and the Cincinnati Bengals Bills safety Damar Hamiln went into cardiac arrest shortly after tackling Bengals WR Tee Higgins. After being administered CPR on the field Hamlin was rushed to the hospital, as of this writing he is still recovering (and progressing well, though it's still uncertain if he'll ever be able to play again). Both teams refused to resume the game, which would be suspended by NFL commissioner Roger Goodell and later outright cancelled, the first regular season game cancellation since 1987 and the first ever regular season game to get cancelled for something other than weather or a player's strike. Because the Bills played one less game than the Kansas City Chiefs, and ended up losing the #1 seed (and the first round bye that comes with it) because of it, it was decided that if the Bills and Chiefs both advanced to the AFC title game it would be played in a neutral site (in this case Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta), this ended up being a moot point when the Bills were blown out by the Bengals in the divisional round. One silver lining in all this, a [=GoFundMe=] started by Hamlin prior to his collapse to raise money for a toy drive ended up getting over '''$8.6 million''' in donations once his story hit the national news.

* During a January 2, 2023 game between the Buffalo Bills and the Cincinnati Bengals Bills safety Damar Hamiln went into cardiac arrest shortly after tackling Bengals WR Tee Higgins. After being administered CPR on the field Hamlin was rushed to the hospital, as of this writing he is still recovering (and progressing well, though it's still uncertain if he'll ever be able to play again). Both teams refused to resume the game, which would be suspended by NFL commissioner Roger Goodell and later outright cancelled, the first regular season game cancellation since 1987 and the first ever regular season game to get cancelled for something other than weather or a player's strike. Because the Bills played one less game than the Kansas City Chiefs, and ended up losing the #1 seed (and the first round bye that comes with it) because of it, it was decided that if the Bills and Chiefs both advanced to the AFC title game it would be played in a neutral site (in this case Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta), this ended being a moot point when the Bills were blown out by the Bengals in the divisional round. One silver lining in all this, a [=GoFundMe=] started by Hamlin prior to his collapse to raise money for a toy drive ended up getting over '''$8.6 million''' in donations once his story hit the national news.

** While no one would admit this out loud, the Boston Marathon bombing in 2013 that killed three people and injured hundreds of others (including causing 17 people to lose limbs) had made the city weary about hosting another really big sporting event. It doesn't help that it would also be TemptingFate within the history of the Games themselves, since the previous Onlympics held in America -- Atlanta in 1996 -- also had a deadly bombing attack.
** Because of all of the above and more, public opposition in Boston was staunchly against hosting the Olympic Games. The people in charge of the bid fought tooth and nail to prevent the public from voting on anything related to the Olympics, since they knew that would be the end of it if the public ever got to vote. The bid was eventually dropped by mayor Marty Walsh after the IOC rushed him to sign an agreement. While Walsh dropped it ostensibly because the IOC wasn't able to guarantee insurance for the taxpayer dollars that would inevitably go into hosting the Games, it's pretty much universally believed that Walsh actually pulled back because he knew that he was never going to have the support he needed from the general public, and continuing to back the bid would hurt his chances of reelection.

** While no one would admit this out loud, the Boston Marathon bombings in 2013 that killed three people and injuring hundreds of others (including 17 people who lost limbs) had made the city weary about hosting another really big event. It doesn't help that it would also be TemptingFate with the Games themselves, since the previous Onlympics held in America -- Atlanta in 1996 -- also had a deadly bombing attack.

* Proving that you don't even have to ''win'' hosting the Games to have one of these, the attempt by UsefulNotes/{{Boston}} to host the 2024 games [[http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2015/08/18/boston-olympics-report-real-risks-bid-officials-say/U0664w7BMeTVCMtY3mSXbO/story.html was full of problems]]:
** Between the half-formed and outright stupid proposals (such as building an athlete's village in {{Southie|s}}, when even a cursory knowledge of the neighborhood's history tells you why that's a bad idea) they were also dealing with terrible timing, as this was all unfolding while memory of the worst Winter on record, which saw the already-aging transportation system grind to a screeching halt, was still fresh in everyone's minds.
** Add to that a history of city officials pitching grandiose projects like The Big Dig that go horrifically over budget and time (for more on that, see the "Other" page), and there was skepticism and outright scorn towards Boston 2024 from the start, not helped by attempts by the city to make it appear the idea had more support than it did that got them accused of {{Astro Turf}}ing, including using plants at community meetings to intimidate the opposition and a ban on city employees publicly criticizing the bid.
** And while no one would admit so out loud, after the Boston Marathon bombings in 2013, no one wanted to [[TemptingFate tempt fate]] that boldly after what happened in Atlanta in 1996.
** Public opposition was so bad that the people in charge of it fought tooth and nail to prevent the public from voting on ''anything'' related to it, since they knew that would be the end of it. The bid was eventually dropped completely in an announcement by Mayor Marty Walsh after the IOC rushed him to sign an agreement, and while he dropped it ostensibly because the IOC wasn't able to guarantee insurance for the taxpayer dollars that would inevitably go into it, it's pretty much universally believed he really did so because he realized he did not have and never was going to have the support he needed from the general public and continuing to back the bid would hurt his chances of reelection.

* In 2012, NFL's referees staged a walkout in protest of being denied a range of pay raises that would've totaled over $3 million (about 0.04% of the NFL's annual earnings). In 2001, the league persevered through a similar walkout by enlisting the help of top-level UsefulNotes/{{NCAA}} officials, but this time they weren't so lucky as the Division I referees sided with their NFL counterparts and refused to cross the figurative picket line. Instead, the NFL used a motley crew of amateur referees from wherever they could find them, including lower NCAA divisions, the Arena Football league, and even a few people who previously managed to get fired from the Lingerie Football League. The experiment was a disaster, and for the first three weeks of the season fans and players were treated to an officiating team who was completely out of their depth, frequently making poor decisions and wasting valuable time in doing so; the highlight of this came during the first week of the season, when an Eagles vs. Browns game saw the referees spend six minutes trying to decide whether a fumble recovery could be reviewed (it couldn't). Their lax approach to officiating also resulted in players realising they could start fights and play ''far'' more aggressively than usual without punishment, proven after Darrius Heyward-Bey was knocked unconscious after a brutal helmet-to-helmet collision in a play which wasn't flagged. Ultimately, the final straw came with the play that came to be know as "The Fail Mary". During the Week 3 Packers vs. Seahawks Monday night game, the Packers seemingly intercepted a last-second long-distance pass into the endzone, only to have the victory handed to the Seahawks after it was judged to be a touchdown (despite a penalty that should have nullified the score in any case). That moment ''alone'' accelerated talks between the NFL and their referees (in part due to near-universal backlash, to the point that even ''President Barack Obama'' admitted he wanted the original NFL refs back [[note]] though it's likely ESPN [[NoSuchThingAsBadPublicity didn't necessarily mind at first]]; so immediately controversial was the "Fail Mary" that the following telecast of Series/SportsCenter covering the incident was one of their highest rated telecasts ever; Twitter likely also reaped some benefits, as Packers player TJ Lang's tweet delivering a PrecisionFStrike and, knowing the NFL would fine him, asking that his fine be used to pay the original refs, similarly ended up one of the most retweeted messages on the site ever[[/note]]), resulting in the original referees returning to the field in Week 4 (as in, that week's Thursday night game, just ''three days'' after the "Fail Mary"[[note]]this came after reports that several players, including ''the entire Packers team'', were considering a boycott of their own against the replacement refs had the lockout continued; New Jersey state senator Stephen Sweeney, a Packers fan, was also considering legislation banning replacement officials at sporting events held in the state, which could've impacted the New York Giants and New York Jets, as their joint-occupied Metlife Stadium was located in East Rutherford; to add insult to injury, the Giants were ''reigning Super Bowl champions''[[/note]]), [[PetTheDog to cheering from the fans]].

* In 2012, NFL's referees staged a walkout in protest of being denied a range of pay raises that would've totaled over $3 million (about 0.04% of the NFL's annual earnings). In 2001, the league persevered through a similar walkout by enlisting the help of top-level UsefulNotes/{{NCAA}} officials, but this time they weren't so lucky as the Division I referees sided with their NFL counterparts and refused to cross the figurative picket line. Instead, the NFL used a motley crew of amateur referees from wherever they could find them, including lower NCAA divisions, the Arena Football league, and even a few people who previously managed to get fired from the '''''Lingerie''' Football League''. The experiment was a disaster, and for the first three weeks of the season fans and players were treated to an officiating team who was completely out of their depth, frequently making poor decisions and wasting valuable time in doing so; the highlight of this came during the first week of the season, when an Eagles vs. Browns game saw the referees spend six minutes trying to decide whether a fumble recovery could be reviewed (it couldn't). Their lax approach to officiating also resulted in players realising they could start fights and play ''far'' more aggressively than usual without punishment, proven after Darrius Heyward-Bey was knocked unconscious after a brutal helmet-to-helmet collision in a play which wasn't flagged. Ultimately, the final straw came with the "Fail Mary" play during the third week's Packers vs. Seahawks Monday night game, when the Packers seemingly intercepted a last-second long-distance pass into the endzone, only to have the victory handed to the Seahawks after it was judged to be a touchdown (despite a penalty that should have nullified the score in any case). That moment ''alone'' accelerated talks between the NFL and their referees (in part due to near-universal backlash, to the point that even ''President Barack Obama'' admitted he wanted the original NFL refs back [[note]] though it's likely ESPN [[NoSuchThingAsBadPublicity didn't necessarily mind at first]]; so immediately controversial was the "Fail Mary" that the following telecast of Series/SportsCenter covering the incident was one of their highest rated telecasts ever; Twitter likely also reaped some benefits, as Packers player TJ Lang's tweet delivering a PrecisionFStrike and, knowing the NFL would fine him, asking that his fine be used to pay the original refs, similarly ended up one of the most retweeted messages on the site ever[[/note]]), resulting in the original referees returning to the field in Week 4 (as in, that week's Thursday night game, just ''three days'' after the "Fail Mary"[[note]]this came after reports that several players, including ''the entire Packers team'', were considering a boycott of their own against the replacement refs had the lockout continued; New Jersey state senator Stephen Sweeney, a Packers fan, was also considering legislation banning replacement officials at sporting events held in the state, which could've impacted the New York Giants and New York Jets, as their joint-occupied Metlife Stadium was located in East Rutherford; to add insult to injury, the Giants were ''reigning Super Bowl champions''[[/note]]), [[PetTheDog to cheering from the fans]].

** To start with, Atlanta's selection to host the Games was a controversial DarkHorseVictory, especially given that this was [[MilestoneCelebration the 100th anniversary of the modern Olympics]]. Ironically, that was likely the reason why UsefulNotes/{{Athens}}, the logical choice for the centennial celebration, ''wasn't'' selected for it: the organizers of that city's bid arrogantly told the IOC that Athens was entitled to it by "historical right due to its history", infuriating many delegates. Even so, with UsefulNotes/{{Toronto}} and UsefulNotes/{{Melbourne}} as its main rivals, Atlanta's selection came as a surprise. Many people saw Atlanta as a second-tier city that was selected chiefly for BoringButPractical reasons like infrastructure, associated more with commerce than with culture or sport. A tourism guide that the city put out for the Games gained infamy when it recommended [[KitschyThemedRestaurant Olive Garden]] to people looking for the best Italian food in the city. Furthermore, while the city's boosters were eager to promote an image of a modern Southern city that had moved beyond the racial tensions of the past, the idea of Atlanta hosting the Games naturally led to a lot of DeepSouth jokes about mud wrestling and tractor pulling becoming Olympic events. One enterprising Southerner named Mac Davis, the manager of the CountryMusic station WQYZ in Dublin, Georgia, took these jokes and ran with them by hosting a tongue-in-cheek "Redneck Games" to coincide with the Olympics.

* The 2022 World Cup in Qatar [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_2022_FIFA_World_Cup_controversies was questioned from the get-go, is abusing its workers, will screw up the sports calendar, and people even call for it to be moved elsewhere]].

** Things got worse in 2018 when disgraced FIFA president Sepp Blatter claimed that "black ops" were used for Qatar's host selection, with various bribes being uncovered from Qatari donors. This lead to accusations of sportswashing against the country, with critics stating that

** Despite only currently being less than a week in, it has already been stated that the 2022 World Cup has been the most mismanaged event in the history of sports, with everyone involved being accused of corruption. Time will tell what will happen next.

** Fortunately, Speedway Motorsports quickly learned its lesson. First, it gave holders of unscanned tickets from this race a very generous ticket exchange offer for future races at the track (or at other company-owned tracks). It also bought a farm next to the track property to further expand the parking, and worked closely with Kentucky authorities to improve access to the track.[[note]]Sadly it didn't help the track's long term future, as it (along with Chicagoland Speedway in Illinois) was removed from the schedules of all 3 of NASCAR's major series following the 2020 season, though not due to any logistical issues. NASCAR reorganized their schedule to coincide with the planned 2021 debut of the "Gen 6" cars (which didn't actually debut until 2022 thanks to development time being lost to the COVID-19 pandemic), adding more road courses and shorter tracks and reducing the amount of races held at 1.5 mile "cookie cutter" ovals. Kentucky was the first of those tracks to get the axe simply due to having a reputation among both fans and people within NASCAR as a track that produced boring races.[[/note]]

* The 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia has seen its budget cut a few times, but the only uproar regards [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_2018_FIFA_World_Cup_controversies how controversial the Russian government is]]. The 2022 World Cup in Qatar, however, [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_2022_FIFA_World_Cup_controversies was questioned from the get-go, is abusing its workers, will screw up the sports calendar, and people even call for it to be moved elsewhere]].

** One of the biggest race day debacles in Formula One's history happened at [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bl2n6FjuyPI the 2005 United States Grand Prix in Indianapolis]]. During practice, multiple cars running on Michelin tires suffered failures on Turn 13 (a banked oval corner; the only one on the entire Formula 1 calendar). Michelin realised that their tires were unsafe for this circuit, and could fail after as few as 10 laps. Not helping matters was a new-for-2005 rule preventing cars from changing tires during the race. Last-minute negotiations with FIA to add a chicane or otherwise slow down the cars going into that turn went nowhere; so after taking part in the parade lap, 14 of the 20 drivers returned to the pits on orders from their teams and didn't race (despite some pleading to be allowed to start). The other six drivers (who were using Bridgestone tires instead, and benefited from the fact that Bridgestone's Firestone subsidiary was the tire supplier of the UsefulNotes/IndyCar oval racing series) quickly realized that all they had to do was avoid crashing and finish the race, and they would get standings points by default. So the race became a high-speed parade, with none of the drivers seriously challenging each other; this only enraged the crowd, some of whom even threw trash on the track. Spectators were further angered when their requests for a refund were refused; thousands of them left the race early, and those who remained loudly booed the top three finishers on the podium. The teams later pointed out that under Indiana state law, they could have faced criminal charges for reckless endangerment had they forced their drivers to take part - and that was if no one had gotten hurt. If someone had... (It's also believed that law was why a potential lawsuit by the FIA was avoided: if ''they'' had forced the drivers to race, ''they'd'' be the one facing charges.) This race not only killed Indianapolis as the location of the United States Grand Prix, but also the presence of multiple competing tire manufacturers that teams could choose from, as well as the "no tire changes" rule altogether.

** The biggest impact, however, reared its head in Week ''15''. With the Metrodome still out of commission, the NFL directed the team to play their final home game against the Chicago Bears at the University of Minnesota's TCF Bank Stadium[[labelnote:*]]now known as Huntington Bank Stadium[[/labelnote]] - an ''outdoor'' stadium that was not designed for winter games. Players expressed concerns about this, specifically mentioning the lack of any kind of heating system to thaw the turf; punter Chris Kluwe[[note]]you might recognize his name from his fiery defense of fellow player Brandon Ayanbadejo's pro-gay marriage comments a few years later[[/note]] flat-out stated that the ground was "hard as concrete" and posed a risk of concussions, but the NFL and coaches decided to go ahead with it anyway and chided Kluwe for talking about the conditions on social media. Kluwe's prediction ended up coming true as partway through the game, Vikings quarterback Brett Favre struck his head on the frozen turf and sustained what he would describe as the worst concussion he'd ever had[[note]]he reportedly asked his trainer why the Bears were there[[/note]], bringing the Hall of Famer's legendary career to an end on a sour note. To date, no one has yet admitted that playing that game on that field might have been a mistake.

** Like Munich, the Atlanta Games were also the site of a terrorist attack, this one a bombing by a RightWingMilitiaFanatic named Eric Rudolph that killed two people and injured over a hundred more. Aside from the bombing, the Games were also criticized by European Olympic officials as being overly commercialized and garish, with an overcrowded Olympic Village and poor-quality food and transportation; notably, IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch declined to refer to the Atlanta Games as "the best Olympics ever", as was his usual tradition, instead calling them "most exceptional".
** However, the Atlanta Games ''were'' successful in one very important respect - they turned a healthy profit, precisely because of those TV and sponsorship deals, and the infrastructure built to support them led to a revitalization of Atlanta's downtown. (Most, if not all, of that infrastructure is still in use today.) Today, despite the aforementioned criticism, the 1996 Summer Olympics, together with the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles, are often held up as examples of how to organize the Olympics without going over budget and crippling the host city with debt.

** The revival of the United States Grand Prix was briefly endangered by a contract dispute between Bernie Ecclestone and the backers of Circuit of the Americas, a purpose-built road course in Austin, Texas, which nearly led to the abandonment of the track. However, the parties were able to come to terms, and the race ultimately went off on schedule at the end of the 2012 season. The same can't be said of [=F1=]'s planned US street race, the Grand Prix of America in New Jersey, which slipped into DevelopmentHell amidst vicious contract disputes after missing the schedule for ''three straight years'' due to lack of funds for construction.[[note]]With Ecclestone no longer in the picture after the sale of F1 to Liberty Media and the concept being taken to Miami instead (the Miami Grand Prix, scheduled for May of 2022, will be held on a street course near Hard Rock Stadium, home of the NFL's Miami Dolphins), the NYC Formula 1 race is all but dead.[[/note]]

** After Japan forfeited the 1940 Olympics in 1938 on account of the outbreak of the UsefulNotes/SecondSinoJapaneseWar, the International Olympic Committee tried, and failed, three times to salvage them. For the Winter Games, they initially offered them to St. Moritz in neutral UsefulNotes/{{Switzerland}}, but disputes with the Swiss organizing committee prevented that from happening. They thought they finally found a host city in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, [[UsefulNotes/NaziGermany Germany]], which had hosted the Winter Games in 1936... only for [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarII Germany to invade Poland]]. As for the Summer Games, the IOC did successfully relocate them to [[UsefulNotes/{{Finland}} Helsinki]], but the declarations of war by both Britain and France forced them to cancel it. With the resulting war still raging in 1944, the IOC didn't even bother to save the Olympics that year.

** The fact that the Games were held in the center of the US rather than in western Europe or even on the East Coast, at a time where the Wright Brothers' flight at Kitty Hawk was only 8 months prior, and anything resembling a modern passenger airline service was still decades away, meant that most European countries could only send a few athletes, if any. The result was a clean sweep by US athletes - 526 of the 651 people competing were doing so under the US flag, and 49 of the 94 events had only Americans in them.

* The 1916, 1940, and 1944 Olympics are notable for being the only Olympic Games to ever be outright canceled, all of them on account of war. All of the host cities were in nations that were among the combatants of [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarI World War I]] and [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarII II]] - the 1916 Olympics were to be held in UsefulNotes/{{Berlin}}, the 1940 Olympics in [[UsefulNotes/ImperialJapan Japan]] (the Summer Games in UsefulNotes/{{Tokyo}}, the Winter Games in Sapporo), the 1944 Summer Olympics in UsefulNotes/{{London}}, and the 1944 Winter Olympics in [[UsefulNotes/FascistItaly Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy]].
** After Japan forfeited the 1940 Olympics in 1938 on account of the outbreak of the UsefulNotes/SecondSinoJapaneseWar, the International Olympic Committee tried, and failed, three times to salvage them. For the Winter Games, they initially offered them to St. Moritz in neutral UsefulNotes/{{Switzerland}}, but disputes with the Swiss organizing committee prevented that from happening. They thought they finally found a host city in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, [[UsefulNotes/NaziGermany Germany]], which had hosted the Winter Games in 1936... only for Germany to invade Poland. As for the Summer Games, the IOC did successfully relocate them to [[UsefulNotes/{{Finland}} Helsinki]], but the outbreak of World War II in full forced them to cancel it. With the war still raging in 1944, the IOC made no similar effort to save the Olympics that year.

** Then just months before they were set to start, the Games got bumped back by a year due to the pandemic, marking the first time in the history of the Olympics that they have been postponed (although they have been outright cancelled three times due to the World Wars). In January 2021, Japanese government officials were reported to have privately conceded that holding the Olympics at present would be next to impossible and considered hosting the Games in 2022, the next available year.

** The fact that the Games were held in the center of the US rather than in western Europe or even on the East Coast, in a time before cheap air travel[[note]]More like in a time before air travel ''period''; the Wright Brothers' flight at Kitty Hawk took place only 8 months prior to the Games and anything resembling a modern passenger airline service was still decades away[[/note]], meant that most European countries could only send a few athletes, if any. The result was a clean sweep by US athletes - 526 of the 651 people competing were doing so under the US flag, and 49 of the 94 events had only Americans in them.

** The fact that the Games were held in the center of the US rather than in western Europe or even on the East Coast, in a time before cheap air travel[[note]]More like in a time before air travel period, the Wright Brothers' flight at Kitty Hawk took place only 8 months prior to the Games and anything resembling modern passenger airline service was still decades away[[/note]] , meant that most European countries could only send a few athletes, if any. The result was a clean sweep by US athletes - 526 of the 651 people competing were doing so under the US flag, and 49 of the 94 events had only Americans in them.

* UsefulNotes/{{Athens}}, 2004. Construction was severely behind schedule, with key facilities like the tram system and the Olympic Stadium itself only being finished less than two months before the start of the Games. The design for the Aquatics Center had to be greatly scaled back (by deciding not to install a roof) in order to finish it on time.

** The fact that the Games were held in the center of the US rather than in western Europe or even on the East Coast, in a time before cheap air travel, meant that most European countries could only send a few athletes, if any. The result was a clean sweep by US athletes - 526 of the 651 people competing were doing so under the US flag, and 49 of the 94 events had only Americans in them.

** Fortunately, Speedway Motorsports quickly learned its lesson. First, it gave holders of unscanned tickets from this race a very generous ticket exchange offer for future races at the track (or at other company-owned tracks). It also bought a farm next to the track property to further expand the parking, and worked closely with Kentucky authorities to improve access to the track.

** The revival of the United States Grand Prix was briefly endangered by a contract dispute between Bernie Ecclestone and the backers of Circuit of the Americas, a purpose-built road course in Austin, Texas, which nearly led to the abandonment of the track. However, the parties were able to come to terms, and the race ultimately went off on schedule at the end of the 2012 season. The same can't be said of [=F1=]'s planned US street race, the Grand Prix of America in New Jersey, which slipped into DevelopmentHell amidst vicious contract disputes after missing the schedule for ''three straight years'' due to lack of funds for construction.

* UsefulNotes/SuperBowl XLV, the championship game of the 2010-11 NFL season. Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones wanted to use the game to showcase his team's brand-new $1.15 billion Cowboys Stadium (now known as AT&T Stadium, and also "[[DeadpanSnarker known]]" as [[FanNickname Jerry World]] or [[Franchise/StarWars Death Star]]), and to break the Super Bowl attendance record. However, the week in the run-up to the game was a comedy of errors.

* In 2012, NFL's referees staged a walkout in protest of being denied a range of pay raises that would've totaled over $3 million (about 0.04% of the NFL's annual earnings). In 2001, the league persevered through a similar walkout by enlisting the help of top-level UsefulNotes/{{NCAA}} officials, but this time they weren't so lucky as the Division I referees sided with their NFL counterparts and refused to cross the figurative picket line. Instead, the NFL used a motley crew of amateur referees from wherever they could find them, including lower NCAA divisions, the Arena Football league, and even a few people who previously managed to get fired from the '''''Lingerie''' Football League''. The experiment was a disaster, and for the first three weeks of the season fans and players were treated to an officiating team who was completely out of their depth, frequently making poor decisions and wasting valuable time in doing so; the highlight of this came during the first week of the season, when an Eagles vs. Browns game saw the referees spend six minutes trying to decide whether a fumble recovery could be reviewed (it couldn't). Their lax approach to officiating also resulted in players realising they could start fights and play ''far'' more aggressively than usual without punishment, proven after Darrius Heyward-Bey was knocked unconscious after a brutal helmet-to-helmet collision in a play which wasn't flagged. Ultimately, the final straw came with the "Fail Mary" play during the third week's Packers vs. Seahawks Monday night game, when the Packers seemingly intercepted a last-second long-distance pass into the endzone, only to have the victory handed to the Seahawks after it was judged to be a touchdown (despite a penalty that should have nullified the score in any case). That moment ''alone'' accelerated talks between the NFL and their referees (in part due to near-universal backlash, to the point that even ''President Barack Obama'' admitted he wanted the original NFL refs back [[note]] though it's likely ESPN [[NoSuchThingAsBadPublicity didn't necessarily mind at first]]; so immediately controversial was the "Fail Mary" that the following telecast of Series/SportsCenter covering the incident was one of their highest rated telecasts ever; Twitter likely also reaped some benefits, as Packers player TJ Lang's tweet delivering a PrecisionFStrike and, knowing the NFL would fine him, asking that his fine be used to pay the original refs, similarly ended up one of the most retweeted messages on the site ever[[/note]]), resulting in the original referees returning to the field in Week 4 (as in, that week's Thursday night game, just ''three days'' after the "Fail Mary"; this came after reports that several players, including ''the entire Packers team'', were considering a boycott of their own against the replacement refs had the lockout continued), [[PetTheDog to cheering from the fans]].

* In 2012, NFL's referees staged a walkout in protest of being denied a range of pay raises that would've totaled over $3 million (about 0.04% of the NFL's annual earnings). In 2001, the league persevered through a similar walkout by enlisting the help of top-level UsefulNotes/{{NCAA}} officials, but this time they weren't so lucky as the Division I referees sided with their NFL counterparts and refused to cross the figurative picket line. Instead, the NFL used a motley crew of amateur referees from wherever they could find them, including lower NCAA divisions, the Arena Football league, and even a few people who previously managed to get fired from the '''''Lingerie''' Football League''. The experiment was a disaster, and for the first three weeks of the season fans and players were treated to an officiating team who was completely out of their depth, frequently making poor decisions and wasting valuable time in doing so; the highlight of this came during the first week of the season, when an Eagles vs. Browns game saw the referees spend six minutes trying to decide whether a fumble recovery could be reviewed (it couldn't). Their lax approach to officiating also resulted in players realising they could start fights and play ''far'' more aggressively than usual without punishment, proven after Darrius Heyward-Bey was knocked unconscious after a brutal helmet-to-helmet collision in a play which wasn't flagged. Ultimately, the final straw came with the "Fail Mary" play during the third week's Packers vs. Seahawks Monday night game, when the Packers seemingly intercepted a last-second long-distance pass into the endzone, only to have the victory handed to the Seahawks after it was judged to be a touchdown (despite a penalty that should have nullified the score in any case). That moment ''alone'' accelerated talks between the NFL and their referees (in part due to near-universal backlash, to the point that even ''President Barack Obama'' admitted he wanted the original NFL refs back [[note]] though it's likely ESPN [[NoSuchThingAsBadPublicity didn't necessarily mind at first]]; so immediately controversial was the "Fail Mary" that the following telecast of Series/SportsCenter covering the incident was one of their highest rated telecasts ever; Twitter likely also reaped some benefits, as Seahawks player Marshawn Lynch's tweet delivering a PrecisionFStrike and, knowing the NFL would fine him, asking that his fine be used to pay the original refs, similarly ended up one of the most retweeted messages on the site ever[[/note]]), resulting in the original referees returning to the field in Week 4 (as in, that week's Thursday night game, just ''three days'' after the "Fail Mary"), [[PetTheDog to cheering from the fans]].

* In 2012, NFL's referees staged a walkout in protest of being denied a range of pay raises that would've totaled over $3 million (about 0.04% of the NFL's annual earnings). In 2001, the league persevered through a similar walkout by enlisting the help of top-level UsefulNotes/{{NCAA}} officials, but this time they weren't so lucky as the Division I referees sided with their NFL counterparts and refused to cross the figurative picket line. Instead, the NFL used a motley crew of amateur referees from wherever they could find them, including lower NCAA divisions, the Arena Football league, and even a few people who previously managed to get fired from the '''''Lingerie''' Football League''. The experiment was a disaster, and for the first three weeks of the season fans and players were treated to an officiating team who was completely out of their depth, frequently making poor decisions and wasting valuable time in doing so; the highlight of this came during the first week of the season, when an Eagles vs. Browns game saw the referees spend six minutes trying to decide whether a fumble recovery could be reviewed (it couldn't). Their lax approach to officiating also resulted in players realising they could start fights and play ''far'' more aggressively than usual without punishment, proven after Darrius Heyward-Bey was knocked unconscious after a brutal helmet-to-helmet collision in a play which wasn't flagged. Ultimately, the final straw came with the "Fail Mary" play during the third week's Packers vs. Seahawks Monday night game, when the Packers seemingly intercepted a last-second long-distance pass into the endzone, only to have the victory handed to the Seahawks after it was judged to be a touchdown (despite a penalty that should have nullified the score in any case). That moment ''alone'' accelerated talks between the NFL and their referees (in part due to near-universal backlash, to the point that even ''President Barack Obama'' admitted he wanted the original NFL refs back [[note]] though it's likely ESPN [[NoSuchThingAsBadPublicity didn't necessarily mind at first]]; so immediately controversial was the "Fail Mary" that the following telecast of Series/SportsCenter covering the incident was one of their highest rated telecasts ever; Twitter likely also reaped some benefits, as Seahawks player Marshawn Lynch's tweet delivering a PrecisionFStrike and, knowing the NFL would fine him, asked that his fine be used to pay the original refs, similarly ended up one of the most retweeted messages on the site ever[[/note]]), resulting in the original referees returning to the field in Week 4 (as in, that week's Thursday night game, just ''three days'' after the "Fail Mary"), [[PetTheDog to cheering from the fans]].